How to Get Rich Young and Stay That Way

Scrapulous · 07-17-2006 05:03 PM

Note: This guide is a first draft. I'd love for some comments and criticism, most especially from people who disagree strongly with me. Thanks!

This guide is designed to help you get the most effect out of each point of influence/infamy that you earn. This guide will help you have enough to buy the enhancements you need by the time you're 27, the enhancements you want by the time you're 32, and pretty much anything you want by the time you're 37. Once you hit 40 you'll have plenty of extra and by the time you're 50 you'll be able to make extremely generous donations to your SG mates, your friends, your alts or random strangers.

Henceforth I will refer to influence and infamy as "inf." I will make no distinction between influence and infamy because there is none for the purposes of this guide.

This is not a "get rich quick" guide. There are ways to do that, and most of them involve getting large inf gifts from your alts or a friend or a generous stranger. This is either very common (if you have rich alts), in which case you don't need this guide, or very rare (if you don't have rich alts), in which case you shouldn't count on the large gift coming in and you might get some mileage from this guide.

The way I will recommend that you get rich in the game is the same way I'd recommend that you get rich in real life: exercise some discipline and some patience. Slow and steady wins the race.

There are two components to getting rich:

Controlling income
Controlling expenses

You'll need to do both if you want to get rich young. You can do only one and get rich when you're middle-aged (late 30s, early 40s) or you can do neither and get rich when you're old (40s). But if you want to be rich in your late 20s and early 30s, you'll need to control income and expenses.

CONTROLLING INCOME

There are a few simple steps to maximize the amount of influence you make.

Don't TO

Don't slot training enhancements. Period. Why not? Three reasons.

First, the amount of benefit they give is negligible. 8% more damage on an attack that does 9 damage? Sure, it's a benefit, but it's hardly noticeable.

Second, spending inf to enhance performance during your first 11 levels is like feeding weight gain powder to an infant: it's a waste of money. The infant (and your character) are going to grow no matter what, and spending money (inf) trying to make it happen faster won't produce much result and will only drain your finances. You level so quickly at this stage that spending money making it happen faster is silly, especially when you consider that there is no debt for 10 of these 11 levels.

Finally, they're obsolete almost as soon as you've slotted them. You rarely get green TOs, because at low levels you're not often fighting mobs that are higher level than you. Slotting a yellow enhancement at low levels means it has a play life of maybe a couple of hours, and it has increased your levelling speed by perhaps two minutes.

Those training enhancements are worth much more as inf than they are slotted in your powers. I know, it doesn't look like they sell for much. But by the time my characters are level 12, I typically have around 37,000 inf. That's enough to buy a really nice SO or 4 good DOs. Don't laugh at the value of TOs for inf in the early game.

Buying TOs is always a bad deal. This point is so basic that it doesn't merit further discussion.

Eschewing TOs also gives you an opportunity to put slots into early powers that you won't use much until SOs. People who slot TOs tend to slot the powers they use first. But let's say you're an Illusion controller who picked up Flash at 8, but didn't slot it early because you wanted Spectral Wounds, Confuse and Blind to be full of TOs. Then you get to 22, Flash finally has some real potential, and you think "Now I can add slots." But you can't, not without withholding those same slots from Phantom Army, potentially Stamina and potentially Spectral Terror, not to mention whatever juicy level 20 power your secondary gives you.

Seeing your early levels as an opportunity to do more with less has multiple benefits, not least is a solid foundation to early wealth.

Don't DO

I can sense some of you pulling away from me right now. But hear me out.

I've done this, so I know it's not easy. But if you can get along without spending money on DOs, then you will be in great shape once you hit 22 and can afford SOs. At that point you'll have enough inf from not buying DOs that you can really enhance yourself well.

Some ATs and playstyles really need the DOs, and so not everybody will be able to do this. I respect that. Tankers especially have a hard time with this, because during the teens they're expected to take damage, and base resistances and defences aren't adequate to tank for large teams without enhancement, especially given the strange fetish so many people have for running missions at the highest difficulty level before level 22.

This is an optional step. I don't always do it. But it makes very good sense if you can pull it off, because instead of spending your inf on a 16% benefit at a time when you still level fairly quickly, you'll be spending it on a 33% benefit at a time when levels start to come much more slowly. You're essentially maximizing the return on the money you spend.

Another approach to this is to DO sparingly by only enhancing the powers you use most or that your teams need most.

Sell high

Sell your enhancements in origin-appropriate shops. This is vital. You receive considerably more influence if you sell a TO in a TO store, or a magic SO in a magic store. Do this always. It's not hard, it only takes a couple more minutes, and the returns on this time investment are significant. This is especially easy for heroes in their 20s: Talos Island has four stores (the Freedom Corps store, the magic store, the natural store and the science store) in a very small area, which, between the four of them, can let you sell every TO and DO you find for top price without travelling far at all.

Sell frequently

This isn't as important in my book as selling high, but it bears saying. Sell as often as you reasonably can. Don't abandon your team in a mission to go sell, or slow the team down between missions if your leader wants you to move on to the next mission. But do take a quick detour from the hospital to the hero corps shop when your sewer team wipes. Do remember to sell after (better yet, before) training.

When your enhancement tray is full, your overall income has just dropped, because your enhancement income has ceased until you make more room.

Incidentally, if you're on a big team in a long mission with a full enhancement tray and you won't have time to sell soon, this is the only time when you should enhance with TOs. Slot the two that look best to you to make room for a couple of more enhancements. You're not increasing your inf income this way, but you're at least keeping enhancements coming in and you're transferring the overflow to enhancement income.

