sorry to interrupt, i give twice a stun purp line.
and more casualties.
my actual ingame is 'tantaliser'
Most of the above posters are wrong. We need price caps. Plz. kthxbai.
"if the market were religion Fulmens would be Moses and you'd be L. Ron Hubbard. " --Nethergoat to eryq2
The economy is not broken. The players are
Annnd we care why?
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What's your suggested alternative?
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Originally Posted by Lakanna
BTW: I agree completely that no other system so far has provided a reasonable way to achieve goals that include slotting set IO's. The market is really the only way to do it within any realistic timespan, which is what I really dislike. You MUST use the market if you want IO's, there is no other realistic way to do things.
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The devs are not regulating the rate of tickets any more than they are regulating the drop rate of recipes. Per map caps do not control drop rates, though they act as a limiter on the upper bound simply by reducing peak efficiency.|
Originally Posted by Lakanna
1: The devs are regulating the reward rate. From what we've seen, the devs are regulating the rate of reward specifically on tickets and merits, but recipe drop rates haven't changed, with the exception of costume drops, since they were put into the game.
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The devs do have the ability to regulate the rate of both tickets and drops, both of which are based on per-mob drop probabilities, through datamining. They perceive the average rate at which items are produced in aggregate, and can control that up or down by changing per-mob drop probabilities. Do not mistake variation in what individuals can achieve with the notion that the devs have control on the aggregate drop rate. Based on how they treat XP gains, and based on how drops are controlled at the individual mob level, it appears the devs are primarily concerned with aggregate, system-wide rates on reward generation. They largely don't care if individual reward rates by player or even build are higher than average unless they exceed the average by so much that they end up heavily skewing player activity.
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| A free, unregulated market helps everyone. Not entirely true. |
I think it's worth pointing out that most real-world regulation exists to prevent fraud, unsound risk, and unfair practices such as insider trading and the like, which can, by their outcomes, deprive people of access to such important essentials as shelter, food, health care, and education. That can't happen in the game. You can't be sold a lemon enhancement. You can't be sold something you didn't expect. There are no pyramid schemes. There are no lending institutions "too big to fail". And you can't pay more to buy anything than you offer to pay. There are no interest payments. So I guess I have to wonder what we'd be regulating? Doing too well? What's the return on investment for that for the devs?
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| I know that price caps are a terrible, terrible idea, but an alternate source of recipes that can bring prices down, AND provide a straight-up INF sink, would serve everyone well, except those who make billions of INF by flipping market slots. |
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| The market is intended to be as efficient as it is. I Seriously doubt the developers envisioned level 5 characters with hundreds of millions of INF just from playing the market. They seem to be all over the risk and reward ratio for normal gameplay, but marketeering is a niche that generates massive profits for zero risk. I think that's one of the definitions of "aberrant gameplay" that they take issue with if it were anything but the market. The only real way I can see to bring it back in line is to make it less profitable, which means increasing supply. |
In any case, when I said "efficient", I meant as a means of shuttling goods back and forth in a system where those goods are generated and distributed randomly. A market system is the most efficient way to transfer goods from people who don't want them to people who do. Inf is just a proxy for the value of the goods which prevents the system from requiring direct barter and synchronous transactions. (I can sell 10 items for 10M then buy something for 100M instead of having to find someone who wants 10, 10M inf items for their one 100M item.)
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Too many good general responses to this worded much better and with keener spite than what I could come up with. I just wanted to add a few thoughts:
First off, you bring up the "numbers game" that you don't want to get into. To state the obvious, this forum is about the market and inventions in the game. We LOVE numbers and LOVE the fact that the game gives us access towards including the numbers within our gameplay.
FAIL!!!! Post this gripe elsewhere unless you are looking for flames.
Second, you say that you have been in game for 5 years and only hit 2 purples. I have been in the game since the Mac edition, which is not even 9 months and have already purpled out my first 50. Let me say that again, I HAVE NO MORE ROOM FOR PURPLES IN MY BUILD. I have played nearly all the main content, I have also farmed, and I have played the market like a two-dollar ***** on a 50 cent alley, but I have gotten what I, personally, want out of the game while playing sparingly but with tons of focus.
