I think that it is harder to strike it rich on the red side. Not that I have trouble earning enough to get my SO's and even the not to expensive IO's for my characters. So if you like the challenge, I would suggest to get red.
simple thing farm for pvp drops
Is not going to remain VIP after Jan 14th 2012, but may remain an active Premium account holder.
See some of you guys/gals in other/new MMOs Soon(tm)
N.B. If you are going to do smt, please do it or GTFO and STFU nab
Farming would defeat the purpose of this project.
not if u do it casually 
Is not going to remain VIP after Jan 14th 2012, but may remain an active Premium account holder.
See some of you guys/gals in other/new MMOs Soon(tm)
N.B. If you are going to do smt, please do it or GTFO and STFU nab
Would like to see it on red side as long as it isn't an MM (my enhancements went red on mine in the 40s and I didn't notice until I got to an EB)
Edit: Also I have found inf very easy to come by on blue side, I have a stock pile at the moment and nothing comes to mind to spend it on. Waiting for my Dark Blaster and my Stone Melee scrapper I guess
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
For what goals would inf be hard to come by? I don't transfer inf between any of my characters and I do not find cash flow a big problem nowadays and I do not farm - but that depends on your level of ambition.
Without setting the goals for what you need the cash for you may not get a useful result.
[url="http://adingworld.wordpress.com/mission-architect-story-arcs/"][b]My Story arcs[/b][/url]: [i]The Siren Supremes[/i] ([b]1143[/b]), [i]The Missing Geneticist[/i] ([b]2542[/b]), [i]Elemental Jones[/i] ([b]263512[/b]), [i]The Soul Hunter[/i] ([b]294431[/b]), [i]Heart of Steel[/i] ([b]407104[/b]), [i]Project Serpens[/i] ([b]434082[/b])
I didn't say inf is hard to come by, some people belive it is.
I think you misunderstood my post.
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I think that it is harder to strike it rich on the red side.
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Would like to see it on red side as long as it isn't an MM
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Is it really harder to earn inf on villain side, though, or is it just a case of what you tend to play or enjoy playing (and perhaps therefore have more toons capable of earning)? I hear that a lot, yet I always have inf on my villains and have two toons with fairly expensive IO builds, yet on hero side I don't have a single fully IO'd build, and really don't have inf to spare; I'm currently doing everything I can do try to put enough together to rebuild my Blaster. I quite frequently don't transfer inf to new villains, either, as I do well enough on the market to fund them up until I switch to IOs at 32.
I know there are big differences between the markets and I think the devs have even come out with datamining showing villains are behind heroes, but I really do wonder as to the reasoning for it. Is there any actual game reason for it, or is it just how people are playing?
In some ways though, this question does just make doing this test on red side more interesting and useful. If you can do well there, the stats and people's experiences certainly seem to suggest you'll do well blue side.
Well, redside is sort of harder because there's not much to "farm", not many teams/players, not as easy to get merits to exchange for recipes->more inf etc.
That said, I think redsides deal with foes much faster unless you go with silly/fun teams like fire/rad trollers. A bunch of mixed corrs at 40+ will nuke through most mobs in no time. I mean they're blasters with kin/rad/heal/etc secondaries! 
...but I do agree with previous poster, setting some sort of goal, or clear reason and some clear framework (e.g. not farming, only soloing, only teaming, powerset etc) for doing it would improve my interest.
It's rather obvious that stalkers have a harder time until they're high level and/or proven. They're either fillers or simply not invited. 
MM's loved in moderation. Max 1-2/team.
...the list goes on!
I think it depends a lot on what you build. But I did all the villain content from 1-50 on both my MM and my Brute (my only villain 50s) so when I got there I only had SFs and the repeatable stuff to do, hero side I didn't run out of content so fast and I think I have more friends on hero side too. Of course the 15 level 50s each would have built up on their journey and I've only bothered with builds on 3 scrappers, 2 blasters and my defender but the rest still tend to have the expensive IOs that make the bigger differences.
I think it comes from the people I used to team with on villains no longer being in game for me.
I would also guess that there was more farming in heroes past before villains went live. I remember people moaning about drecking by the end of I3, so the hero market started off with much more currency, but I am sure that should have evened out by now so it must be what's happened since. I think the mid level hero TFs see much more action than the mid level SFs, which would lead to more C pool recipes........ but that's only my perception based on the channels I am in and the times I play
"Well, they found my diary today.
They were appropriately appalled
at the discovery of the eight victims
They're now putting it all together.
Women wrapped in silk
with one leg missing
Eight legs, one body, silk,
spider, brilliant!"
I cant say I found inf harder to come buy on the red side... In fact i'd say its easier with careful playing of WW. I had 20mill at lvl 15 with mechtechnic without inf transfers.