Know when to delete enhancements

It might surprise some to hear that somebody as tight-fisted as I am recommends deleting enhancements, but there are times when it makes sense.

For example: if you're getting mostly DOs, and your enhancement tray has 0 or 1 empty slots in it, delete any TOs you have until you have at least 2 empty slots. Why? DOs are worth much more than TOs. You're making room for the chance to get more DOs, which will sell for much more than the TOs you delete.

This also applies to when you're getting mostly SO drops. If your tray is full or nearly full, and you get more SOs than you do DOs, delete a couple of TOs, (or DOs if you have no TOs) to make room for possible SO drops. Yes, you're deleting influence, but it's an investment in the likelihood of getting a more valuable enhancement in the near future.

When I'm in my 30s, I tend to delete any TO I see just because sometimes I get so caught up in battle that I don't notice the enhancement tray filling up, and it would be a damn shame not to get an SO because I allowed a TO to remain in the tray.

And in your 40s, taking the time to sell TOs isn't even worth your time. You could earn more inf by killing mobs in the time it takes you to get to a store to sell the TOs.

These are also times when you should feel free to sell sub-par enhancements at origin-inappropriate stores. You're actually saving money when your 45 sells a level 48 damage TO to the magic quartermaster, because you're not wasting time going to the TO quartermaster - time that you could spend arresting mobs and earning more inf than the TO is worth in the first place.

The principle here is not to keep so many pennies in your pocket that you don't have room for the quarters or silver dollars you find. Since in this game a full pocket means you find nothing, keep a little room available so that you can get the quarters and silver dollars.

CONTROLLING EXPENSES

Controlling how you spend your inf is just as important as maximizing your income.

Enhance on very specific levels

Don't buy enhancements every time you level up. That's an excellent way to stay broke. With a very few exceptions, you should enhance at the following levels:

<ul type="square">[*]22[*]27[*]28[*]32[*]33[*]37[*]38[*]42[*]43[*]47 and above[/list]
Enhance right after you level at 22. Feel free to go broke doing this. Then don't enhance again until you level at 27. When you hit 27, combine all the level 25 enhancements that you bought and slotted when you turned 22 into 25+ and 25++ enhancements. Buy enough level 30 SOs to fill the empty slots. Feel free to go broke doing this. Then don't enhance until you hit 28. When you hit 28, buy enough level 30 SOs to combine with the 25+ and 25++ enhancements you made when you turned 27 (you couldn't do this at 27 because you weren't high enough level to slot 30+ SOs). Feel free to go broke doing this. Then don't enhance again until you hit level 32. Continue this cycle.

This sets you up on a saving plan. You save for 4 levels, spend, then save for 1 level, spend, and then repeat the process. It's also easier to maintain the discipline to save for the future when you have this kind of plan than it is when you're spending your inf as soon as you get it.

Enhancing over two levels is very important, for a couple of reasons. First, it gives you another level to save for SOs in your 20s, and that helps. Second, it encourages you to combine the old enhancements into new ones, which prolongs their value and maximizes the return on the inf you spent when you bought them. Third, it smooths out the Relative Power Stepping phenomenon.

Relative Power Stepping is my term for the phenomenon where you're relatively more powerful than even-level mobs at level 27 than you are at level 31. This is because at 27 you have all green SOs and at 31 you have mostly yellow SOs, so your power relative to even-con mobs is greater at 27. When you spread enhancing over two levels, it lowers the highs of Relative Power Stepping and raises the lows. It smooths out your power relative to mobs in a way that economists would call Keynesian. How does it do this?

At 32, you'll have a bunch of old level 30 enhancements that have been compressed into 30+ and 30++ enhancements (with a few still at 30, because you will no doubt have some one-slotted powers). You'll also have some 35 enhancements that you just bought to fill the slots that you emptied when you combined your old enhancements. So you're not as relatively powerful as some other level 32 who just deleted all his 30 enhancements and bought all new 35s (but you're most definitely wealthier). But then at 33, you buy a bunch more 35 enhancements and combine them with your 30, 30+ and 30++ enhancements. So now you have some 35 and some 35+ enhancements slotted, while Mr. Spendthrift has only 35s. Now you are more relatively powerful than he is, and you have spread the peak of your power curve out over two levels, while he peaked at 32 and it's all downhill until 37. It also means that for every level until you hit 37, you're more relatively powerful than he is, because you delayed some of your enhancement slotting for a level and got the maximum value from your old enhancements.

This is not to mention that at 32 you are most likely able to afford to enhance every slot in all of your powers, while he almost certainly isn't.

Enhance what you need first, then what you want

At 22 you will get access to SOs for the first time. If you have the time and patience, do a little planning. Decide what powers need enhancements the most, and which enhancements they need (see "Enhance what you need" below). Then price out those enhancements. Chances are you won't have enough for the powers you want to enhance (unless you skipped DOs, in which case you'll get to enhance many of your powers quite well), but once you have a shopping list, you can compare what you can afford with what you want.

Decide which powers need enhancement the most. Some will get by with only an accuracy SO, and some you'll want to slot fully with SOs right away. Choose the enhancements that are most important, and buy as many of them as you can with the available inf. This way you're slotting your most important powers in the most important ways, instead of just buying all your recharge SOs, going broke, and then realizing you don't have any accuracy SOs. Oops.

