Should/Can the influence cap be raised?

Dirk_Divac · 07-01-2009 01:16 PM

I was IO'ing my new main toon the other day. While I was doing this I had to transfer more influence to him because the 2 billion I initially transferred had run out and I still had slots to fill. I know it isn't a priority, but with market prices inflating due to AE farms, (less drops, more influence to spend), should the influence cap per toon be raised to 3 billion? 4 billion?

More importantly, can it be raised, or is it coded to only go up to 2 billion?

FluShots · 07-01-2009 01:17 PM

Just place a bid on some lvl 53 never-to-be-found IO and you have instat storage. One of the really ebil guys around here did that...

Dirk_Divac · 07-01-2009 01:24 PM

Yes, that is actually a good idea, and I am planning to do that once I get over 2 billion again.

I will be pretty funny some day if they ever put lvl 53 IO's in the game.

Fulmens · 07-01-2009 01:28 PM

Make sure to use a different level 53 every time you get another 2 billion. The bids will stack and you will be unable to collect them wtihout losing all the extras.

If this ever comes up, I'm putting in bids for a billion each, because that way I don't have to empty myself out before collecting a bid.

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FluShots · 07-01-2009 01:39 PM

Not a bad idea Fulmens

Catwhoorg · 07-01-2009 01:42 PM

2^31 = 2 147 483 648
31 bits used in the value and the one bit for a checksum in all likelihood.
(When dealing with rapidly changing important data you should ALWAYS checksum)

Changing from 32 bit to anything else would be non-trivial and I cannot forsee happening unless there was a pressing need from outside a few folks here.

2 billion is much more than enough for the vast majority of the playerbase, and a change could negatively impact everyone is it got messed up.

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Gashes · 07-01-2009 02:25 PM

[ QUOTE ]
2^31 = 2 147 483 648
31 bits used in the value and the one bit for a checksum in all likelihood.
(When dealing with rapidly changing important data you should ALWAYS checksum)

[/ QUOTE ]

or its probably they just used 'unsigned long influence' or 'int influence' instead of using a known data size (e.g. uInt32)

The server tracks your influence (otherwise its too easy to hack), so the data packet sending your information on your toon (e.g. influence) will have a CRC. Incorrect CRC, resend.
It would be foolish to use a single bit for parity, when you can make a structure to have a seperate ECC bits for error recovery.

When your values are stored on disk, I'm sure it will be ecc bits (parity doesnt self correct, only a single bit is in error), for several fields (more efficient) is typical.

I think the problem isnt changing it to a 64bit (long long, which is, at a minimum, 64 bits) variable (as I believe coh is written in C), but all monetary transactions will need to be 64bit. Doable, but not sure how long in their code that will take.

standard sockets api dont natively (at least on my machines here at work) send 64bit, you have to convert to bytes, and make sure you keep the same endianess between server and client. but this can easily be done/fixed.

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Fulmens · 07-01-2009 02:33 PM

It could be a signed number (I don't know why)... anyway, the last bit is a mystery.

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So you think you're a hero, huh.
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Ohsirus · 07-01-2009 09:10 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Just place a bid on some lvl 53 never-to-be-found IO and you have instat storage. One of the really ebil guys around here did that...

[/ QUOTE ]

Man, I never thought of that. Then i could get rid of a few piggybank toons. Now I wonder though what happens if you have some inluence on hand and try to remove your bid? You can't go over 2 bill, will it deny your bid removal...hmm

Ironblade · 07-01-2009 09:31 PM

Nope. Anything over 2 billion will disappear into the aether without warning.

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Ohsirus · 07-01-2009 09:41 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Nope. Anything over 2 billion will disappear into the aether without warning.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow..Bad Idea then.

Roderick · 07-02-2009 01:14 AM

People have already addressed the technical isues with increasing the cap.

If the cap were raised, more people wuld have more money. There's already a lot of people at the cap. The more money people have, the more they're willing to spend. In a system like ours, the more people are willing to spend, the higher prices go. This makes the market even less inviting to new and casual players, because they tend to see how much they have to spend to get stuff, because when they get something good, they want to use it - they don't look at the prices and say "I'm rich!" in most cases.

Secondly, if the cap were raised to 3 billion, you've just increased the Inf seller's inventory by 50% - I suspect the cap cuts back their inventory far more than farming time does. A 4 billion cap doubles their stock and so on.

And really, who needs more than 2 billion to kit ONE character? Put your bids up and be patient, you'll get your stuff fast enough, and plenty cheaper.

@Roderick

Hell_Jumper · 07-02-2009 04:32 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Just place a bid on some lvl 53 never-to-be-found IO and you have instat storage. One of the really ebil guys around here did that...

[/ QUOTE ]

I sorta went a different way when my red marketer hit 2 billion. I place a bid for 10 lotf-r at a stupid back then low number of like 55 million never expecting them to hit, but then the market crashed and one day I logged and saw that I purchased all 10.

so now my stack is worth between 1.3 and 1.5 billion depending on the day...

I guess its true "money finds money"

DumpleBerry · 07-02-2009 05:36 AM

Good reasons, but still an inconvenience when I'm storing inf. in the CH. I would very much like to see the cap increased. Yes, I know, selfish.

