Farming killing the RMT'ers?
By
Aura_Familia,
Posted on: 2009-08-04 06:42 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
Quote:
Tony, you are looking at it with tunnel vision. One reason that printing more money is disastrous to a real world economy is because doing so does not increase the supply of goods. Therefore there is more cash available to buy the same supply.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
Yet another person who doesn't understand basic economics. "They make what you want to buy on the market more expensive, and less available. That's a pretty big negative impact on your game-play." There, fixed it for you.
Imagine if the people who run the U.S. Mint decided one day to start printing millions of extra dollars and go out on shopping sprees. Your logic says that would be great for the economy. The stores they buy stuff from will have a lot of extra money and will spend it, the suppliers where they buy stuff from would have a lot of extra money and spend it, and so on and so on with a net "pretty big positive impact," right? So why don't they do it and just solve this whole recession thing we're in? I could explain it, but chances are that you don't want to invest the time into thinking about it, you've already made up your mind and nothing I say would convince you that it is indeed a bad idea, and I don't want to turn this post into a book. However, I will say that this kind of thing actually does happen in the real world. It leads to a condition called hyperinfation, and it has destroyed countries because people who, like you, don't understand economics thought that what they were doing would have a "pretty big positive impact." I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks that having a lot of influence being doled out to a few people is a good thing is just plain wrong. There are a few solutions to prevent long-term massive inflation in the game and make it more casual/normal player-friendly. An easy one would be to add influence sinks. Another would be to simply curb the supply of influence. If they really want to address the issue, they will figure out some ways to make getting stuff you can trade a "point of diminishing returns" prospect, where the rich will still get richer, but not as quickly as the poor. |
In the CoH economy, increasing the money supply goes hand in hand with increasing the supply of goods. You don't get more inf than everyone else without having goods to sell. Therefore there is more cash available AND more goods.
Your problem is, you are trying to compare an extremely complex economic model, the real world one, with a relatively simple one.You're comparing apples and oranges and coming up with a wrong conclusion because of it.
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Quote:
You seem ignorant of the fact that farmers are supplying the recipes in greater quantities. Nethergoat is right, the only items that have become more expensive since MA was introduced are purples and low-level uniques like Miracle +Recovery. I recently started IOing out a toon for the first time since MA was introduced and was stunned by the disparity in some prices. Numina Regen/Recovs (level 50) were going for around 60 million while the aforementioned Miracle +Recovery (level 40) was going for more than double that. If you were right about inflation, the price for the Numina unique would be much higher.
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Originally Posted by TonyV
Yet another person who doesn't understand basic economics. "They make what you want to buy on the market more expensive, and less available. That's a pretty big negative impact on your game-play." There, fixed it for you.
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@Demobot
Also on Steam
Quote:
Please explain how generating MORE of an item somehow raises the price and makes it LESS available.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
Yet another person who doesn't understand basic economics. "They make what you want to buy on the market more expensive, and less available. That's a pretty big negative impact on your game-play." There, fixed it for you.
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I won't hold my breath.
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My City Was Gone
Alright Everyone is right when they say farmer's do add IO and money to the overall economy.
Playing the market game is very difficult and patient work if you don't know what you're doing but can yield very nice results as others have stated earlier in this thread. Another reason things have been going up in price is Merits. Ever since Merits were introduced to the game, nonfarmers, have simply been saving enough merits to get whatever specific IO they need, instead on random rolls which takes away from the market supply. Every roll in AE has to be random, (sometimes I get what I need sometimes I don't ) but the rest of the stuff I know people buy goes straight to the market.
As far as RMTers there will always be people selling money and trying to make it. I will be interested to see what I16 will do and welcome it
In the Grand scheme of things people don't know when to shut up.
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Quote:
It's dirt simple, there's absolutely nothing difficult about it.|
Originally Posted by Elprede
Alright Everyone is right when they say farmer's do add IO and money to the overall economy.
Playing the market game is very difficult and patient work if you don't know what you're doing but can yield very nice results as others have stated earlier in this thread. |
Even a child can make billions if they want to invest the time.
There are any number of guides detailing simple relatively foolproof methods over in the market forum, interested parties are urged to check them out.
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My City Was Gone
Quote:
Simple. Because they are consuming MORE of the desirable items (e.g. purple IOs) while degrading the price of the other stuff, the stuff that is less desirable, to the point where no one else can make a profit off of it.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
Please explain how generating MORE of an item somehow raises the price and makes it LESS available.