Don't worry about keeping enhancements green

A lot of people worry about this, which is staggering to me. The differences in effectiveness are small, and it's hugely inf-inefficient to fight Relative Power Stepping. Don't worry about your enhancements going white, and then yellow. If you follow the upgrade schedule I've laid out (22, 27, 28, 32, 33, 37, 38, etc), your enhancements won't go red, because at each upgrade milestone, you'll be able to afford more and more SOs, plenty to combine the old ones and plenty to fit into the new slots. In fact, if you follow my plan, you will almost certainly have enough inf at 32 to buy all the SOs you need to slot every power you have with them.

Don't enhance every time you get new slots

I know, you're level 25 and you put your 23 and 25 slots somewhere juicy and it'd be great to buy some SOs to go in there.

Try to resist. There are some exceptions, some powers that are so potent that you really should enhance them right away (mastermind pets come to mind) - but it's better if you can get away with not doing it. Unless it's a power that is needed in literally every fight - and there are few (again, MM pets qualify) - try to pass. Don't buy a level 25 SO at level 25, because you're getting less value out of it than the ones you bought at 22 - 3 levels less, to be precise.

This becomes less important when you're in your mid to late 30s. Generally then you have enough inf that you can't go broke just by fully slotting your powers with SOs, so it's not as imperative to save so vigorously for the next enhancement level. In cases where you know you'll have plenty of inf to buy SOs the next time you need to, go ahead and fill your new slots with enhancements.

Slot enhancements that you find

If you find an origin appropriate DO or SO of a type that you can use, by all means, slot it, no matter what level you are.

"But I could sell it and make inf!" Yes, that's true, but not as much as the enhancement is worth slotted. You pay more to buy an enhancement than you get for selling it. The cost of slotting a found enhancement is only the sale price, which is much less than the purchase price of that same enhancement. Because of that, slotting found enhancements is a bargain.

This also helps to smooth out the Relative Power Stepping phenomenon. It's most noticeable in CoV, where players have much more control over what enemy groups they're fighting (and therefore finer control over what origin enhancements are likely to be when they drop) and so found enhancements make up a significant portion of a villain's slotted enhancements.

Make your costumes really good

"[censored], Scrap?" I can hear some of you saying. "How does this save me money?"

I'm serious. Costumes are expensive. Don't change your costume all the time. If you don't have a free token, don't change your costume. When you do change your costume, spend time on it to make it good, so you're not tempted to change it as soon as you get bored with it. If you're the kind of person who can't tell up front if you like a costume, try making the new one on test and playing with it there for a while until you know whether you like it. Ask people there what they think of it.

Costumes can drain a lot of inf. Don't let them.

Try to minimize your time at the Field Analyst/Fortunata

Don't bop your difficulty around all the time. Find a setting that works for you and go with it. This service is pretty cheap, but even cheap things add up if you buy a lot of them.

Don't, however, be so cheap that you keep throwing your team into the jaws of death because you want to save some inf. Adjust the difficulty downward if your team can't handle it.

CONCLUSION

If you can follow most or all of these steps, you'll be in great shape. My characters typically have all the inf they need by the time the 32/33 enhancement levels come up, which is great because your 30s are when you start making inf faster than you spend it (at least under this plan). When I can manage to eschew DOs, level 22 is even a very happy level. By level 39 my characters have a spare 3-4 million. By 43 it's usually 10. I'm not sure what things are like at 50 since the inf changes occurred when bases were introduced, because I haven't taken any characters from 1-50 since then, although my highest villain is drawing close and I'll let you know what he has when he hits 50.

zeldo · 07-17-2006 10:48 PM

Scrapulous is officially my Rich Dad.

This is a good plan! I hadn't thought of buying cheaper SOs to + or ++ SOs I already had, but that's a great way to get more life, for much less inf.

Starflier · 07-17-2006 11:24 PM

Great guide with some great advice.

They ALL float down here. When you're down here with us, you'll float too!

@Starflier

Yusaku_777 · 07-18-2006 12:26 AM

Here's another handy Tip.

"How to make money on a Respec"

Let's say you've gotten ahold of a Respec. It can be one you've earned via the Respec Trial, or a Freespec given by the Dev Team. Now let's say you are thinking about changing your powers around, and some of your slotting.

Save That Respec.

Wait until a 2 or 7 level, from 22 on. As soon as you level up, but BEFORE you buy enhancements, Use That Respec.

Now, pick your powers, and pick your slots. Now you've come to the step where you slot your enhancements, and sell what you don't use.

Don't Slot Anything.

Sell them all back, and the game buys them at FULL PRICE. That's right, the game buys them back from you, as if you were the store, and they wanted a level 35 Accuracy Enhancement. The Respec buys them back from you for FAR more than you could get selling that enhancement to the store yourself.

I recommend doing this at 32, 37, and 47, if you can pull it off.

Best of luck!

Petey Quick, SL50 Ene/Ene Blapper - Cynapse, SL50 Inv/Ene Tanker
Witchblaze, Fire/Fire Blaster - Lo Ping, MA/Regen Scrapper
Astre, Fire/Kin Controller - Terri Volta, Rad/Rad Defender - Solarkinetic, Peacebringer

Yusaku's Guide to the Energy/Energy BLAPPER

Baronorca · 07-18-2006 07:02 AM

Here's another tip, TRADE with other toons. Get rid of those useless enhancement that you were going to sell and swap em for some you can use. Both toons profit from this.

Zhanate · 07-18-2006 07:46 AM

You don't mention how playing in SG mode fits into your plan. Do you keep it on permanantly? Not at all? Turn it on and off.

In the mid- and higher levels, this can really cut down on your inf. Any advice on that, for people who wants to support the SG as much as possible?