Lucky drops though I guess ^_^
Would like to see the results though. I say do one for both
@MrMac & @MrMac2
http://faces.cohtitan.com/profile/MrMac/
I won't restrict myself to either or with teaming/soloing, it's not a comparsion.
Been thinking about a stalker but peoples ignorance on how they work put me off a bit.
Will probably do it on defiant since i have open slots there so i won't team much anyway .
Powerset etc. Is not something i won't restrict myself from either since i'm the one playing and would prefer to play something i would enjoy.
I started marketeering on 25 February 2009 on redside, mainly because I was frustrated at not being able to afford the yellow/orange IO'd builds (i.e. best IOs I could get without using purples or LotG/Numi/Miracle uniques) which I'd grown used to having pre-I13. Those builds had cost me 100-125m per character back then, but cost more than I could afford in the wake of the post-I13 and post-I14 price rises. Pre-I13 I funded my builds mainly by levelling normally, crafting then selling my drops (purples especially), with some minor arbitrage on the side from time to time (buying surplus L50 recipes to vendor, across 2-3 characters, for 5m or so cleared profit per day).
I don't enjoy marketeering as much as levelling, but it takes up less than 10-20% of my playing time per night (about the same as arbitrage took me, but for considerably higher profits with more risk, and it's more interesting too). I didn't want to start farming as I know that is more time intensive (and might burn me out to playing the game normally - lack of variety... blech!), and I didn't like the attitudes of a lot of the farmers I ran into pre-I13 and didn't want to be counted as part of that group. I consider marketeering a necessary and worthwhile "evil" to get the builds I want to make, and I don't need the assistance of others to do it.
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I think that it is harder to strike it rich on the red side. Not that I have trouble earning enough to get my SO's and even the not to expensive IO's for my characters. So if you like the challenge, I would suggest to get red.
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It's much easier redside, I find. Potential profit margins are wider because of availability issues, especially when recipes are in shortage but you have IOs up for sale, forcing the "buy it now" players to buy your stock (I'm a patient bidder, personally). On blueside the market moves faster with lower prices due to more surplus and more buyers/sellers, but there are very few shortages to exploit so the price margins of IOs compared to their recipes is a lot tighter - this leaves a lot less room to make a profit by "buy, craft and sell" schemes (which is what I use, as I find flipping distasteful... and too risky and time-intensive) - and increases the risk of the IO price dipping below the recipe price, killing the margin and leaving you with loss-making stock on your hands.
It's easier to monopolise niches redside too of course, with the lower traffic, though I tend to list IOs quite a bit below going rate to ensure I move stock fast, so ultimately I end up destroying my own niches as I bring the IO prices down (and occasionally bring recipe prices up to meet them - depends on supply). But then I'll just let that niche "rest" and go looking for another.
With 100m initial capital on 25 Feb 2009 I hit the 2 billion infamy cap on 22 April 2009 (though I did pull out 100m at one point for an alt who needed inf, and sold two purple drops for 162m total as well during that time, and had a week off not doing much marketeering).
I started marketeering on blueside on 27 April 2009, again with 100m start-up. That same week I picked a different redside character with around 100m to start marketeering that side with again (as my double-billionaire was busy spending his infamy on IOs for my Widow). I've pulled 800m out of the redside character, and he has around 500m inf remaining now, so around 1300m earned in total - the bluesider just hit 700m with no withdrawals - that's not including the value of current stock (worth more on the redsider).
So, subtracting initial capital from both, in 2 weeks that's 1200m cleared profit earned redside and just 600m blueside, despite the fact they are operating in similar niches, with a similar strategy, and the bluesider is selling 2-3 times as many IOs and taking twice as much time per day to upkeep because of that (with narrower margins you have to go for quantity of sales on blueside).
In short the blueside character is making inf at half the rate of the redside one for more time invested. That's probably not such an issue in inf terms, as the buying power of influence is greater than infamy anyway, as most prices are much lower blueside (purples aside) - 600m influence spent on blueside's WW can go much further than 1200m infamy on redside's BM, depending what you buy.
I've been keeping records of my progress, but only on paper (admittedly using record sheets I made in Excel) - mainly to keep track of my niches and what it cost me to buy/make IOs to make sure I don't sell them for less than I paid for them if the price moves - and obviously I won't reveal my niches
Hopefully there's something of use in my experiences with both markets to help the OP decide on their best course of action.
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...I hit the 2 billion infamy cap...
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I didn't even know there was a cap. That is impressive.
I've found the market easier to play villain-side, too (not something I do heavily, mind you); not sure whether that might change a bit with the MA in place.
