Possible non-merger solutions
By
Agent_Kendt,
Posted on: 2008-04-10 01:15 in The Market and Inventions
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The majority of the level 50 villains I see have Binder of Beasts and maybe Servant of Recluse, but none of the other SF badges.
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How many other SF badges are there? Two?
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All villain ATs are adept soloers,
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It's interesting you should say that. This poster doesn't agree with that statement.
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Not all players are adept soloers of course, especially PLed n00bs. He got his Corruptor to 50 before discovering it couldn't solo? Still says "class" instead of "AT".
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The lack of supply villainside could quickly and easily be remedied by sellers raising their prices on hard-to-get items.
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If the problem is actually hoarding because noone wants to wait 2 weeks to buy something when they need it, why would getting more money that it would still take 2 weeks to spend increase the desire to sell an item rather than hoard it?
Currency is valuable because it replaces the barter method of exchange of goods. But it's only valuable because you can generally trade it for the goods/services you want. If you can't actually find the item you want for sale then having 1 billion inf instead of 500 million doesn't really change this.
Plus on my low level characters I tend to see prices barely above vendor level, often with 0 bids. If I hadn't read these boards, I might have just decided that the red market was a complete waste of time and saved/vendor whatever drops I got.
Plus - someone putting up a LotG for 125 million doesn't make me any more able to get one to drop and actually increase the supply. In fact, it tells me I'd better save any I get because the price will be outrageous so I'm better just keeping them around in case I need one later.
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Sorry, rather than 'supply' I should say raising prices would increase the STOCK.
The problem people are complaining about is that there are certain items which are simply unavailable. That is, as soon as one is listed, it sells more or less immediately. Increasing prices would mean these items would stay in stock.
I believe the reasons high end items sell out are:
1) Bidding ties up your inf meaning you can't leave a bid like "I'll pay 50 million for a Miracle:+Recovery between levels 40 and 45". So buyers tend to bid&cancel - which naturally means they bid creep more and reduce prices
2) Transaction slots are limited, so people are less willing to list at exhorbitant prices in case they never sell.
Main issue is #1. If #1 wasn't a factor, the last 5 prices would keep climbing until stockpiling occurred.
For other items, flippers ameliorate reason #1, but because of #2, flippers are less likely to flip high end items.
So the result is effectively a lottery where high end loot sells instantly for bargain prices and there is no stock.
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B) Salvage this seems to be in short supply especially for arcane and especially in the tier 1 and tier 2 range but tier 3 seems to have a glut except for rares. XP smoothing seems to have exacerbated this problem since players now spend less time in these tiers which reduces the number of drops received in tier 1 and tier 2 but increases the amount of tier 3 salvage on the market.
Solution change the drop rates for salvage and make the changes higher in the low level bands. Currently the drop rates are identical in all tiers with the drop rates as following
Minion - 8%
Lieutenant/Sniper 10.64
Boss 25%
I propose the following changes
Level 4 -19 (tier 1 salvage only)
Minion - 12%
Lieutenant/Sniper 17.5%
Boss 40%
Level 20 25 (mix of tier 1 and tier 2)
Minion - 10%
Lieutenant/Sniper 15%
Boss 35%
Level 26 34 (tier 2 only)
Minion - 9%
Lieutenant/Sniper 12%
Boss 30%
Level 35 39 (mix of tier 2 and 3)
Minion - 8%
Lieutenant/Sniper 10.64
Boss 25%
Level 40 + (tier 3 only)
Minion - 6%
Lieutenant/Sniper 8%
Boss 17%
This could do much to solve the lack of supply in these levels. These numbers are examples only I recommend data mining to determine appropriate changes.
Pros Gives back a certain number of drops that were taken away by the introduction of XP smoothing and debt reduction. Players that do not use the market will have a little more influence to buy TOs and DOs in the level ranges where they tend to be cash strapped. Slightly reduces the glut of tier 3 salvage.
Cons XP smoothing may not be the only source of this shortage. Farming, Power Leveling and Side kicking/Lackeying may be large contributors to this problem that would not be remedied by this proposal.
C) Pool A and B recipes. Same problem as salvage. I recommend the same solution with an increase in the lower tiers and a slight decrease in tier 3. Data mine for appropriate figures.
Pros Gives back a certain number of drops that were taken away by the introduction of XP smoothing and debt reduction. Players that do not use the market will have a little more influence to buy TOs and DOs in the level ranges where they tend to be cash strapped. Slightly reduces the glut of tier 3 salvage.
