come on devs...pvp recipes are almost extinct

you're doing it wrong.

Floating rate. Make it based on the number of characters in the zone.

a 1 in 5 chance of a drop divided by the number of players. 1 player would of course have zero chance to get a recipe. 2 players it would be 1 in 10. 20 players would be 1 in 100. 100 players it would be 1 in 500. Etc...

Increases the drop rate for low population zones but doesn't lend itself to farming because of the rep timer.

That is just sad. How could you POSSIBLY be telling the truth?
ON ALL MY ALTS, all of them... I have over 200 million before they hit 25.

And that is normally withint 4 or 5 days.

Yeah I should be partaking in market shenanigans too...

I got a purple set when prices were just starting to spike a month or so ago. The only way to make enough influence to afford them is to sell things on the market. Probably the fastest way to do that are the random recipe reward rolls from AE tickets and TF tickets. If you do a lot of TFs at level 50 you also have a chance to get purples, so that might be the best bet for you.

I've had probably a dozen purple recipes drop since they were introduced, and I don't play my 50s all that often. The thing about purples is that they don't really offer a wide variety of bonuses. Typically, Recovery 4%, Fire/Cold Res 2.52%, Acc 15%, Rech 10% and Toxic Res 5%; or Regen 16%, Health 3%, Damage 4%, Recharge 10%, Psi Def 5%.

You should really examine your build and see whether purples will fill in the gaps better than other IO sets that are much cheaper. The main thing about purples is that you retain the set bonuses when exemped. If you don't spend a lot of time exemped, do purples really provide that much more than what you already have, or could get with your 187 million?

Remember what Spock said in Amok Time: "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."

I have two full sets of purples on another scrapper, the same sets I need, but what's the fun in cannibalizing one toon for another? All were purchased on the market before the prices got outrageous. As far as drops go; across two accounts I have only ever gotten 4 purple drops, all of which were Hold or Pet purples that I ended up giving away (to a player that recently left too!)

This project scrapper is best suited with those two purple sets because of the recharge and regen (AV killer build). I had hoped to have him finished before I16 so that I could focus on other projects, but that won't be possible. I am however happy about the difficulty settings come I16 and hoping that soloing 8 man spawns will be the answer.

Yar, agreed. Most of the people I know don't even consider PvP recipes when planning out a build because of the extremely low availability. Better off planning for purples, in my opinion.

And given the current level of PvP popularity, its almost granted added hardware will be cost effective.

Unless that same infrastructure also supports cross server PvE teaming, at that point the benefits would be huge!

1. What do you mean by months? Someone might play 1 hour a week for months but then really that is they merely played for say 60 hours and 187 million from 60 hours of grinding isn't a bad rate.

2. What are you doing with the drops you get while playing? And are you teaming or soloing (since teaming reduces your drop rates)?

Frankly if you gave up after 30 minutes of the arena it seems like you may have a problem with sticking with something.

My 50 warshade has several purples via drops and market purchases and is sitting on 192 million with about 50-75 hours of playing and selling what he didn't need/want.

My 50 dominator has 371 million from even less time playing but I spent days in the arena before the changes. In 30 minutes I would not expect anything from the arena and if I did get something it would be amazing luck.

I think your expectations are unrealistic.

You mean eeebil blackhearted schemes like "selling drops" and "crafting the occasional recipe drops for sale"?

You don't need marketeering to make a gigantic pile of inf in this game, it's just one efficient reward path. In my experience simply playing the game and selling excess drops on the market generates a tremendous amount of inf. All it requires is paying a tiny bit of attention to what you're doing.

Playing for months and having 187 million to show for it is great if you're a 'casual gamer' with limited interest in efficiency & high end loot. For someone who wants 'the good stuff' and is "grinding" for rewards, that total is so pathetic it's hilarious.

Either adjust your expectations downward (187 mill will after all buy a LOT of build) or learn how to earn rewards efficiently.

1) By months I mean two months since I hit 46 and have been fighting 48+

2) With the drops, I keep what I need in regards to salvage and sell the rest. Recipes I sell to the stores unless there is a demand for them on the market.

I've been playing since closed beta, if I had a problem with sticking with something then I wouldn't be here. What I have a problem with is boredom, and after 30 minutes that's the state I was in. I don't mind boredom if there is a reward behind it.

And you hit the nail on the head when you talked about your dominator spending time in the arena BEFORE the changes. As with my original post, with the current drop rate I just don't see an incentive for PvPing.

And IMO my expectations is to have a market with a steady supply of items I do not think that's unrealistic... or maybe it is?

You don't play villains much, do you?

No, I find the zones to be unappealing and pre travel power to be too annoying. How I wish you could play villains in Paragon City, there are bad guys there after all...

