To Random or not to Random?

To the OP: Heraclea has a fundamental, (here) unstated axiom. As I understand it, she believes it is morally wrong to use the market to make a profit. I suspect that every other theorem of hers is logical and follows clearly from this axiom, but I have such trouble with the starting place that I can't follow any of the paths that start there.

For myself, as long as I or anyone else can buy for X and sell for 2X (or really anything greater than 1.1X) , the value of X doesn't matter that much to me. I can start from zero wealth and make enough to buy what I need at any point, so if my existing stocks of inf become valueless I don't care.

I think that you have several goals which, while overlapping, are not identical. "support the sub-50 market" and "Gain wealth" and "equip your character" (or in Heraclea's case, "equip your characters with the least possible use of the market") are not quite the same.

For instance, if you roll at level 33, or 35, you are supporting the sub-50 market and gaining [some] wealth. You are also equipping your character earlier than if you ran "SO's to fifty, then start playing with IO's" (a thought process that I do not share.) However, if you roll at level 50 you will probably get more money for a given recipe- and it will certainly sell much faster. So waiting till 50 is better for gaining wealth.

I'm not judging any of those goals, but I do want to clarify the differences between them so you know what you're aiming for and what you're giving up.

What I would do (and have done), is roll at level 33.

Funnily enough, I have started to slot level 32s versus 33s such that I have set bonuses if I flashback to level 29 missions.

I doubt that will catch on and view it as a personal eccentricity.

The "What level to roll" question is kind of interesting. I was going to produce about 20 rare recipes at one point and asked on the forums. Level 33 was most popular in my unscientific survey, with a lot of people saying "Anything from 30-35" or "anything from 30-40".

Game theory says that if two people who can't communicate are trying to meet up, they should both head for the most obvious place. Likewise, since many people can't afford the money or slots to cover all the levels in a range, buyers and sellers should try to meet up at the most obvious levels.

30 is "obvious" but a bit low for many people, as generic 30's are worse than +3 SO's.

33 is "max PVP level for set bonuses "(for whatever zone, I don't remember) - less important than it used to be, but still a major factor.

35 is a very good "obvious" level.

40 is "obvious" but I think it suffers from nearly-50 syndrome. I could be wrong.

45 definitely is nearly-50 and people are willing to wait, I think.

If there are any other "obvious" levels I'm not aware of them.

Edit for conclusion: I recommend 33, followed by 35, if you're not going to wait for 50.

So... if prices go down due to a change in the ratio of inf produced and items produced and stay that way are you going to come here and apologize?

City of Heroes cannot and will not be an increasingly inflationary economic system. The 10% market fee prevents that. Prices can't rise to a point where players can afford to pay 100s of million of Inf in market fees for common salvage. The market fee simply is bigger than player's ability to produce Inf. Inflation is kept in check.

Changing from one ratio of inf/items to another is temporary inflation or deflation. That's what we have now. Ever increasing money supply is Inflation with a big "i". City of Heroes cannot have the 2nd.

Since this thread has been brought up from the grave, I'll just point out that with i16:

• Most common and uncommon salvage is essentially free
• Conversely, some rare salvage has begun to creep up past the 1.5m range
• Purples and respec recipes have largely fell below 100m, down from an average of 200m+

After this weeks patch there is increased inf earning on level 50s, which will add to the inf supply.

After the deflationary period esepcially for purples and salvage with the new difficulty settings, there is going to be added inflationary pressure fron the inf supply.

It will be interesting to see where it finds the new equilibrium, and I R not smart enough to make any predictions.

That increased influence is only from exemplared 50s who had the old exemplar rewards toggled on in their options. I don't think that population is significant in any way. In order to exert real inflationary pressure on the market, you would need to generate a lot more influence than that.

Now I want to make a new character named "Boughten Sold" who will spend all his career hovering around Wentworth's.

The 10/14/2009 Patch note is this one:

pohsyb's post on infl bug.