Cons XP smoothing may not be the only source of this shortage. Farming, Power Leveling and Side kicking/Lackeying may be large contributors to this problem that would not be remedied by this proposal.
D) Pool C and D recipes These are a problem because the drop rate is nearly impossible to change as it is 100% each TF/SF. Quick TF/SFs like Katie Hannon and Virgil Tarikoss are run to rapidly gain a recipe while excessive TFs like Dr. Quarterfield give an identical reward giving rise to complaints of risk vs. reward. Since time is the real currency in CoX this is a valid complaint. There is also what is perceived to be a large amount of junk in Pool C that makes this time balance even worse. Some players believe that the Pool should be weighted to take into account the number of powers that use each set but I believe that I have a better idea that would solve or reduce several problems at once.
Solution Task force tokens. These would be salvage. They could be tradable like candy canes or non-tradable like vanguard merits. I believe that there could be possible problems with them being tradable but I believe that it is minimal. At the end of a SF/TF when the reward table comes up a set number of TF tokens would also be awarded. This number would be a permanent number that would be based on the data mined average amount of time it takes to run the TF in question (approximately 1 token per 30 minutes) and not the actual time of each individual TF (because it could be gamed) other factors could also be weighed in or taken into account when awarding TF tokens. Katie Hannon is a preferred TF on the blue side not only because it is one of the shortest TFs in the game but also because all the enemies drop arcane salvage in tiers 2 and 3 with out facing arcane mobs that mez.
As an example the Katie Hannon TF may drop no TF tokens. The Virgil Tarikoss SF and Ernesto Hess TF would each drop 1 token the Dr. Quarterfield TF would drop 16 tokens all of this in addition to the regular reward from the drop table at the end of the TF.
Once received, TF tokens could be redeemed by speaking to Statesman on the Blue side and Lord Recluse on the Red side. A certain number of tokens would get you a random roll on the TF rewards pool exactly as if you had clicked on rare recipe at the end of the TF/SF. As an example 3 tokens would give you a random roll with the level of the recipe also being random between 10 and 30 from the recipes available in that pool. 4 tokens would get you a random roll with the level of the recipe being random between 31 and 40 from the recipes available in that pool and 5 tokens would get you a random roll with the level of the recipe being random between 41 and 50 from the recipes available in that pool.
The same system could be used with Pool D (which has supply shortages on both sides) though I would recommend that the 2 salvages be different and non-interchangeable.
Pros supplies more recipes in Pool C and D and supplies a greater proportion of them at lower level since it takes fewer tokens to get a recipe in the lower tiers. This will somewhat balance the out leveling of desirable recipes due to XP smoothing. It also makes lower level Pool C recipes available through drops to players that have out leveled that tier. Some what balances out the disparities in time require to receive a reward that exists between blue side and red side with out requiring the addition of a great deal of new content. Eliminates the need to weight the drop tables since getting crap for a long TF is one of the perceived problems of the current system and this solution allows more rolls for completing longer TFs.
Cons none that I can foresee.
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The drop rates should have been increase to:
Minion - 9.2
Lt/ Sniper - 12.24
Boss - 28.75
Section C) Con: No reward for Katie, still need to get 1 token.
There is an issue C and B could become like costume prices. Re-Run long TFs. The same possibility exists for getting garbage.
The problem with C and D is that player need to do TF and Trail, while A and B the person need to play the game, since the TF don't change that much (they have revamped them a bit), eventually even with a reward players at some point will be tire of running an re-running. I do know someone that says they will never get tired of this; sometime there is no hope for the insane.
I have my own token system, Have a character set-up that takes recipes (not common recipes) and give back a token which is the vendor cost/1,000 rounded down.
I am not sure which way of spending the token would be better: Have a list of C and D recipe available for a certain amount of tokens.
Pro: Player get what they want.
They will not longer need to do TF or Trails.
This makes all the values recipes valuable, since they can be traded for a desired recipe.
Con: This is a store, It may hurt the market by competition.
The junk in the market place will cost more.
2nd option, Is to randomly give out recipes, but from all pools: 15 tokens for (A) 30 tokens (B) 60 token (C) and 100 tokens (D)
This is enough tokens that buy from the market or doing TFs are a most likely a better options.
Pro: Players are no longer feel force to do TF and Trails.
This make the junk on the market more value, since it can be made into tokens to get a chance at a better recipe.
Con: Players may not get what they want.
Junk on the market will be more expensive.