I won't hold my breath. |
Duh.
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Originally Posted by Demobot
You seem ignorant of the fact that farmers are supplying the recipes in greater quantities.
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Meanwhile, the stuff that is more desirable to have simply isn't there. The people who are farming billions of influence--and the people who are keeping RMTers in business--are buying them at artificially inflated prices, prices that are currently so high that the only way that casual/normal players can obtain them is by hoping for a drop.
The more people farm, the more money RMTers make, plain and simple. Why? Because the more people farm, the more inflation there is in the game, the more casual/normal players can't obtain the high-end stuff, the more some will resort to buying influence from RMTers to avoid having to engage in the tedium that is farming. Like I said, farmers are causing this problem, not helping it. Please stop trying to rationalize selfishness. If I were an RMTer, I would pray night and day that this game go more and more to the farmers so that average Joes would have to buy my stuff to even come close to keeping up.
This isn't all just theory. Pre-Issue 9, before there were recipes, IOs, or an invention system, there was a point of diminishing returns. Once you had two or three million influence, which was easily obtainable by level 35 or so through normal playing, you were pretty much rich enough to SO out your character. You could farm if you wanted to, but really, there wasn't much to do with those extra millions of influence other than give it away or use it to twink your other low-level characters.
Back then, and this is important, there was no RMT spam. None. Zilch, zip, nada. There might have been some RMT sites, but it wasn't worth their time spamming people with RMT e-mails or tells because the real world money just wasn't there. There was a specific point of diminishing returns to having massive amounts of influence did you no good whatsoever, because you couldn't improve your character through more farming.
That is the point to which the devs should strive to bring the game back to. Where casual players have some stuff, avid players have more stuff, and farmers might have just a little bit more, but no significant advantage over the people who are avid players as they do now. I guarantee you that 1) you would see a dramatic drop in RMT spam, and 2) the game would be much more fun as people actually played it.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)
Either that or they can lower the price to sell more because they have more on hand because they too are making more inf on the lucrative farming market.
I have a feeling that they are actually making more money now that they were before.
Players are definitely spending inf like they have no idea about what is going on in the game at all.
If it is so easy to level up quickly by abusing the system and you have no problem with abusing the system and possibly being punished for doing so, what's to stop you from going ahead and buying inf as well?
Farming really helps gold farmers more than anyone else.
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Not true.|
Originally Posted by Demobot
Nethergoat is right, the only items that have become more expensive since MA was introduced are purples and low-level uniques like Miracle +Recovery.
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I'm not going to say what my nitch is because that would be stupid on my part, but I am selling what I'm selling at prices that I could only get on 2XP Weekends before - a price that is more than x3 what I used to sell them for - and I'm not selling purples or +procs.
There are other items that have gone up as well, but not as much. I'm not going to point out which as that will narrow down the market and spread intel.
I'm a market PvP'r.
Farming and AE babies are inflating the market regardless of if you or other players decide to say otherwise.
As I've said, I'm selling items for x3 what I was before AE. I'm taking advantage of the inflation that you and some others (all farmers it seems) claim does not exist.
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Originally Posted by Rodion
There are two factors at work here: reduced supply of purples (as you correctly mention), and hyperinflation from the excessive rewards from those players farming in AE (as the previous poster correctly mentions).
Either one spells trouble for an economy, but having both is problematic. But because there is so much inflation, anyone who sells anything in demand will quickly have millions. That won't be enough to get purples, but it will be enough to outfit them with more mundane things such as regular IOs or the cheaper IO sets. Getting something in high demand doesn't take a lot of effort. The Bronze rolls provide a lot of high-demand items, and although you won't be able to unload most of the stuff you get, you'll likely get something worth tens of millions if you spend several hundred tickets this way. |
It can't possibly be that there are so many power-leveled 50's trying to get purple sets?
The more characters that are power-leveled to 50, the more demand there is for purples. If you are going to get power leveled to 50 so you can be uber, then you have to have purples to gain full uberness.
The more you are willing to cheat to get to that uberness, the more likely you are to buy from RMTrs so that you have enough loot to buy all those purples at the higher prices.
To some isn't about playing the game any more, it is only about uberness.
It is sadt hat some of these players are the newest ones.
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They won't be here long.
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Originally Posted by The_Alt_oholic
It can't possibly be that there are so many power-leveled 50's trying to get purple sets?
