Survey: How many people craft enhancements?
By
Blue Rabbit,
Posted on: 2009-05-15 19:48 in The Market and Inventions
All of the IOs I use on my characters I craft myself, as it is usually much cheaper than buying pre-made ones.
When common recipes drop for me I tend to vendor 99% of them, unless they're worth a lot more to sell on the BM/WW than at vendor (as I don't really want market slots tied up with selling commons). The 1% exception is usually just EndMod recipes, as I know they are in demand and I can sell them on the market for much more than vendor price, so I do list those either as recipe or IO (depends if I can be bothered to make them). It beats me why people consistently pay more on the market for EndMod recipes than they could buy them for from invention tables, but they do so I'm happy to take advantage of that.
When set recipes drop for me I ask myself the following questions:
1) Do I need the IO on this character? If so I'll craft it and slot it.
2) Will I need this IO on another character, now or in future, and do I have space to store it? If yes then I'll craft it and stick it in my base storage. Usually this only applies to procs/uniques/specials that drop rarely, and also for L50 IOs I tend to use a lot in final builds.
3) Is it an unpopular/underused set where supply far outstrips demand (e.g. most control/debuff sets), that I know there will be a surplus on the market, with not much traffic, so that it would take weeks/months to sell for very little inf? If so I'll vendor the recipe without even checking the BM/WW.
4) Is it a popular set where the pre-made IO sells regularly on the BM/WW (at least a few every week, preferably more) and for significantly more than the recipe sells for, taking current salvage prices into account? If so I'll make up the IO and list it (usually for far less than equilibrium price to ensure it sells fast, but still at a profit).
5) Is it a popular set where the pre-made IO doesn't sell so quickly, but the recipe sells at least once per week and for at least 100k inf? I so I'll list the recipe at a price somewhere between 10k (the most a vendor would pay for any orange recipe) and the equilibrium price - whatever I think will sell it fastest.
6) If after checking the BM/WW I would have answered questions 4) and 5) with a "No" then I just vendor the recipe.
I empty all of my characters' inventories at the end of every play session with them - sticking to these rules helps me do that quickly for recipes.
My perspective is probably skewed by my main activity though - buying popular/desirable recipes from the market that I don't currently need, purely to make them up and sell them on at a profit. This is my main inf generation method currently and the profits so dwarf what I can make on my alts while levelling normally that I tend to just do whatever is easiest with my drops.
*looks around in amusemet*
Wow! A new forum section and I noticed just now.
Anyway about Damz's question.
I sold some enhancements i crafted in past as they were created by accident and they were gone lower than recipe itself.
My usual tactic is selling everything (other than too rare recipes i will use in my hero (like procs of Numina or Force Feedback) on WW or stores untill i hit level 30. After that level i start to craft my enhancements. Also if i come across something really rare i usually ask my friends if they need it before selling it.
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Think a decent first thread here would be to see how many people create their enhancements before selling rather than just the recipe?
It only hit me earlier than the large majority (of people i asked) were only selling recipes since the cost of crafting didnt seem worth it. Do you feel like this is true?
Personally i think all items after level 30 should be crafted and then sold since thats the level when the money starts flowing. Thoughts on this matter?
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I'm making a small but steady income on my two badge toons by making and selling generic level 50's. I'd probably make more just by playing the alts, but it doesn't take much brainpower to make and sell IO's.
Admittedly, this is only possible as I've previously put in the frankly rather ludicrous amount of inf and time required to get all the crafting badges.
Any alt other than my hero or villain 'badger' (I'm not a real badge hunter, but they're as close as I get) that gets generic recipe drops vendors them, as the chew up too many auction slots. Salvage gets auctioned, except for rares, which I keep.
Set recipes get kept if I've got a use for them, otherwise they get Auctioned or vendored, depending on the price. I never make them up before selling, that's just too much faff on.
It's also a side effect of the fact that I never look for crafted IO's when I'm looking for sets, I always get the recipe and salvage and make it up myself. I'm not sure why, I just never bother to look for crafted IO's.