A possible drastic change could be to only drop levels 10,15,20,... of recipes (like the common recipes). That way both demand and supply of each of the remaining recipes would be increased 5-fold, resulting in a much higher turn-over. Although this might just be a tad bit too drastic 
I was just wondering, what would happen if the devs rewrote the exemplaring code? Right now, the main reason why a level 50 would want a level 25 set IO is because of the impact exemplaring has on set bonuses and special effects. For example, a level 25 knockback protection IO is worth more than a level 50, because it can do the same thing but at lower levels. If the devs rewrote the exemplaring code so that set bonuses and special effects were not tied to the level of the IO, what effect would that have on the prices of low and mid level IO's, and the salvage to craft them?
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
I almost wish they would sub-divide Pool C into two pools:
One for the "Junk" recipes awards at the end of Story Arcs and Ouroboros "TFs".
The other containing the high-end recipes people want after running a TF/SF.
The drop rates should get a little boost and it should allow everyone on the team to receive a drop so there's no penalty to teaming.
"Steady as a mountain, attack like fire, still as a wood, swift as the wind.
In heaven and earth I alone am to be revered."
- Motto on the war banner of Takeda Shingen (1521-1573)
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I was just wondering, what would happen if the devs rewrote the exemplaring code? Right now, the main reason why a level 50 would want a level 25 set IO is because of the impact exemplaring has on set bonuses and special effects. For example, a level 25 knockback protection IO is worth more than a level 50, because it can do the same thing but at lower levels. If the devs rewrote the exemplaring code so that set bonuses and special effects were not tied to the level of the IO, what effect would that have on the prices of low and mid level IO's, and the salvage to craft them?
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I think this would be a very good idea. I'm sure it would upset some people who really had to go through hoops to make their builds work at particular levels, but as it is, it is just a roadblock that keeps people from wanting to use the IO system as well as creating a mismatch in the marketplace for IO's themselves.
The reasons I could see for keeping it, would be that some people might see this layer of complexity in the IO system as a good thing. Personally, I think just puzzling out a great build from the avaible pieces and set bonuses is enough, I don't see this extra little bit of figuring to make sure my build works at levels I intend to exemp at, and it has somewhat discouraged me from wanting to exemp at all, as I'd rather just stay up where I know everything works the way I want it to.
The only other point I'd make, is that this would also somewhat "devalue" the Purples, as one of their best features in many people's eyes is the fact that the set bonues are always on while giving you superior enhancement levels. The thing is, this is also a huge plus, because it means to implement your idea, no new coding would be necessary, as it would seem the code already exists.
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I almost wish they would sub-divide Pool C into two pools:
One for the "Junk" recipes awards at the end of Story Arcs and Ouroboros "TFs".
The other containing the high-end recipes people want after running a TF/SF.
The drop rates should get a little boost and it should allow everyone on the team to receive a drop so there's no penalty to teaming.
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I suggest this several times.
I would include the D pool junk and costumes.
Removing costumes would help the A pool problem allot.
There are enough costumes for sale in the market to last CoH lifespan.
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I think this would be a very good idea. I'm sure it would upset some people who really had to go through hoops to make their builds work at particular levels, but as it is, it is just a roadblock that keeps people from wanting to use the IO system as well as creating a mismatch in the marketplace for IO's themselves.
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Bear in mind, they did this intentionally. Arcanaville reported that during beta they revealed that they specifically intended the market to be a mechanism by which high-level characters enriched low-level ones by buying their stuff. In light of that, and the IO/exemplar interaction is the only way I see that in play, I think removing that would remove the vast majorty of the pricing we see. I don't think badging alone could sustain the levels we see now.
Basically, if you want lowbies to be able to afford the market at "native lowbie" prices, you need to either flatten the earning curve or make the high-end earners disinterested in lowbie goods. But when you do that, you remove the abilitiy for lowbies to so easily benefit from highby wealth that we have now.
Of the options, I actually prefer what we have now. I'm happy to wait till higher levels to really dip into powerful IOs. Or, alternatively, to twink myself out with a more powerful earner. 
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Removing costumes would help the A pool problem allot.
There are enough costumes for sale in the market to last CoH lifespan.
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You mean removing costumes to their own pool? Like they did a few months ago? Yeah - not going to help the market any more than it already did when they implemented this idea a while back.
RagManX
"if the market were religion Fulmens would be Moses and you'd be L. Ron Hubbard. " --Nethergoat to eryq2
The economy is not broken. The players are
People are acting as if there's this crowd of perpetual level 2s who never get any arcane salvage drops, and as if the TO/DO/SO drops from before the market were somehow enough to sustain a character. From what I can see this is utter bollocks.