The more characters that are power-leveled to 50, the more demand there is for purples. If you are going to get power leveled to 50 so you can be uber, then you have to have purples to gain full uberness. The more you are willing to cheat to get to that uberness, the more likely you are to buy from RMTrs so that you have enough loot to buy all those purples at the higher prices. To some isn't about playing the game any more, it is only about uberness. It is sadt hat some of these players are the newest ones. |
Quote:
No.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
What YOU seem ignorant of is the fact that farmers are supplying less desirable recipes in greater quantities while simultaneously jacking up the price of more desirable recipes. The glut of less desirable recipes hurts casual/normal players by keeping the price of them on the market so low that it is more profitable to simply dump them at the stores or, if that is not an option at the time, delete them to make room and hope you get lucky. |
I just, in the last few days, sold a Ragnarok Triple, two Coercive Persuasion: COnfuse Duration, Gravitational Anchor Proc and other stuff redside so I could kit out my Rad/Therm.
When I farm, the ONLY stuff that gets vendored is SO/TO/common recipes. Crafting even the most piddly of recipes gets back between one and 10 million influence.
Also...surprisingly, you can't jack up prices because buyers set the price point they wish to meet!
If I see a purple set piece selling at 40,000,000 I can list mine at 42,000,000 and it won't move or I can list at 18,000,000 or 22,000,000 and get a sale...
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| The more people farm, the more money RMTers make, plain and simple. Why? Because the more people farm, the more inflation there is in the game, the more casual/normal players can't obtain the high-end stuff, the more some will resort to buying influence from RMTers to avoid having to engage in the tedium that is farming. Like I said, farmers are causing this problem, not helping it. Please stop trying to rationalize selfishness. If I were an RMTer, I would pray night and day that this game go more and more to the farmers so that average Joes would have to buy my stuff to even come close to keeping up. |
The only way 'casual gamers' cannot get their stuff is if they miss the massive W on their maps and fail to use game resources. Plus, they can ask about the Market and people will be glad to help.
On my recently 50d Plant-Psi Dom, I decided to ONLY use SOs and tickets until I got to the 40s. I made around 40,000,000 - 50,000,000 selling Pool As like Thunderstrikes, Crushing Impacts, Detonations, Karma KB and the ocassional Steadfast ResDef.
Even if you sell JUST your salvage you'll make enough for Single Origins, which are the baseline for gameplay.
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| You could farm if you wanted to, but really, there wasn't much to do with those extra millions of influence other than give it away or use it to twink your other low-level characters. |
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| That is the point to which the devs should strive to bring the game back to. Where casual players have some stuff, avid players have more stuff, and farmers might have just a little bit more, but no significant advantage over the people who are avid players as they do now. I guarantee you that 1) you would see a dramatic drop in RMT spam, and 2) the game would be much more fun as people actually played it. |
She had no freaking idea how to use the Market. In our global channel, she says she's going to need help transferring inf to her new alt.
I took her to the Market, told her to sell her big insps on the Market and her TOs to the vendor. Then, I directed her to buy some common recipes and vendor them. As she got more inf, she bought and vendored pricier stuff. She had 8,000,000 by level 10 and increased that to 12,000,000 through salvage sales and such. Since it was a throwaway toon, she wast set for life.
On another player in my SG, I offered inf for TF rolls. I got ok stuff, he got inf.
The point is...even someone that plays a little each day or each week can make TONS of cash. If you want that purple, sell sell sell or save or flip or craft or cash in those Merits and Tickets.
I just got an Apoc Proc Redside last night on my Rad/Therm, no farming involved. Just crafting, selling, listing, patience...
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Quote:
Such a novel use for the AE!
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Originally Posted by BillZBubba
srmalloy, I don't know about other folks, but come I-16, I'll have absolutely no reason to use the AE unless I want to go run someone's story arc.
I doubt I'm alone in this. |
@Texarkana
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Quote:
Serious question: Is this a plausible scenario:|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
This is an impressive edifice of bent logic and delusion, even for you.
Farmers generate supply. That's all they do. More supply = more availability. More availability = lower prices. |
Don't farmers also make money? Doesn't having lots of money and an emphasis on speed and convenience (these ARE farmers we're talking about) lead to farmers overpaying for stuff (stuff supplied by other farmers) thus potentially driving up prices while delivering the extra influence mostly to other farmers? Thus leaving people who don't choose to farm somewhat behind?
Is there no chance that's going on?
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I have never farmed that AE...
It's smarter to Farm behemoths.
What the heck do I need more 50s for?
I don't. But I am sure LOVING selling a crap white piece of salvage "Fortune" for up to 150k each. I get like 8 per run on the behemoth map.