The 'Good 'uns' among the recipe drops NEVER get auctioned. This includes Karma/Steadfast KB protection, Steadfast Res/Defs, Performance Shifter procs etc. etc. ie, the recipes that tend to be useful on more than 'niche' toons.
Warning:
The above post may contain Cynicism, sarcasm and/or pessimism. If you object to the quantities contained, then tough.
I craft what I've got the salvage for. If I'm not bothered about it I'll sell it. If it's something I want I'll get the salvage. Not too serious about that whole part of the game tbh, except for one toon I wanted the Arms Dealer badge on.
@craggy see me on Union for TFs, SFs (please!) or just some good ol fashioned teaming.
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Depends on the profit margin.
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This.
Before I make an IO to sell it I see what salvage I need and how much it will cost me to buy salvage and if I need the salvage I already have for something else. If it's bigger (by a somewhat decent amount) then I sell it. Also go towards that nice shiny badge 
I usually look at the market for purple enhancements, then if it is expensive, i look at the recipes, and see if they'rre alot cheaper, then craft.
I mostly delete my recipes cos i get useless ones.
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I usually look at the market for purple enhancements, then if it is expensive, i look at the recipes, and see if they'rre alot cheaper, then craft.
I mostly delete my recipes cos i get useless ones.
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I tend to delete ones like Sleep IO's etc, the rare ones I keep and hopefully sell off or use myself. But I usually get pretty pants recipe drops, out of an entire LRSF I think I got one orange recipe and it wasn't even that good. Also got about three different recipies for blasters on my scrappers from a merit vendor 
I craft, therefor I am.
Defiant:
Cunundrum, Defender (Generic Supergroup 101)
Other servers too.
New Global: @cunundrumEU
I would craft more for my level fifties, but with recipes going for 200,000,000+ because of MA inflation.... well, it makes me just want to not bother. Something wrong there me-thinks.
200 Million?! That's insanity!
Rabbits & Hares:Blue (Mind/Emp Controller)Maroon (Rad/Thermal Corruptor)and one of each AT all at 50
MA Arcs: Apples of Contention - 3184; Zen & Relaxation - 35392; Tears of Leviathan - 121733 | All posts are rated "R" for "R-r-rrrrr, baby!"|Now, and this is very important... do you want a hug? COH Faces @Blue Rabbit
Insanity? - no, [b]THIS. IS. BARTER. 
What recipes sell for that much btw? Only ones that reach that margin are purples or pvp ones that i can see, everything which can be obtained via MA sells next to nothing unless crafted in my experience 
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
You sir, have a strange definition of nothing...
Rabbits & Hares:Blue (Mind/Emp Controller)Maroon (Rad/Thermal Corruptor)and one of each AT all at 50
MA Arcs: Apples of Contention - 3184; Zen & Relaxation - 35392; Tears of Leviathan - 121733 | All posts are rated "R" for "R-r-rrrrr, baby!"|Now, and this is very important... do you want a hug? COH Faces @Blue Rabbit
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You sir, have a strange definition of nothing...
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Well from my experience the majority they sell for is 2 - 15 mill unless im missing somethin here?
@Damz Find me on the global channel Union Chat. One of the best "chat channels" ingame!
Aha! And therein lies the fallacy: do you know how long it takes me or a casual player to raise those amounts? I wouldn't dismiss them as nothing quite as easily...
Outside of TFing or farming it takes very long to raise a million Inf. I'm not taking into account playing the market: to this day I have yet to have a purple recipe drop on any of my toons or a merit roll that will yearn a considerable amount of Inf.
Rabbits & Hares:Blue (Mind/Emp Controller)Maroon (Rad/Thermal Corruptor)and one of each AT all at 50
MA Arcs: Apples of Contention - 3184; Zen & Relaxation - 35392; Tears of Leviathan - 121733 | All posts are rated "R" for "R-r-rrrrr, baby!"|Now, and this is very important... do you want a hug? COH Faces @Blue Rabbit
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Aha! And therein lies the fallacy: do you know how long it takes me or a casual player to raise those amounts? I wouldn't dismiss them as nothing quite as easily...