The market system, with its high priced lowbie goods benefits lowbies because they're the ones prompting the majority of the lowbie goods to hit the market.
I asked it before, and I'll ask it again: Do you use as much salvage as you get as drops?
After the influacne nerf in I7? Anyone starting the game from strach would never be able to earn enough for DO/SO, aussming never buy TO.
It is worse now, If the person does not use the market, due to the last nerf on enhanment drops and that recipes and salvage don't sell to the vendor for much.
To answer the question, No, I don't use as much salvage as I get, It seem the salvage I can't use no one can use this salvage either, I don't get all the salvage I need either from drop no matter how careful my planning is.
I think recipes are more a problem than salvage. If the recipes are fixed, salvage could become a problem.
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The only other point I'd make, is that this would also somewhat "devalue" the Purples, as one of their best features in many people's eyes is the fact that the set bonues are always on while giving you superior enhancement levels. The thing is, this is also a huge plus, because it means to implement your idea, no new coding would be necessary, as it would seem the code already exists.
[/ QUOTE ] Aren't the bonuses of purples mostly superior to the other recipes? Still plenty of incentive to slot them then, even when they're no longer a necessity for players that exemplar down.
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Bear in mind, they did this intentionally. Arcanaville reported that during beta they revealed that they specifically intended the market to be a mechanism by which high-level characters enriched low-level ones by buying their stuff. In light of that, and the IO/exemplar interaction is the only way I see that in play, I think removing that would remove the vast majorty of the pricing we see. I don't think badging alone could sustain the levels we see now.
[/ QUOTE ] And at the same time any good sets are unobtainable from the market for new players, because prices are too high on them. For new players that don't play the market for inf, very little would change: they'dd still be able to buy very cheap common IOs thanks to badgers.
Although I've got to admit that I'm biased about this. I'm very annoyed by the double standard that the purples create: on my first visits to pvp zones I got invariably ganked by level 50 heroes that were fully IO'ed; now that I'm 40 and am nearly fully IO'ed myself, I still am a free kill in Sirens/BB since none of my bonuses work there. Instead of just having worse bonuses than someone with purple sets, I have none 
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Although I've got to admit that I'm biased about this. I'm very annoyed by the double standard that the purples create: on my first visits to pvp zones I got invariably ganked by level 50 heroes that were fully IO'ed; now that I'm 40 and am nearly fully IO'ed myself, I still am a free kill in Sirens/BB since none of my bonuses work there. Instead of just having worse bonuses than someone with purple sets, I have none
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if you like pvp'ing in certain zones, build sets for those levels.
my fire blaster is optimized for level 30 so he has all his goodies when he oro's down for a DA visit.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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As for the solutions, It pretty much gives more than one Pool C recipe for completing a TF. I'm not sure it would be a good idea to give more than once recipe for completing a TF.
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I think the whole point is to do just that. Right now all TFs / SFs have the same reward, but the time required varies tremendously. A six hour Shadow Shard TF gives the same reward as a thirty minute Katie run. Adding tokens based on average time to complete would mean that six hour Shadow Shard monster you just finished would give you several recipes... just like the multiple shorter TFs you could have run in the same time period would.
As for soloing TFs, I'm sure it's possible for a few builds on both hero and villain side, but I doubt it's common. After all, most builds can't solo an AV or Hero and the ones that can are still going to take way longer to do so than just running a Katie / whatever the quick villain SF is. Soloing a TF is for bragging rights... it's no where near as fast as a team for getting Pool C drops.
Cascade, level 50 Blaster (NRG/NRG since before it was cool)
Mechmeister, level 50 Bots / Traps MM
FAR too many non-50 alts to name
[u]Arcs[u]
The Scavenger Hunt: 187076
The Instant Lair Delivery Service: 206636
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if you like pvp'ing in certain zones, build sets for those levels.
my fire blaster is optimized for level 30 so he has all his goodies when he oro's down for a DA visit.
[/ QUOTE ]I'm playing the game and slot things as I level up, limiting myself to level 33 IOs is not my idea of natural progression. I don't have any interest atm to make twinks for specific level ranges and I don't think I ever will, instead I never go to those zones anymore (and I bet that I'm not alone in that).
Other than that you make a good point for having the set bonuses last when exemplared: that way the highlevel recipes will be more in demand and actually be the more expensive ones, the way it should be.
I also believe all set bonuses should work at all levels where the power is available. In addition, I think the special (non-level-scaled effect) IOs, should be level-independent.