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Squez · 07-02-2009 05:40 AM

And here I thought an infuence cap was the sort of thing that really ought to be tipped, preferably whilst wearing a monacle.

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SwellGuy · 07-02-2009 05:45 AM

[ QUOTE ]
Good reasons, but still an inconvenience when I'm storing inf. in the CH. I would very much like to see the cap increased. Yes, I know, selfish.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll hold onto a billion or so for you.

total kick to the gut

This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.

UberGuy · 07-02-2009 06:27 AM

[ QUOTE ]
2^31 = 2 147 483 648
31 bits used in the value and the one bit for a checksum in all likelihood.
(When dealing with rapidly changing important data you should ALWAYS checksum)

[/ QUOTE ]

I would honestly expect the last bit to be reserved for the sign, not a checksum. If they have data integrity checking on network data, I would expect it to be more at the packet level, not the individual piece of data like that.

I would expect any such integrity checking to be for use in network transfers, and not storage checking. I have never known any software system I have worked on to build data integrity like that into the application's own data on the database side of things. That includes an enterprise banking transaction system responsible for handling potentially billions of dollars in currency transfers between reserve banks. Instead, the application usually relies on the database and its underlying storage for data integrity.

At that level of detail, though, only a select few devs probably really know.

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DumpleBerry · 07-02-2009 07:29 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Good reasons, but still an inconvenience when I'm storing inf. in the CH. I would very much like to see the cap increased. Yes, I know, selfish.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll hold onto a billion or so for you.

[/ QUOTE ]

What interest rates do you offer?

There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.

SwellGuy · 07-02-2009 07:49 AM

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Good reasons, but still an inconvenience when I'm storing inf. in the CH. I would very much like to see the cap increased. Yes, I know, selfish.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'll hold onto a billion or so for you.

[/ QUOTE ]

What interest rates do you offer?

[/ QUOTE ]

I am very interested. Oh wait you meant

You'll pay me when you can't store anymore in AH bid slots!

total kick to the gut

This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.

Doc_Thunder · 07-02-2009 08:00 AM

I'll leave the debate of whether it technically 'can' or not to others.

My 2inf on the 'should', is that it should not.

The 2 billion ceiling is what will ultimately prevent the perceived value of influence from falling to zero. The effect of the hard cap on the amount of inf that an individual character can hold is similar to the effect that the availability of gold had on the US$, back when the ol' greenback was tied to it, i.e. there is only so much currency that can be made available for use at any one time.

IMO - without some type of hard cap, and without very tight controls on the amount of money present within a system, the value of any currency will eventually trend towards zero.

Twilight_Snow · 07-02-2009 08:33 AM

In CoH, we don't have gold to back up our currency, but we have recipes and salvage. I think the generation of recipes and salvages needs to catch up with the influence generation. And the "destruction" of influence has to catch up with the consumption of recipes and salvages as well (after using recipes and salvages once, they are consumed, but influence can have a longer lifetime). If things can go to some sort of equilibrium, then the influence cap can be tweaked to make trading more convenient. I think the dev can figure it out, they have all the numbers in their hands.

Doc_Thunder · 07-02-2009 09:55 AM

[ QUOTE ]
In CoH, we don't have gold to back up our currency, but we have recipes and salvage. I think the generation of recipes and salvages needs to catch up with the influence generation. And the "destruction" of influence has to catch up with the consumption of recipes and salvages as well (after using recipes and salvages once, they are consumed, but influence can have a longer lifetime). If things can go to some sort of equilibrium, then the influence cap can be tweaked to make trading more convenient. I think the dev can figure it out, they have all the numbers in their hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

The contribution of recipes and salvage to influence generation (by vendoring said items) would, I think, be rather small in comparison to inf earned by regular play. Also, while deleting a recipe or piece of salvage instead of selling to a vendor does not increase the amount of inf available, it also does not reduce it. So I don't see that recipes and salvage provide any sort of significant effect on the overall supply of influence.

In the current CoH system, I feel that prices will attain an equilibrium - but this will require a large portion of the population to start running up against the hard-cap of 2 billion influence. Hopefully, the value of influence will then not drop to the point that profit-making on sales become pointless - because if that happens then anyone wanting a recipe or salvage will have to rely on the good graces of others to bother posting anything.

Recipes and salvage are an excellent way of redistributing influence between characters, which will help to stabilize prices by allowing more characters to approach the inf cap faster. If anything, the inf cap should probably be lowered to stabilize prices sooner rather than later (not very ebil I know, good thing I haven't been given a members card yet or it might get revoked!)

McDunkin · 07-02-2009 12:26 PM

Once the inf cap is butted enough, people will start selling or bartering through other avenues than the AH/BM. Fortunately, it will be a few years before anything consistently sells at the current inf cap. Lowering the cap would cause this to happen sooner, and raising it would cause it to happen later.

Prices on most items will generally be pressured by their ticket/merit values, and are thus unlikely to approach the inf cap. However, some highly desired and extremely under supplied items may get there, as well as highly desirable, newly released items (which later drop in price some/alot, like Basilisk's Gaze and PvP procs).