So 46 to 50 takes what, 20 hours? As I commented before your "months" assertion is meaningless. People can roleplay hours upon hours. If you aren't pulling down at least 1 million per hour of defeating enemies you are doing it wrong. Catwhoorg had a thread where people were documenting their rates which did not allow for market participation, just vendoring drops, and the worst soloers were getting almost that amount.

Yes, your expectation to have a market with a steady supply of items is unrealistic. There is no force that compels the playerbase to use the market to sell their drops. It is a voluntary system. People either aren't getting them or they aren't selling them. Only the devs would know if the items aren't dropping at their desired rate but even then there is nothing that would magically bring those items to the market.

You have been here so long, have you forgotten all the loot hate I9 precipitated on the forums? I doubt even 50% of the players sell on the market and I suspect a higher percentage come to the market to buy what they want.

Sticking with the game is not relevant to sticking with a character or sticking with a method to obtain drops. Perhaps you have severe altitis or like to chat more than kill. I would have no way to know. All I had was your comment that 30 minutes in the arena was too long to wait. Even under the old drop system you'd be lucky to get a drop in that time.

No my expectations of a steady supply of market items is not unrealistic. Sigh I tried to refrain from saying this but here it goes... pre AE the market was fine (for purples and uniques). With that said I'm not going to get into how AE changed the availability of items on the market but I do think the developers need to address the lack of supply. Whether that be by increasing the drop rate or giving other incentives to play normal missions, I don't know.

Unless this is how it was always supposed to be?

And no I do not have severe altitis, it's been diagnosed as mild to moderate...

I just want to emphasize the point about the earning rate in the 45-50 range. I contributed an hour on a couple of my characters to that study because I was skeptical of Catwhoorg's claim. Doing Rikti War Zone missions for the vanguard merits, my level 50 tank made almost 2 million before counting those things that I couldn't bring myself to vendor. The level 48 corrupter didn't do so well soloing, but still made it to nearly a million and I got a lucky drop that couldn't count towards the study but helped my actual earnings along nicely.

Now I'm not saying that I would want to put in 187 hours (in the worst case) to earn the amount you have, but then I'm not the sort who's looking to purple out my characters. I imagine that if I was, I would be playing my character frequently enough to have a higher earnings-per-week rate than the 23 mill you're describing. Especially when you consider how much a single lucky drop can earn you.

This is the problem I'm having, as well: post-i13 PvP blows chunks.

If super-sidekicking, difficulties higher than Invincible, and being able to set your own "team size" aren't incentives, I don't want to know what you would consider an incentive.

The devs aren't responsible for player behavior. And before we turn this into another "AE farming is ruining the game" argument, players using the AE for its intended purpose aren't generating any purples or uniques either. On the upside, they are generating a larger supply of pool A recipes from the highly desirable sets that cap below 50.

Pre-I13 PvP didn't interest me either. I don't like competing with other people, and one of CoH's big draws for me is that I never had to, because I wasn't missing out on anything by refusing to do so.

Until now, anyway.

Now, if PvP IOs had a chance to drop on each PvP death, I might be tempted...

Yes they are. Supply comes from the players. You have no right to dictate how they play the game.

Typical response of someone about to make excuses for things that are their own fault.

AE has had no effect on drop rates of regular content. The amount of people doing regular content may have changed but the drop rates themselves haven't.

There is no excuse for your not being able to make inf hand over fist. You only have yourelf to blame.

I rarely step into the AE and I've found that the scarcity of items at the market is getting me more inf for the stuff I'm selling. Everyone not using the AE is paying me top dollar for my drops.

Starting to catch on.

The number of alts you have has no bearing on your inability to grasp how easy it is to make inf.

Remind me where I said I had a problem making influence? Also point out where I'm trying to dictate how players play the game? Or maybe you're just trolling?

With less players doing content that drops recipes, the market has dried up. What part of that is hard to understand?

With AE and dual builds my opinion is that drop rates need to be looked at again. Or they can stay as they are and influence sellers can remain happy.

Why are you bothering to post then? The devs aren't going to change the drop rates because you're too lazy to fix your own problem.

I fixed my own problem and have other people telling me I am wrong ... This really is a no win situation.

I guess that's why the redname said they would look into the drop rates PvP?

Like I said before, the problem isn't influence, that can be made easy, it can also be purchased; which I suspect is being done a lot.

It's one thing to have prices high, but to have high prices and nothing sold in weeks is ridiculous IMO.

What's not being sold? If someone places something on the market to sell and has a price higher than anyone is willing to pay, then the seller is dumb.

If prices are high and there's nothing to buy, that just means that the market is working. Or/and more people are hording. I know I horde good crap.

As for Castle stating that they'll look at PvP drop rates, I took that as a "yea, we hear you think there's a problem, we'll take a look but don't expect to see a problem."