Why even have the +Stealth IO exist at every level above 15? If I had been designing this part of the game, I'd have made all the stealth IOs exactly level 15. (Perhaps the recipe would need to be level-dependent, to work with the current drop system. But the crafted IOs should all be the same level...)
Hazel Black - Mind/Psi D
Stephanie Winters - Nightwidow
Jacqui Frost - Cold/Ice D
Jacqui Embers - Fire/Kin C
Simone Templar - Fire/MM B
Mallory Woods - Kin/Rad D
Sanguine Melody - Grav/Sonic C
Fumina Hara - Plant/Storm C
Nutmeg - Warshade
Lauren Wu - SS/WP B
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I'm playing the game and slot things as I level up, limiting myself to level 33 IOs is not my idea of natural progression. I don't have any interest atm to make twinks for specific level ranges and I don't think I ever will, instead I never go to those zones anymore (and I bet that I'm not alone in that).
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If you don't make the extra effort to be l337 in a certain situation you'll lose to people who do.
I never complained when my pve-specc'ed characters got their butts handed to them by pvp specialists- it's the law of the jungle.
I wasn't interested in competing on their terms, so I didn't complain about the outcome.
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Other than that you make a good point for having the set bonuses last when exemplared: that way the highlevel recipes will be more in demand and actually be the more expensive ones, the way it should be.
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the market is very democratic- the majority of the game's players get to vote on what prices 'should be', and that collective decision trumps your personal opinion.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Why even have the +Stealth IO exist at every level above 15? If I had been designing this part of the game, I'd have made all the stealth IOs exactly level 15. (Perhaps the recipe would need to be level-dependent, to work with the current drop system. But the crafted IOs should all be the same level...)
[/ QUOTE ]Only one level of each unique IO would be great, they all do the same thing anyways. And yeah, the unique recipes should still have a specific level so you can't slot a miracle +recovery before level 17, and probably some kind of tag as well to make them only drop between 20 and 40.
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Only one level of each unique IO would be great...
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Why?
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And yeah, the unique recipes should still have a specific level so you can't slot a miracle +recovery before level 17...
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Why?
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and probably some kind of tag as well to make them only drop between 20 and 40.
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Why?
I don't see any benefit in these changes- in fact I see it flattening the diversity of the market, making it more of a store and less of a mini-game.
What would you expect to gain from flattening recipe ranges and locking the uniques in at a fixed level?
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Other than that you make a good point for having the set bonuses last when exemplared: that way the highlevel recipes will be more in demand and actually be the more expensive ones, the way it should be.
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the market is very democratic- the majority of the game's players get to vote on what prices 'should be', and that collective decision trumps your personal opinion.
[/ QUOTE ]Supply and demand is what dictates prices, that has nothing to do with democracy. If people could vote on what price they wanted to pay for recipes, the end result would probably be something like 0.25 infamy (ie: most would to get them for free). Right now, the game mechanics make it so that demand for low-level recipes is much higher than for high-level versions of the same recipes, resulting in higher prices being paid for low-level recipes than for the high-level ones. Are new players (with generally lower level characters) richer than old (with allready higher level characters) players? No, obviously not, yet low-level recipes are the ones they come into contact with first. And they obviously can't slot the cheaper high-level recipes either, because those are still level locked.
I'm an idealist and I think prices on low-level stuff should be lower than high-level stuff, so some more people can actually afford it as they level up. Is that my personal opinion? Ofcourse it is. Just like it is my personal opinion that one shouldn't do illogical or unfun things (from a gaming point of view) to be competitive in certain things. "Suck it up and grind it out, because I did so too." has never been a satisfactory answer, to me, as to why something* in a mmorpg didn't make any sense/required an insane amount of grinding/...
*Something affecting my gameplay, as long as it's fluff it can have the silliest prerequisites possible, I won't mind and I will simply not get it.
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I don't see any benefit in these changes- in fact I see it flattening the diversity of the market, making it more of a store and less of a mini-game.
What would you expect to gain from flattening recipe ranges and locking the uniques in at a fixed level?
[/ QUOTE ]From a market profiteer point of view it would of course be bad, but frankly, I don't care all that much about that group of people.
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If you mean "Villains team less", then I definitely agree. But that's not because teaming is harder, it's because soloing is vastly easier.
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Whichever reason it is, when I want to team, I can't find one.
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All villain ATs are adept soloers,
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It's interesting you should say that. This poster doesn't agree with that statement.