Nethergoat

I'm still old school enough that I don't bother slotting anything but drops for the first 10 or so levels. By then I've got more than I need for generics, which keep me happy until I'm ready to frankenslot, which keeps me happy until I'm ready to go for sets, if they're on the menu for that particular character.

Basically, I don't pay attention to inf or make any effort to earn it until the mid 30s or so and I've never felt any lack. Barring a thirst for some of the pricier items on the menu it's hard for me to imagine poverty at the low levels...

at the low levels I run at default difficulty not because I want to, but because clearing missions takes too long if I have to hang out puffing and panting between spawns.

with inherent stamina I'll be able to bump up my difficulty much, much sooner than I usually do. So inherent stamina will make my early game more difficult.

At the higher levels replacing a couple of boring prerequisites with other stuff isn't going to appreciably alter game balance given the way any competently built character can steamroll content.

given that the game contains a multitude of natural watering holes where players tend to congregate I'm skeptical.

Even a busy server is like a small town where everyone regardless of status or station goes to a lot of the same places- post office, grocery store, bakery.

Unique names work great, there's no need to mess with them.

1: save your big inspirations from the tutorial and sell 'em on the market.
I usually list one of them for 1 then use that profit to list the other one for 100k or so- that's enough to get you started.

2: if you don't mind some jogging around, there's easy money to be had ferrying junk to the vendor. there's a lot of stuff in the game you can buy for next to nothing (salvage, recipes) that will earn you a few hundred or thousand inf at the vendor. Another good way to build a beginning bankroll

3: lately there's big money in crafting stuff for sale- most players are happy to pay a premium, sometimes quite a large one, for a crafted IO. Thunderstrikes, Doctored Wounds, Serendipity- there's a wide selection of stuff out there that's cheap to make and very salable for a couple of million inf.

Then there's also just playing the game and selling your drops, which will earn enough for anything short of an uber build.

x2

everyone defines 'good' differently- in the case of my pvp IOs I was thinking "hmm, I can get these for 200 million and sell them for 600 million after the merger." Which is about what happened.


In my Goatrules thread I picked a defense set recipe I could buy for peanuts (10k each, i think?) that took junk salvage and didn't cost much to craft and sold the resulting IOs for a million or so each. That's also 'good' from a markup standpoint, although for me the profit was too minimal to bother with except to illustrate a point.

In the case of the niche I PM'ed you, materials and crafting were around 2 million and they sell for around 10 million with very high turnover- this is the sort of 'good' that's worth your while to pursue.

Thinking longer term, one of my best earners over the past few years has been low level -KB IOs. They've been consistently undervalued, to the point that I flip them for 4 or 5 times my purchase price. I've even 'outed' the niche here several times over the years without changing the dynamics appreciably.

I'd say anything that turns a profit is 'good'. The level of profit that makes a niche worthwhile to you is yours to define.

I've found almost every niche I've ever mined in this game thanks to a recipe received as a drop. I'm sure there are more educated and scientific ways to find niches, but looking up everything I get that isn't obvious junk has worked for me up til now.

so my list would look like

step 1: get drops

step 2: research drops at market

step 3: note the 'good stuff'

step 4: stock up, craft and sell for big bux.

Also in my GR Martketgeddon Postmortem thread I noted how I chose which PvP recipes to stock up on by checking supply- the ones I picked had the classic sign of an undervalued recipe, a stable price point combined with very low supply. That same tactic would work with pretty much any high value IO in the game.

bill, that's 4 words!

>:e


J/K, good guide.
I'm looking forward to checking out the changes on my fire/axe one of these days, once I get done switching alignments on a few characters.

my ar/dev doesn't have trip mine.

Not that I'd recommend anyone take /dev (one great power {caltrops} + a bunch of mediocre stuff you can mostly approximate with IOs or pool powers).

But its only as much of a time sink as you make it- I drop my caltrops, unload with my AoEs and clear spawns almost as fast as sets that have aim and buildup.

my most fun & soloable blaster is my fire/ice.

massive AoE damage combined with extreme mitigation & survivability (for a blaster, anyway). Levels fast and as safely as you care to.