Outside of TFing or farming it takes very long to raise a million Inf. I'm not taking into account playing the market: to this day I have yet to have a purple recipe drop on any of my toons or a merit roll that will yearn a considerable amount of Inf.
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Anything under about 10 million is buttons in today's game's economy. And that is even before you factor in the selling of drops (a lot of common level 50 salvage is going for 10,000-100,000 these days alone) or using of any tickets/merits accumulated over the course of an evening's gameplay.
To put this into perspective: solo, without farming, you can easilly raise several million influence just by playing through a standard level 50 mission arc and not skipping the "kill alls" (Hero's Hero, anyone?).
Of course, you could do a few teamed TFs, or MA arcs for tickets, or Ouroboros Arcs for merits, and get the loot faster. Or even just leave a DPS character fighting a friend's in the arena for an evening...
Yes... let me bold this for you:
Outside of TFing or farming it takes very long to raise a million Inf. I'm not taking into account playing the market: to this day I have yet to have a purple recipe drop on any of my toons or a merit roll that will yearn a considerable amount of Inf.
I solo mostly, if not exclusively (and not by choice, mind you). It takes me 2 to 3 playing sessions to get a million Inf. A session for me is 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Again, for the casual player, that's not buttons. That's hard playing time.
But of course I can see for people who have no other responsibilities and/or have more playing time that can be seen as a mere pittance. For people who don't have to work or run/help run a household and can play all hours of day it is very easy to rack up those sums.
And again, solo, without farming, I have yet to receive a purple drop or merit roll that will earn me that much Inf.
Rabbits & Hares:Blue (Mind/Emp Controller)Maroon (Rad/Thermal Corruptor)and one of each AT all at 50
MA Arcs: Apples of Contention - 3184; Zen & Relaxation - 35392; Tears of Leviathan - 121733 | All posts are rated "R" for "R-r-rrrrr, baby!"|Now, and this is very important... do you want a hug? COH Faces @Blue Rabbit
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Yes... let me bold this for you:
[b]Outside of TFing or farming it takes very long to raise a million Inf. I'm not taking into account playing the market: to this day I have yet to have a purple recipe drop on any of my toons or a merit roll that will yearn a considerable amount of Inf.[/i]
I solo mostly, if not exclusively (and not by choice, mind you). It takes me 2 to 3 playing sessions to get a million Inf. A session for me is 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Again, for the casual player, that's not buttons. That's hard playing time.
But of course I can see for people who have no other responsibilities and/or have more playing time that can be seen as a mere pittance. For people who don't have to work or run/help run a household and can play all hours of day it is very easy to rack up those sums.
And again, solo, without farming, I have yet to receive a purple drop or merit roll that will earn me that much Inf.
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craft commons? Craft put it up over night and collect. Save some market slots for low bids on stacks of needed salvage.
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Yes... let me bold this for you:
Outside of TFing or farming it takes very long to raise a million Inf. I'm not taking into account playing the market: to this day I have yet to have a purple recipe drop on any of my toons or a merit roll that will yearn a considerable amount of Inf.
I solo mostly, if not exclusively (and not by choice, mind you). It takes me 2 to 3 playing sessions to get a million Inf. A session for me is 1 1/2 to 2 hours. Again, for the casual player, that's not buttons. That's hard playing time.
But of course I can see for people who have no other responsibilities and/or have more playing time that can be seen as a mere pittance. For people who don't have to work or run/help run a household and can play all hours of day it is very easy to rack up those sums.
And again, solo, without farming, I have yet to receive a purple drop or merit roll that will earn me that much Inf.
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From my above post: "To put this into perspective: solo, without farming, you can easilly raise several million influence just by playing through a standard level 50 mission arc and not skipping the "kill alls" (Hero's Hero, anyone?)."