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I've found the market easier to play villain-side, too (not something I do heavily, mind you); not sure whether that might change a bit with the MA in place.
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To me it looks like the MA have made the BM even more chaotic. I see common salvage selling for 100.000 inf one day and for 100 the next.
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I hit the 2 billion infamy cap...
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No Top Hat? No Monocle? No /e evillaughter? Pffft.
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I hit the 2 billion infamy cap...
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No Top Hat? No Monocle? No /e evillaughter? Pffft.
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I thought that was just a US thing
We don't even have a market forum...
Spent most of that 2 billion already and besides a top hat and tuxedo would look rubbish with crab arms 
Tbh I wish the market would stabilise and that prices would go back to pre-I13 levels so I wouldn't feel the need to do this, at least not on this scale. For one thing it annoys me when one of my lowbies levels up and it takes longer than 5 mins to buy the 2-3 cheap yellow set IOs I need to frankenslot in the new slots, because pre-I13 that was easy. Now, with shortages and spiking prices, I often have to wait for overnight bids to go through (or weekly in the case of some uniques/purples) - or pay stupidly high prices, which I was unwilling to do even with 2 billion inf in the kitty - I'm not going to feed ridiculous greed in others and never overprice anything I sell.
I was shocked how easy it was to make inf once I applied myself to it, though. And people need to pay attention to their bidding increments - I lose track of how many times I get paid 5-10m more than an item is listed for. Other people's impatience pays well.
Maybe I am an ebil marketeer as far as motivation goes - it could be worse though - at least I'm not a farmer corrupting newbies
I9 changed a lot about this game, not all for the better, and I13 & I14 even moreso, but MMOs change and MMO players need to learn to adapt to those changes or fall by the wayside. Such is life.
I don't buy an sell on the market, it's too time intensive, but since i14 it's even easier to slot charachters now especially vill side.
My last project a ss/elec took 2 weeks to fully slot including one set of purps, lotgs numinas etc, without swapping money from other toons onto it.
I'm not farming, just buying an selling what i drop, an i'm on my way to a full completion "quasi perma godmode" on him.
@Effy
Effy On Hot Sauce Fire/Cold Corr
Effy On Hot Chilli Fire/Dark Corr
Effy On Heat FM/SD Before FoTM
Effy Unleashed DP/EN Blaster 1st 50 @ Union
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I don't buy an sell on the market, it's too time intensive, but since i14 it's even easier to slot charachters now especially vill side.
My last project a ss/elec took 2 weeks to fully slot including one set of purps, lotgs numinas etc, without swapping money from other toons onto it.
I'm not farming, just buying an selling what i drop, an i'm on my way to a full completion "quasi perma godmode" on him.
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You're not farming or playing the markets and it took you 2 weeks to fully purple out a brute Red Side?
The RNG must love you
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I don't buy an sell on the market, it's too time intensive, but since i14 it's even easier to slot charachters now especially vill side.
My last project a ss/elec took 2 weeks to fully slot including one set of purps, lotgs numinas etc, without swapping money from other toons onto it.
I'm not farming, just buying an selling what i drop, an i'm on my way to a full completion "quasi perma godmode" on him.
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You're not farming or playing the markets and it took you 2 weeks to fully purple out a brute Red Side?
The RNG must love you
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To be fair Devans just said one set of purples - it might be the immobilise set in the patron immob (seen brutes doing that a few times) - that's not too pricy - you could afford that from selling a single Armageddon, Apocalypse or Hecatomb dropped in normal gameplay - and my L50s tend to loot at least 1 purple levelling from 46 to 50, sometimes 2. Devans didn't specify uniques either when mentioning LotGs and Numinas - my Axe/WP has tons of Numinas slotted, just not the unique (tbh it would be expensive overkill for him - he never runs low on end/hp anyway).
My post-I9 L50s have easily made 100-150m inf each from normal levelling by the time they hit 47-50 (when I spend it all on their final build), despite spending on IOs as they levelled (usually a full set at L25, maybe upgrade some of those in late 30s or early 40s, before using all that inf for the full re-slot for set bonuses at L47-50). The only "help" I tend to give them is 5m at L12 so they have no inf worries at low level. Admittedly I do keep all uniques that drop for me on any character in my base storage and use for whichever characters need them.
This is why most of my pre-I13 builds cost 100-150m - they mostly paid their own way. But they still have pretty nice builds despite not using purples - plenty of Positrons, Numinas, LotGs, etc. Heck, my Crab build uses 5 Positron sets and I got all 25 Posi IOs plus salvage to make them for 75m with patient bidding - I remember because the same day I got the last few someone complained on one of the global channels that a single set of 5 pre-made Posis had cost them 50m. That's the difference between patient bidding and "buy it now" recklessness.