When this change goes live, I will be so happy. Never have to ask for fillers.
We are debating getting another extra account just for this change.
So we've decided that:
1) Farming Kills RMT.
2) Farming Helps RMT more than anything else.
The real answer is RMT doesn't care about other people farming at all. Whether people farm or not their business is affected very little.
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It's possible.|
Originally Posted by Sailboat
Serious question: Is this a plausible scenario:
Don't farmers also make money? Doesn't having lots of money and an emphasis on speed and convenience (these ARE farmers we're talking about) lead to farmers overpaying for stuff (stuff supplied by other farmers) thus potentially driving up prices while delivering the extra influence mostly to other farmers? Thus leaving people who don't choose to farm somewhat behind? Is there no chance that's going on? |
Remember though that the highest-paid price is given to the lowest-listed item. Eventually, a regular or semi-regular player hits their own lottery.
Questions about the game, either side? /t @Neuronia or @Neuronium, with your queries!
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Off topic a little.
Where do these RMTers play. I don't believe I have ever seen one. I could be wrong.
Are they on all servers?
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They are hiding all the time I think... And they NEVER ask to team up because they have 8 accounts to team up with by themselves.
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Originally Posted by badchad
Off topic a little.
Where do these RMTers play. I don't believe I have ever seen one. I could be wrong. Are they on all servers? |
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Farmers are not primarily consumers.|
Originally Posted by TonyV
Simple. Because they are consuming MORE of the desirable items (e.g. purple IOs) while degrading the price of the other stuff, the stuff that is less desirable, to the point where no one else can make a profit off of it.
Duh. |
Farmers are producers.
They are not TAKING anything from anyone- they are creating drops from thin air. If farmers aren't out there generating purples those purples are not being created at all. Which is why prices have shot up.
Farmers in MA = no farmers in PI = many fewer purple drops being generated for the market.
I have a hard time believing your thickness on this topic is genuine.
With regards to the stuff that has been depreciated by MA, that's a two way street. You get less for selling this or that mediocre recipe, yes. But the lower prices help when you go to buy some IOs for frankenslotting or whatever.
The 'good stuff' is still relatively expensive- not as expensive as it was, but nothing to sneeze at either. So good drops will still earn you tons of inf.
And you're completely ignoring the impact of MA on salvage. Rares have taken a huge hit in price, but commons and uncommons are regularly going for several hundred thousand each.
Since 'regular' gameplay generates far, far more salvage drops than it does IO recipe drops this is a net gain in earning power for our friend the 'casual gamer'.
You're either arguing for the sake of arguing, or your understanding of the market is on par with my understanding of nuclear physics. The difference being that I don't mount my soapbox to proclaim the 'truth' of nuclear physics because I know I'm completely ignorant of the subject.
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| What YOU seem ignorant of is the fact that farmers are supplying less desirable recipes in greater quantities while simultaneously jacking up the price of more desirable recipes. |
THEY GET DELETED.
When you're hitting the ticket cap every mission you don't have the time to list garbage. You're listing the really, really good stuff and nothing else.
You're as uninformed about farming as you are about the market.
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| The glut of less desirable recipes hurts casual/normal players by keeping the price of them on the market so low that it is more profitable to simply dump them at the stores or, if that is not an option at the time, delete them to make room and hope you get lucky. |
And nobody ever got rich selling 'okay' recipes.
They got rich off selling GOOD recipes and good salvage, which is still the case today.
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| Meanwhile, the stuff that is more desirable to have simply isn't there. |
And the 'casual gamer' has no call for those top of the line, mega-powerful enhancements.
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| The more people farm, the more money RMTers make, plain and simple. |
It's been a while since I ran across a post so diametrically opposed to reality. Thanks for the read.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Quote:
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Originally Posted by The_Alt_oholic
Not true.
I'm not going to say what my nitch is because that would be stupid on my part, but I am selling what I'm selling at prices that I could only get on 2XP Weekends before - a price that is more than x3 what I used to sell them for - and I'm not selling purples or +procs. |
what you can sell something for has little bearing on what someone can buy it for.
I have a few things I'm able to get ridiculous prices for, thanks to the impatience of gamers.
And in between my ridiculously marked up sales they go for a couple of million, because people are able to generate far greater supply than before.
Instead of one or two recipes selling per month (often less red side) like in the good old days, the 'last five' dates are often all from this week.