Local_Man · 07-18-2006 08:02 AM

Stay in SG mode until level 24. There is no downside to being in SG mode until that level. Starting level 25, the amount of influence is reduced by 10% per level until level 35, when you will be earning no influence if you are in SG mode. You will be short on Infl from the 20's until the thirties, so I stay out of SG mode until I have plenty of Influence in the mid-thirties. Then, if your SG does not already have some Sugar Daddies willing to fund everyone, you can alternate being in and out of SG mode, depending upon your need for infl and your need for Prestige. Alternate levels, or alternate missions, whichever you like.

This is generally why it is great to have a lot of lowbies in your SG. They can earn lots of Prestige without any penalty of losing influence.

Regarding the OP, I must admit that I find that accuracy enhancements, even at the TO level, do some good. The others can be sold back, but I go ahead and slot the accuracies.

LOCAL MAN! The most famous hero of all. There are more newspaper stories about me than anyone else. "Local Man wins Medal of Honor." "Local Man opens Animal Shelter." "Local Man Charged with..." (Um, forget about that one.)
Guide Links: Earth/Rad Guide, Illusion/Rad Guide, Electric Control

DPV111 · 07-18-2006 08:31 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Enhance right after you level at 22. Feel free to go broke doing this. Then don't enhance again until you level at 27. When you hit 27, combine all the level 25 enhancements that you bought and slotted when you turned 22 into 25+ and 25++ enhancements. Buy enough level 30 SOs to fill the empty slots.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand this part. What are you combining your slotted SOs with? DOs, Other lv 25 SOs? Ones you buy? Ones you find? This doesn't make sense.

Rhysem · 07-18-2006 08:35 AM

I'll happily slot acc and end redux even at trainings. The jump from nothing -> training is equal in size of the jump from training -> duals, and that latter jump is quite noticable! Reducing downtime means more time leveling, which means more influence coming in to you per play session.

Another great way to make cash, though I'm sure I'll catch flack for mentioning it: sell badge missions. Or temp-power missions like the sky raiders jet pack. Getting to grandville isn't that hard. At that point you can use broadcast to find someone with money flowing out their ears who just realized they are this one badge away from an accolade, and you happen to have that low-level badge mission.

Vixen_Valor · 07-18-2006 08:55 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Enhance right after you level at 22. Feel free to go broke doing this. Then don't enhance again until you level at 27. When you hit 27, combine all the level 25 enhancements that you bought and slotted when you turned 22 into 25+ and 25++ enhancements. Buy enough level 30 SOs to fill the empty slots.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand this part. What are you combining your slotted SOs with? DOs, Other lv 25 SOs? Ones you buy? Ones you find? This doesn't make sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

I believe the suggestion is to combine already-slotted lvl 25 SOs.

ie: if you have multiple damage SOs in a power, combine two (or more) together to bump that 25 up to a 25+ (or 25++) and then replace the empty slot(s) with freshly-purchased lvl 30s.

Scrapulous · 07-18-2006 09:23 AM

Yusaku_777 wrote:
[ QUOTE ]

"How to make money on a Respec"

...

Sell them all back, and the game buys them at FULL PRICE. That's right, the game buys them back from you, as if you were the store, and they wanted a level 35 Accuracy Enhancement. The Respec buys them back from you for FAR more than you could get selling that enhancement to the store yourself.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, this is an excellent point.

It does negate a couple of the principles in my first draft - it sets you back to the spiky, sudden Relative Power Stepping curve (sharp increase in relative power at 2 and 7 levels, then gradual steps down each level until the next 2 or 7 level), and it means you're not amortizing your costs across two levels (2 & 3 levels and 7 & 8 levels).

But in terms of money saved, this is the way to go. Why?

Let's say that your 25 SOs cost 33,000 inf, to keep the math simple. The method I outlined above, combining enhancements, only gives you about a 1.6% enhancement value from your old enhancements (for schedule A SOs). Turning a 30 into a 30+ isn't increasing its effectiveness much. It's better than letting that old 25+ enhancement turn red (because when an SO goes from -3 to -4 it goes from 23.3% enhancement to 0% - a sharp drop), but it's really only squeezing the last drops of value from the old thing. It's the best thing you can do if you can't time your respecs to coincide with your enhancement levels, of course, but...

If, instead, you can use Yusaku's respec plan to get full inf value for those old 25, 25+ and 25++ enhancements, you'll get around 33,000 inf for each of them.

When you originally bought those 25s, they were 33,000 inf and so you were paying roughly 1,000 inf per 1% of enhancement value. If you combine them now instead of cashing them in with a respec, you're paying (not earning) 33,000 inf for 1.6% total enhancement value, or 20,625 inf per 1% of enhancement value. Not nearly such a good deal. This is not even to mention the possibility that the combination will fail, losing the entire value of the old SO.

Any time you can sell yellow enhancements for full value and you can buy higher level enhancements with the proceeds, it's a good deal. It's best done at the 2 and 7 levels, because then you're getting a full 5 levels of benefit out of your inf.

Baronorca (there aren't orcas in Montana! they stay west of the Rockies) wrote:
[ QUOTE ]

Here's another tip, TRADE with other toons. Get rid of those useless enhancement that you were going to sell and swap em for some you can use. Both toons profit from this.

[/ QUOTE ]

Absolutely. Why?

If you sell the enhancement at a store, even an origin-appropriate store, then you're not getting face value for the enhancement, you're getting the discounted value.

Let's say Baron Orca (natural origin) and Doctor Inertia (tech origin) are both level 36. We go on a mission together and each of us gets a level 39 accuracy SO at the end of the mission. Baron Orca's is tech and Doc's is natural.