Admittedly my Widow build is so ludicrous it would have taken longer than 2 weeks to afford even non-stop farming (which is too time-intensive for me). Cost-wise there's a big difference between using one purple set and having a fully purpled monster (I'm hoping there is performance-wise too or I've probably wasted 2-3billion inf ). Heck my Mind/Psi permadom uses two purple sets but he's hardly uber. Ok he's only perma-dom with the empowerment buff, but he's still permadom solo and his build only cost around 100m.
Yeah it's the Grav set which was bought when i dropped my first Hecatomb on a LGTF I picked up 3 gravs for 15mill each last week, an was given the hold
I have the numina an regenerative tissue but they we're only 35mill each aswell
Crushing impacts, possitrons etc we're dropped with tickets, and i think the devastation an impervium armours we're what cost me the most. Oh an i dropped an LOTG +recharge with merits xD from ITF.
i probably spent 600mill on him, but i got everything cheap as i say, he's worth over a bill though, MA made the recipes dirt cheap, an with salvage easily bought with tickets it was great.
Prices of recipes an rare salvage is rising again though, an white salvage is settling down thank god
(Vald could i see a build of your Widow dude, i created mine on monday, really need to find a nice build, he's my next project but i'm unsure on softcapping etc, sorry to go of topic btw.)
Devans
@Effy
Effy On Hot Sauce Fire/Cold Corr
Effy On Hot Chilli Fire/Dark Corr
Effy On Heat FM/SD Before FoTM
Effy Unleashed DP/EN Blaster 1st 50 @ Union
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Yeah it's the Grav set which was bought when i dropped my first Hecatomb on a LGTF I picked up 3 gravs for 15mill each last week, an was given the hold
I have the numina an regenerative tissue but they we're only 35mill each aswell
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Yeah you can get some real bargains if you're patient. I used to spread-bid on uniques I used a lot, such as the Unbounded Leap Stealth (still have 4 left in my base - never paid more than 500k for the recipe), Kismet ToHit (never paid more than 5m for one, until recently when I stuck 15m down for one as I wanted it fast) and Steadfast Res/+Def (got most of those for 5m as well, iirc).
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Crushing impacts, possitrons etc we're dropped with tickets, and i think the devastation an impervium armours we're what cost me the most. Oh an i dropped an LOTG +recharge with merits xD from ITF.
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Yeah tickets must help a lot - I haven't rolled any of mine yet, but then my MA experiences have been spread over the four characters I'm levelling currently and a couple of my L50s. I rolled nearly 400 merits when I14 hit and got 3 Numi +Regen/Recov, and loads of nice non-uniques and procs I use a lot. It all helps.
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i probably spent 600mill on him, but i got everything cheap as i say, he's worth over a bill though, MA made the recipes dirt cheap, an with salvage easily bought with tickets it was great.
Prices of recipes an rare salvage is rising again though, an white salvage is settling down thank god
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Yeah its hard to estimate "worth" of a build with prices spiking up and down so much, especially redside where the smaller volume makes the BM really vulnerable to trends. I just mention what the build actually cost me at the time, and I guess the Widow has had 2.3billion spent on her, most of it on the purples which have been much higher price lately than usual - but that doesn't include some of the stuff I'd already bought/looted a while ago and had in base storage (including 3 Membranes, Kismet ToHit, +end and ToD procs, all of the Zephyrs and the Winter's Gift, Steadfast +def, plus the aforementioned Numi unique from merit rolls).
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(Vald could i see a build of your Widow dude, i created mine on monday, really need to find a nice build, he's my next project but i'm unsure on softcapping etc, sorry to go of topic btw.)
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Sure. Rather than derail I'll post it in the Soldiers forum then come back and link it here.
600 Million. That's a fortune to me.
2.3 billion! *eep*
TRT, I fully support your endevor, just so you can show useless people like me how to do it. I doubt I've managed more than 80 million on any of my builds, I've never had more than 60 million inf at one time.
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(Vald could i see a build of your Widow dude, i created mine on monday, really need to find a nice build, he's my next project but i'm unsure on softcapping etc, sorry to go of topic btw.)
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Linky
Edit - this should work pretty well as a levelling build - I have levelled taking powers in that order and sticking to the number of slots on that build, though I have been frankenslotting with cheap IO sets as I said. I have had some end issues, but nowhere near as bad as my Mace/SR brute (which is L31 currently).
I need a project toon and seeing many players saying that inf is hard to come by i'm going to roll a toon and keep a diary of the toons progress. I will also compile info into a chart.
I will not transfer any starting funds to it.
Which side would you like to see me do it on?
Any other suggestions, ideas or things you would like to see?