Heros hero takes me 2 hours tops, solo, on a non-optimised character (SOs or common IOs). I never walk away with anything less than 5 million inf, just through mob killing. And that's in Supergroup mode. I don't ever run this arc for Influence, but for fun, accolade badges and/or merits. The influence gain is a byproduct.
If you define "casual play" as attending costume parties underneath the Atlas statue, or perhaps doing one lone mission a night, then yes, you're never going to get any money without winning said competition or playing the market minigame so you earn while you're offline. If instead you run arcs, even solo, then you'll be raking in the influence even if you just vendor any drops and run in SG mode.
The caveat is that you really need to run these on a high level character to get any amount of influence off enemies. But even the act of levelling up a standard new toon to 50 should gain you several hundred merits and over a hundred million influence (I have personally tested this) if you just play the game normally and solo all the way to 50 using normal mission arcs, selling the drops as you go.
As an aside, concerning farming taking up gameplay time:
I'm a few years past studenthood now, so usually I only have a few nights a week to spend on gaming (and even then, typically nothing longer than a 2-3 hour block post-6pm). This means that things like long-term farming parties are out for me, likewise for most of the longer TFs (apart from the odd weekend).
I farm when I need influence, which generally occurs whenever I get a new character to level 50 and want to fully equip them with set IOs. I don't "hoarde" influence or farm it for its own sake. The only recent exception to this has been PvP recipes, which I farmed for a period of two weeks after seeing that the current return on that activity was too good an opportunity to pass up (indeed, for just a few hours work each night over this period I netted over 1.5 billion influence worth of drops, which should fully outfit at least two new characters).
When I was experimenting with farming these PvP recipes, I found I could farm drops continuously for a total of 2 mins active work every 30 mins (including the time it takes to zone into an arena instance). The rest of the time I was free to go watch a DVD, or make the dinner. There are many options available for influence making to those that don't want to spend all their time hammering buttons. And this sentiment is coming from someone who had one of the first fully-IO'ed-out-and-built-for-farming Spines/DA's on Defiant.
(Such as playing the market, mainly. The return is currently so good on farming PvP recipes because they are new, and prices have yet to stabilise. I fully expect their prices to plummet soon except for the few uniques)
Well....I won't name the Recipe I buy for obvious reasons but I'll give you some info .
This is a level 50 Recipe -
The Recipe costs me around 3-4Million Influence
The Salvage costs me around 400k Influence
I usually list it for 17M - But my last two have gone for 21M.
So alltogether it costs me around 4.5M tops, and selling it for 21M gives me a 16.5M Profit minus listing fees.
But back to the main subject, I look at prices for the enhancement and recipe, and if it looks like a good profit (In Inf terms) then I'll usually craft it.
If not I'll just sell it.
I sell recipies what are too low for me. I don't sell enchangements. I do sometimes sell salvage, if the inventory is full.
I did example make some lvl 15 invention: damage, because the cost is in long run less than buying DO's. How ever, I can't make lvl 15 Invention: Accuracy, because one of the salvage has so high demand that prices are skyhigh. So, common salvage doesn't allways mean it's cheap.
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What recipes sell for that much btw? Only ones that reach that margin are purples or pvp ones that i can see, everything which can be obtained via MA sells next to nothing unless crafted in my experience
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I know for sure (because I sadly need them) ... The Apocalypse purple set. It ranges from 200 mill to 400 mill a recipe.
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I craft and sell lvl 35 40 45 IO to get rid of the white material on which I do not speculate. 200k to 300k each, sells usually in 30 secondes so I don't waste black market slots meanwhile. 50 IOs are far less interesting due to the crafting cost and their value is usually no higher than 35s' or 40s'.
I have all the recipes memorized and the portable workbench. Crafting and selling 5 to 10 brings in a benefit of 1 small million and takes less than 5 minutes.
It's far less profitable than speculating on the white materials though. I make about 1,5 millions a day per toon that way and it just takes another 5 minutes.
(forgive my approximate English)
For a CoV player it's raining stones seven days a week.