Let's say the full value of each SO is 48,000 inf. Let's say we can each sell our SO for 36,000 inf. For me to exchange my natural SO for an equivalent tech SO at the store (assuming the store sold 39s... but you get my meaning) would mean I'd have to spend 12,000 inf. The same applies to the Baron exchanging his tech SO for an acc SO. If we exchange using the stores, then we've each spent 12,000 inf.

However, if we exchange with one another, then no inf need be spent, and we each get a +3 accuracy SO appropriate to our origin.

I submit that somewhat uneven trades are still worthwhile. I'd trade a 40 SO for a 45 SO, and I'd trade a damage SO for a jump speed SO. Avoiding the markup that the stores charge is always a good idea. Even if you tend to be somewhat selfish with your inf, consider the overall good: trading with players keeps inf in the economy, which is good for everybody. When prices for goods are fixed, and where there is virtually no player-run market, an increase in the money supply is only good for everybody. Increasing the amount of inf in circulation helps us all because it makes inf cheaper to players (thereby making gifts, costume contest prizes and the like higher), but it retains its purchasing power at the stores.

Zhanate wrote:
[ QUOTE ]

You don't mention how playing in SG mode fits into your plan. Do you keep it on permanantly? Not at all? Turn it on and off.

In the mid- and higher levels, this can really cut down on your inf. Any advice on that, for people who wants to support the SG as much as possible?

[/ QUOTE ]

My plan: turn it off when you hit 24. Yes, I know this is a level early. Better to do it one level early than one level late.

If you really want to help your SG, turn it back on when you're in your late 30s. Just make sure you always have about 1.5 million as you approach the enhancement levels.

If you want to support your SG "as much as possible," keep it on all the time. I think this is a bad idea, because an SG benefits most when its members are fully enhanced. That's why some SGs institute a payback program that reimburses younger members in inf for the prestige they've earned.

DPV111 wrote:
[ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]

Enhance right after you level at 22. Feel free to go broke doing this. Then don't enhance again until you level at 27. When you hit 27, combine all the level 25 enhancements that you bought and slotted when you turned 22 into 25+ and 25++ enhancements. Buy enough level 30 SOs to fill the empty slots.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand this part. What are you combining your slotted SOs with? DOs, Other lv 25 SOs? Ones you buy? Ones you find? This doesn't make sense.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're combining your slotted SOs with one another.

Say you have a single target hold slotted with 2x 25 acc, 2x 25 dmg, 2x 25 rch, all SOs and all level 25. You could combine that setup into 1x 25+ acc, 1x 25+ dmg, 1x 25+ rch.

Or a blast slotted 1x 25 acc, 3x 25 dmg could be converted into 1x 25 acc, 1x 25 dmg, 1x 25+ damage, or 1x 25 acc, 1x 25++ dmg.

Once you have combined the slotted SOs this way, you have created a) more potent - albeit still yellow - old SOs, and b) empty slots into which brand new SOs can go.

Thanks for the comments, I appreciate that everybody has taken the time to read and post their thoughts. This is good stuff.

Scrap

Suisei · 07-18-2006 09:40 AM

Knowing what to delete first is probably a good thing, too, when you must delete an enhancement in your tray.

Given the choice between deleting a damage resistance enhancement and an accuracy enhancement of the same level, I'd delete the DR. It's worth less. This used to be easier to do. When you saw that enhancement with a dark blue background and the EKG pulse graphic on it, you knew you could delete it immediately, and that it was next to worthless if you tried to sell it. Since they eliminated some of the old enhancement types this decision isn't as easy now.

TopDoc · 07-18-2006 10:17 AM

A couple more thing I like to mention when these sorts of guides get posted...

Play in big strong teams. You get 70% of the XP for a minion in Inf. If you solo, you're fighting minions almost all the time. You'll get Lts (120% of XP in Inf) depending on the faction you're fighting. You'll usually get a named mob at the end of a mission who will only be a Lt at the lowest difficulty. And you'll get 100% of XP in Inf for the mission bonus. You average 80-90% of your XP in Inf. In bigger teams, you're fighting more Lts (120%) and bosses (200%!). In a team of 8 where you fight 2 bosses per spawn, you're likely earning closer to 120% of your XP in Inf. That's a pretty major difference.

Play in big strong teams. Those Lts and Bosses are more likely to drop Enhancements than Minions, or so I've heard.

Play in big strong teams. The mobs will be +1 level if you have 6+ people in your team. The Enhancements they drop will probably average +1 as well. They will last longer when you slot them.

Play at higher difficulty. Again the Enhancement drops should be higher level, so they will last longer if you slot them.

Fight mobs of the same origin. If you're Magic origin, fight lots of CoT, and they'll drop lots of Magic Enhancements.

Sidekick or Lackey. Again you'll be getting better drops. And if your mentor is only slightly higher than you, they may be able to give you green Enhancements that you can use.

Exemplar or Malefactor. You won't get Enhancement drops or XP, but you will get plenty of Inf. I don't recommend doing this if you like levelling fast.

Die a lot. If you are in perma-debt, you will level half as fast, but you will continue to earn Inf at the normal rate. I don't recommend this either, unless you're trying to earn the debt badges.

Hunt bosses, or even Lts. There are places in the game where bosses or Lts spawn solo or in small groups. A boss is worth about 4.4 times as much XP as a minion, but about 12.5 times as much Inf.

Heroes can street sweep and save civilians. Civilians give a nice Inf bonus to whoever defeats the last mob in the group. It's actually a pretty big bonus.

Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
I've moved on to Diablo 3, TopDoc-1304

WokkaWokka · 07-18-2006 10:45 AM

[ QUOTE ]

Heroes can street sweep and save civilians. Civilians give a nice Inf bonus to whoever defeats the last mob in the group. It's actually a pretty big bonus.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oooh yes. Saving citizens by defeating level appropriate mobs gives amazing inf (but lousy prestige btw). I learned this in founders falls by saving the poor idiots from having their soul [censored] by the CoT. the citizens are stupid but extremely wealthy.

The best times to do it is when the area does not have a lot of players, thus the spawn sizes will be small. You kill 2 yellow cons saving the soccer mom and she unloads a huge reward.

Scientist · 07-18-2006 11:13 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Any time you can sell yellow enhancements for full value and you can buy higher level enhancements with the proceeds, it's a good deal. It's best done at the 2 and 7 levels, because then you're getting a full 5 levels of benefit out of your inf.

[/ QUOTE ]

Right, instead of shelling out ~$1M for another 5 levels worth of SOs, you are getting another 5 levels for about 1/10 that, the price difference between, say, lvl 25 ones and lvl 30 ones. In fact, when replacement freespecs are coming up (which have been predictable the last few times) go ahead and do this if you are cash short. Its unknown whether the devs will do this again of course.

One type of TO I do think is worth slotting is accuracies, an 8% bonus on a 75% base is still +6%. Many ATs will be putting some slots into "mob hitting" powers in early levels anyway, so having 3 slots with accuracy TOs means near capped chance to hit. Since you are way-pre Stamina at this point, hitting foes more means (1) dying less and (2) having fewer End rest breaks, because you whiff less, both of which mean getting through missions faster.

Actually going out and buying them is another matter, and depends strongly on your tolerance for seeing "miss" messages for quite awhile, its not good financial sense, but still. . .

The selling of badge missions has worked great for my friends and I who started characters on a new server (they are all altoholics and were full up on our original, sigh). You get paid for the effort of doing research on arc threads and collect from the lazy but rich. Just post on the appropriate server forums.

Djeannie · 07-18-2006 11:47 AM

EDIT: question was already answered.

On the TO accuracy note. I have noticed a huge benefit at the lower levels only slotting accuracies. Buy them if you must but slot the ones that drop. Also don't plus them unless it is a good boost for instance if you are level 7 dont + a 6 with an 8, + the 4 instead.

Djeannie's Costume Creator Overhaul Wishlist
Carnie Base

"Once the avalanche has started, it is too late for the pebbles to vote" -Kosh

Airman_America · 07-19-2006 06:35 AM

Let me offer ANOTHER trick

Avoid doing a respec until 27, 32, 37, 42, or 47.

WHY???

Well, instead of DELETING the old enhancements, you can actually sell them back by not slotting them after you finish moving your powers/slots about...

Now, that can add up to a lot of influence! Respec is the only time you can get influence back for your used enhancements!

I am Airman America... Super Hero... and I approve this message!

Dur_Butter · 07-20-2006 01:02 AM

Not to get too far afield, but... are there any street sweeping guides out there? Advice like WokkaWokka's would be fantastic; general tips, like which sorts of spawns to target, and specifics, like what zones and areas therein are best.

Skydance · 07-20-2006 02:37 AM

Addional Costume slots and Capes/Auras
When you reach level 20, you not only get to do the cape mission but you also get another costume slots.
It is important here that you do the cape mission first, and add the cape to your first costume before doing the second costume slot mission.
Reason beeing, the second you finish your second costume slot mission, the costume in the first slot is copied over to the second slot. What this means is, if you already have the cape on the first one, you will now have it on the second slot as well, thereby saving you the cost for buying the cape for the second slot.

This works similar with the lv30 aura mission.

Ideally, if you really want to save cash, you wait to 30, then do your cape and aura mission, select the aura and cape on the first slot, copy to test if needed to make sure you get it right, and then do your second and third costume slot mission, and you won't have to pay for the cape and aura for your new costume slots, as they will be copied over from the first slots.

This all only makes sense of course, if you do indeed want to have the same cape and aura on all costume slots.

Fulmens · 07-20-2006 05:52 AM

Neth: That assumes that you want two "Costumes with capes."

I kept my original costume for Boltcutter on my original slot. That way, if I exemplar down to below level 20, I can go into the mission cape-free.

(The best use I ever saw for a costume slot is a friend of mine who has a glowing white costume he uses when his nuke's ready.)

To the OP:
I will present the other side of a couple of issues.

"Don't slot DO's"- this is IMO hideous advice.

1) If you're slotting your attacks with one ACC and two Damage DO's, you're levelling roughly 50% faster. You're winning more fights faster and you're having more fun. And if you don't enjoy level 16, you won't make it to level 17.

2) Unlike actual life, you will never run out of inf when you're old. Once you get to level X [it used to be level 33 back before Supergroup mode] you earn more than you need with no work required. What are you saving for?

3) There are all sorts of ways to get extra Influence, but you can't get extra XP.

My next argument is the "Only buy at 22 and 27-8." I believe that you should buy at 22, 23, and [possibly] 24.

Why? Because at 22 you can NOT AFFORD EVERYTHING. So your choices are:

Go with semi-empty loadout for 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26; or increase your ACTUAL WORKING FUNCTIONALITY at level 23 and 24, and be spread a little thinner at 27.

Due to the nature of the XP curve, you're getting about 25% more XP [and, therefore, roughly 25% more direct Inf] at level 23 as you were at level 22, and 25% more at 24 than you were at 23.