Also, there are always going to be unexplored niches with outsized profits for the enterprising player. And they'll dry up as people discover them, and new ones will open up.
Supply is still at an all time high.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
I DELETE ALL THE CRAPPY RECIPES I GET.
Why?
BECAUSE I DONT WANT TO SELL BETWEEN EVERY RUN.
Why?
Time consuming.
Why delete them thoe?
Because I want room for when my PURPLE drops.
(People who sell cheap crap on the market aren't doing it right)
Some people may think they need a billion (or ten) influence. However there is power in collective IO creation, salvage collection, and sharing. My little SG with 5 salvage bins and four IO bins and a few active players doesn't have a problem outfitting our characters because we work together on it.
We know each others' characters, we know in general what one another can use. If we get something useful we make it and bin it, it doesn't matter what it's worth, whether it's an Apocalypse or a Miracle Unique or a Numina Unique (all of which have been passed along). Rare salvage goes in the rare bins. Uncommon in the common bin. One bin each for arcane and tech salvage. Everyone has full vault as well. We almost never have to hit the market.
Between merits, ticket rolls, and drops recipes are abundant. Salvage is abundant. Influence is sufficient and when we play our 50s it is abundant.
I can see that for the soloist player who relies heavily on the market this would be a different story, but for someone with a trustworthy SG and friends cooperation would go a long way.
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Perfect Pain pretty much sums up what I was going to say.
Also, I will add: I have 4 main villain toons (ones that I will fully IO, purples and PvP IO's included). 2 already are fully purpled and 1 is almost fully PvP IO'd. Of the remaining 2, 1 i s IO'd minus purples and PvP's. That leaves 1 toon to put Uncommons and Rares on, 2 toons to put Ultra Rares on, and 3 to put PvP's on.
Every day that I farm, I get around 6-10 -KB IO's, 2-4 Res/Def, and 1-2 +Regeneration (to name the most desired ones). Now, TonyV, how many of those do you think I am/can use and how many are going to the market? (Hint: 2 of those are Uniques, and I only have 1 toon that MIGHT need them but does not have them slotted yet).
With the kind of money I can make selling all those extra drops, I can afford to buy purples for 300 million (Note: I am a mizer and generally pay much less). I know there are people that can afford to pay much much more, as I only play on the weekends (and not all of them, anymore).
Quote:
The hoarding approach certainly works.|
Originally Posted by Steele_Magnolia
Between merits, ticket rolls, and drops recipes are abundant. Salvage is abundant. Influence is sufficient and when we play our 50s it is abundant.
I can see that for the soloist player who relies heavily on the market this would be a different story, but for someone with a trustworthy SG and friends cooperation would go a long way. |
But if by some chance your SG evaporated you'd still be able to do fine by selling those drops and using the resulting inf to buy what you want.
=D
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Originally Posted by McDunkin
Every day that I farm, I get around 6-10 -KB IO's, 2-4 Res/Def, and 1-2 +Regeneration (to name the most desired ones). Now, TonyV, how many of those do you think I am/can use and how many are going to the market?
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Comparing these two posts is also illuminating- the "dirty farmer" is flooding the market with the stuff people want, while the "good casual gamer" is hoarding their drops and starving other players of drops they might be able to use.
I wonder how TonyV will reconcile this bizarre conundrum!
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Imagine if the people who run the U.S. Mint decided one day to start printing millions of extra dollars and go out on shopping sprees. Your logic says that would be great for the economy. The stores they buy stuff from will have a lot of extra money and will spend it, the suppliers where they buy stuff from would have a lot of extra money and spend it, and so on and so on with a net "pretty big positive impact," right? So why don't they do it and just solve this whole recession thing we're in?
I could explain it, but chances are that you don't want to invest the time into thinking about it, you've already made up your mind and nothing I say would convince you that it is indeed a bad idea, and I don't want to turn this post into a book. However, I will say that this kind of thing actually does happen in the real world. It leads to a condition called hyperinfation, and it has destroyed countries because people who, like you, don't understand economics thought that what they were doing would have a "pretty big positive impact."
I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks that having a lot of influence being doled out to a few people is a good thing is just plain wrong. There are a few solutions to prevent long-term massive inflation in the game and make it more casual/normal player-friendly. An easy one would be to add influence sinks. Another would be to simply curb the supply of influence. If they really want to address the issue, they will figure out some ways to make getting stuff you can trade a "point of diminishing returns" prospect, where the rich will still get richer, but not as quickly as the poor.
We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.
(If you love this game as much as I do, please read that post.)