If you enjoy end management, just leave 'new stamina' empty and don't slot for end redux.

I'll PM you the specific details of my niche so you can check it out and see how it works.

I usually stay vague because the fun for me is more in the discovery than the exploitation, but I can see how if you hadn't *done* it before spotting the telltale signs of profit on the waters could be daunting.

this is true for me as well.

my favorite example is my fire/rad controller.
I don't remember the first name I came up with, but it was pretty obvious and also taken. I cogitated for a while and came up with a much better name-

Three Mile Isleman

If you're flipping, price fluctuation.
If you're crafting for sale, the variance between the cost of materials and the going rate for the crafted enhancement.

The lower the better.
A big pile for sale indicates there are other folks working the niche, which will act to narrow your profit margins.

I don't pay attention to bids. One person can be responsible for any number of bids- I often throw up 10 stacks of 'fake' bids to make a niche look more active than it is, or I'll place stacks of protective bids to soak up incoming supply below my price point.


Generally speaking, the higher the turnover the better.
Keep in mind that more expensive stuff moves slower than cheaper stuff.
I'm happy to let something sit for a while if it means a massive profit.

If I'm crafting for sale I don't pay attention to the # of recipes, I just put up bids at my price point and walk away.

A good niche is one that generates a reliable profit that you're happy with.
I've been mining a particular Postron's Blast recipe this past week, alternating flipping 10 stacks of recipes with crafting for sale (depending on whether or not my lowball bids on the rare salvage filled overnight or not).

I'm buying the recipes between 100 and 200k. Flipping I list at 500k and usually sell around a million each (some more some less, it averages out). Crafting I list around 5 million and they've been reliably selling for 8-10 million.

I'd say your listing price should be in that range, ideally you'd realize a larger profit than 2x. My Posi costs me less than 2 million to make and I'm regularly clearing 10 million with daily turnover- any less than that and I wouldn't bother with it. I could ensure my supply of rare salvage by paying market prices, but that would drop my profits into the 'why bother?' zone. It'd still earn me more than flipping the excess, but flipping is vastly less time intensive than crafting.

That's one way to go about it.
Being lazy, I generally gravitate toward huge markup, low turnover.
I'd rather make 100 million on one transaction than on 20 transactions.

If I were in a hurry to make inf I'd emphasize turnover, but aside from bursts of activity like my current infatuation with Posi Blasts I find laying back and focusing on massive markups still earns more than I can spend.

I'm sure its helpful information, but it's far from necessary. I've concocted a grand total of 1 Mid's build in my CoH career (an attempt to get my lackluster ar/dev to the ranged defense cap, which I've put on hold pending inherent fitness) but it's no trouble to find niches. If i see something that looks likely I check its stats, if they're "good" I make my move.

Sometimes I get stung, but so does everyone else. As Fulmens says, one big winner pays for a lot of mistakes.

aoe > single target

I do occasionally take the axe for concept reasons.

I assume you can read English since you keep replying to people, but then the replies are so out of touch with reality I'm forced to question that conclusion.

I'm with Ful on the random rolling.

drop weighting means it's not the crapshoot it was back in the day.

sound has always been hit or miss in this game.

I agree about kin melee and complained about it in beta.

The clockwork sounds don't bug me, but I can see where they might bug someone else.

I generally play with my game sounds very low so I can chat with pals on vent, so they have to be really obnoxious to bother me.

My negative attitude is based on his habit of lying in the faces of his playerbase and his "my way or the highway" design philosophy.

Maybe he's a great guy in person. I don't know, and I don't care- I was playing his game, not sitting down with him at the dinner table. As a dev he was an unmitigated failure.

When the status quo works great why not defend it.


If they eventually go to a 'one server' game model they'll need to do something about names. Until then, there's no need. Your aesthetic complaints fall far short of a compelling call to arms.