Indirect [by selling] inf goes up too. I don't know if this curve has changed, but it used to be that level 19 badguys dropped DO's less than 1% of the time, and level 20 badguys dropped DO's 25% of the time. Assuming that you make "almost all" your money for the level 25 SO's in 20+, you're making:

L20,21, 22: X, 1.25X, 1.56X = 3.8X.
L20-24:
X, 1.25X, 1.56X, 1.95X, 2.43X = 8.2X .

You can buy TWICE AS MANY level 25 enhancements.

Incidentally, the total direct inf you get from levels 12-19 is less than you get from level 20, 21, 22. [3.32X vs. 3.8X. ]

Not buying DO's is like eating catfood when you're young so you won't have to do it when you're old, when you know you're going to inherit $5 million on your 25th birthday.

Third point: Slotting a mix of DO's and TO's [using free dropped TO's] or a mix of SO's and DO's is a valid way to cut your expenses. Slotting two SO's for damage and two DO's saves you about 1/3 of an SO- 10,000 infl for a level 25 . Costs you a slot, but given that the competing advice costs you ALL your slots for 21 levels... seems like a bargain to me.

Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.

So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.

Scrapulous · 07-20-2006 08:59 AM

[ QUOTE ]

To the OP:
I will present the other side of a couple of issues.

[/ QUOTE ]

Great, thanks!

[ QUOTE ]

1) If you're slotting your attacks with one ACC and two Damage DO's, you're levelling roughly 50% faster. You're winning more fights faster and you're having more fun. And if you don't enjoy level 16, you won't make it to level 17.

[/ QUOTE ]

Can you afford to slot every attack you have with 1 acc and 2 dmg DOs at 12? Or 13? Or 14? I never can. But then the DO levels always seem to pass quickly for me in any event, which is why I sometimes skip DO enhancements, especially on characters like controllers and defenders that don't rely on offensive power to level.

Furthermore, you're assuming that levelling speed is constrained only by attack power in your teens. In my experience it is constrained significantly by downtime as well, which most sets can't mitigate well during those levels in any event.

If you are primarily a solo character, slotting DOs is clearly more attractive.

[ QUOTE ]

2) Unlike actual life, you will never run out of inf when you're old. Once you get to level X [it used to be level 33 back before Supergroup mode] you earn more than you need with no work required. What are you saving for?

[/ QUOTE ]

It can still be 33 if you follow my advice. That's what I'm saving for. I don't know what anybody else is saving for. This isn't a guide for what to spend your inf on, it's just a guide for how to amass it as early as possible.

Essentially, I am willing to tolerate some slower progress during levels when progress is already pretty fast so that I can have faster progress during levels when progress is slow. Put another way: I'd rather forego your hypothetical 50% increase in leveling speed when levels take, say, 4 hours to earn so that I can have a much more likely 100% increase in leveling speed when levels take, say, 20 hours to earn.

But as you suggest in your first point, that can be hard to do. I can't always tolerate it. On servers where I am rich, I twink my characters with all the DOs they can handle. On servers where I'm poor, I try to plod through the early levels without DOs on my first character or two so that they can sponsor the ones to follow. It's easier to do if you know you're sacrificing some time on one character so that you can speed up the rest.

Nit: supergroup mode has been around as long as I've been playing the game. It was the prestige/influence split added onto supergroup mode, and the overall scaling-down of earned inf, that altered income curves.

[ QUOTE ]

3) There are all sorts of ways to get extra Influence, but you can't get extra XP.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm not sure what you mean by this. There certainly are ways to get extra XP. Increase mission difficulty, join larger teams and being power levelled all spring immediately to mind.

Here's another way of looking at it: the amount of influence you can earn is unlimited, but you can only earn so much XP before your character is done. When you're inf-rich, there are lots of things you can do with the extra inf. When you're exp-rich, the game is over for that character.

[ QUOTE ]

My next argument is the "Only buy at 22 and 27-8." I believe that you should buy at 22, 23, and [possibly] 24.

Why? Because at 22 you can NOT AFFORD EVERYTHING. So your choices are:

Go with semi-empty loadout for 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26; or increase your ACTUAL WORKING FUNCTIONALITY at level 23 and 24, and be spread a little thinner at 27.

Due to the nature of the XP curve, you're getting about 25% more XP [and, therefore, roughly 25% more direct Inf] at level 23 as you were at level 22, and 25% more at 24 than you were at 23.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can't afford everything at 27, either. But if you stop buying right after you ding 22 and splurge, you can afford a lot more at 27 than if you stop buying once you ding 25.

Yes, this means going with a some empty slots for 22, 23, 24, 25 and 26. It also means going with a much less empty set of slots for 27-31. Again, this is the philosophy that it's better to eschew some enhancement at the earlier, faster levels than to diminish your ability to enhance at later, slower levels. I also enjoy the feeling of gradually increasing in relative power instead of making one big jump at 22, enhancing catch-as-catch-can along the way, sputtering upward and downward, watching some enhancements turn red, and counting my earned inf until I can afford the next enhancement. But I also hate living paycheck-to-paycheck, too, while I have friends who have no problems doing that. It's a temperament thing.

I don't think in either case you're enhancing anything other than actual working functionality

[ QUOTE ]

Assuming that you make "almost all" your money for the level 25 SO's in 20+, you're making:

L20,21, 22: X, 1.25X, 1.56X = 3.8X.
L20-24:
X, 1.25X, 1.56X, 1.95X, 2.43X = 8.2X .

You can buy TWICE AS MANY level 25 enhancements.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, and you're getting much less bang for buck. Under my suggestion, you're spending your inf on enhancements that are very green and will be useful to you for 4-5 more levels at some small variation of face value. Under your suggestion, the enhancements are useful for 3-5 more levels. As you've pointed out, the bulk of your 20-24 income comes at 23 and 24, so you're buying a lot of enhancements that have only 4 or 3 levels of life. It's less inf-efficient.

But really, you and I agree on a fundamental point: at some level you should stop spending and start saving for the next enhancement opportunity. We just disagree on where to make the break. I err on the side of saving for the next opportunity, and you err on the side of making today's performance as high as possible.

I'll add your suggestion to the next version of the guide as an alternate enhancement schedule. Do you mind if I quote your influence income schedule to help reinforce your arguments?

[ QUOTE ]

Not buying DO's is like eating catfood when you're young so you won't have to do it when you're old, when you know you're going to inherit $5 million on your 25th birthday.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree. It's like eating on a budget when you're young so the inheritance comes sooner. Which is actually how many financial planners advise people to meet their financial goals.

Again, the point of this for me is to be able to afford all the SOs I want from the early 30s on. I absorb some xp/time reductions for early levels so that I can see noticeable steps up in relative power (more and more enhancements in the available slots at each milestone) at 12, 17, 22, 27 and 32. From 32 on, I am fully slotted and loving it, and just in time because the 30s are where enemies start getting noticeably harder. From that point on my power steps come not from increasing enhancement saturation, but from new powers.

[ QUOTE ]

Third point: Slotting a mix of DO's and TO's [using free dropped TO's] or a mix of SO's and DO's is a valid way to cut your expenses. Slotting two SO's for damage and two DO's saves you about 1/3 of an SO- 10,000 infl for a level 25 . Costs you a slot, but given that the competing advice costs you ALL your slots for 21 levels... seems like a bargain to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is true, it can be a way to enhance at a discount.

I see the cost differently, however. It does indeed cost less in inf, but it also costs you 1) a slot that could be put into another power (which you mentioned), 2) the respec that it takes to get that slot into a more useful place once you can afford SOs everywhere, and 3) the opportunity to combine the enhancement - i.e. when you buy DOs, they can't be combined with SOs on a rolling basis as part of your overall upgrade plan.

[ QUOTE ]

but given that the competing advice costs you ALL your slots for 21 levels... seems like a bargain to me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you're exaggerating the force of my "Don't DO" section.

Shred_Monkey · 07-20-2006 09:26 AM

[ QUOTE ]
You don't mention how playing in SG mode fits into your plan. Do you keep it on permanantly? Not at all? Turn it on and off.

In the mid- and higher levels, this can really cut down on your inf. Any advice on that, for people who wants to support the SG as much as possible?

[/ QUOTE ]

In some SG's i've been in in exchange for running in SG mode the SG high levels will just give you 50,000 influence. This is pocket change for a level 40 and it'll buy a level 12 all the DO's he needs. This is really good for the SG, too because having many level 1-25's running misisons in SG mode earns prestiege about as fast as anything else i've seen.

ALSO, to the OP. I skimmed the guide quickly, but I didn't see you mention anything about what to fight. If you fight minions, you'll earn less infl then xp. If you fight Lt's and Bosses you earn more infl then xp. This means if you fought only LT's for a full level, you'd probably level slower, but at the end of the level you'll have a lot more infl then if you fought minions (even if they're -1 or -2 Lts).

For this reason, I find street sweeping is often better influence then running missions solo, since missions are usually filled with minions and only a few bosses/Lts.

Also, my blasters find they're often rich because they're in debt a lot more then my other alts. You earn xp at 1/2 rate while in debt, but the influence is coming in just as fast.

edit. Ok.. i see after reading the rest of the posts, these points were all mentioned by other people before me.

I gotta make pain. I gotta make things right. I gotta stop what's comin'. 'Least I gotta try.

Paladin_Musashi · 07-20-2006 09:37 AM

I just exemp/malf with my lower level friends all the time. I don't care how fast I level (And at low levels when you decide to go get a level it takes like 10 minutes, up to maybe an hour or so when you're in your twenties... So it's not like it's a big deal. I go and Exemp whenever I get the chance... Wait until you're level 16 to do the Positron TF, for instance. You'll come out with a ton of "extra" influence. The reason is that then you can afford to completely kit yourself out with DOs when you hit 17.

I just like being completely kitted out and I'm willing to spend a lot of extra time at low level in order to do it

Paladin_Musashi · 07-20-2006 07:11 PM

I have one big question on this... You say take the enhancers you've already slotted and combine them... How? As far as I know you can't remove them once they're slotted except to destroy them... I tried dragging one over onto another one and it does nothing...

Scrapulous · 07-20-2006 07:58 PM

Click the power just as if you're going to combine an enhancement from your enhancement tray with a slotted enhancement.

Then click a slotted enhancement from the top of the screen. It'll drop down into one of the empty combination slots. Then click another slotted enhancement from the top of the screen. It'll drop into the second slot, you'll go through the annoying counter until it stops at the success likelihood percentage, then click "Combine" (or whatever it is - I'm 3000 miles away from my gaming machine, so I can't check right now). Et voila (french for "a viola"), you have combined enhancements.

Of course, standard limits apply. The enhancements must be of the same class (TO, DO, SO, etc), the same type (accuracy, damage, heal, etc), and less than +3 to your character level.

If this isn't working out for you, then I've described it poorly, and you should either come back here and ask again so that somebody more articulate can explain it, or ask around in game.

Good luck!

Scrap