Third, I know I said I wouldn't say this because others did, but I can't help it: There is no reason you need purples to enjoy this game. There are plenty of great I/O sets, Proc Enhancements, Accolade Powers, etc. to beef up your character without purples.
I would suggest that you check out the copious amount of information in this forum on on other websites to focus on what you want out of this game for your characters. You might find that it may not be to get purples at all. If it is, then I am here to tell you from experience that you can make that dream a reality in a very short amount of time.
I let that other thread go untouched because people there said things better than I could have.
This time I will not let it go unanswered.
I was initially planning on making bold the parts where you either made a false assumption or were outright wrong, but then realised that I'd rather throw something out quickly and go play the game.
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The recipes may or may not be too rare, that's not the problem you're talking about. The reason they are selling for so much is that people are willing to buy them at that price, rather than posting a smaller bid and waiting.|
Originally Posted by FargonRob
I know it's hard to find purples. I have found 2 and have a lot of 50's and been playing over 5 years.
But when a recipie is going for 200,000,000 inf on the market it is too rare. There are sets that are going for over 1.5 billion inf. Sure, make them hard, just not impossible. |
Impossible/Improbable.
One of these words is the correct option.
Also AE reduced the number of people running regular content where purple's can drop, thus making them rarer.
With the recent changes there should be more people returning to regular missions which should result in an increase in the number of purple IO enhancements available.
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| I finally had to make a farming toon just to get enough to get some purple sets, and instead of content I spend my time doing the same thing over and over and over, it's not really all that fun. |
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| We need a bit of active control of availability, not just a number game. If something is going for too much on the market it SHOULD set off an alarm for the devs that something is out of balance. Either the drops are too rare, or the item is too powerful/unbalanced. |
Manticore: "Damn! That's the market alarm!"
Statesman: "Those people are paying too much for their purple enhancements. We've got to do something!"
Manticore: "Any ideas? Anyone?"
Numina: "The problem lies in their willingness to pay these prices. If they were willing to only wait, they'd be able to acquire the enhancements for much less influence."
Positron: "... I don't think that's going to happen Numina."
Synapse: "We could make hundreds of those purple enhancements and put them on the market ourselves for really, really cheap! That's sure to fix the problem!"
Statesman: "And once all of those are sold Synapse? What do we do then?"
Back Alley Brawler: "What we're gonna do right now. Just wait and hope they come to their senses.[/b]
Numina: "That could take a while."
All: *stare at each other, shrug*
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| Heck, let us make purple rolls with AE tickets, say 9000 per roll. Watch the prices fall. |
1000 merits?
Make 50 random rare merit rolls. Sell the results. I mean...what, a LoTG or a Numina's Regen/Recov will get you 80 million anyway.
In a way, you can buy a purple for X merits already. If you're lucky you might get enough cash from just 10 random rolls to buy one.
Lacking a concluding paragraph I elected to finish here.
Eastern Standard Time (Australia)
is 15 hours ahead of
Eastern Standard Time (North America)
which is 5 hours behind
Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
Everyone is talking about price limits when you should be talking about time limits.
Limit the amount of time someone can sell an item. Think of how Ebay works.
We do not know the asking price, but the amount of time an item can be on the market for sale can be controlled. If the item is on the market goes over the limit of time, then the item is pulled off the market and the person will have to pay a fee again to post it for sale.
Limit the time an item can be on sale for 72 hrs. and everyone will have to try harder to sell their items.
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I suspect you think this sounds like a great idea without any actual experience in what timeframes things actually sell currently.|
Originally Posted by ThinkOnIt
Limit the time an item can be on sale for 72 hrs. and everyone will have to try harder to sell their items.
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It's relatively common that I price something in the 5-10M inf range too high, and it sits on the market for a week or so.
It's extremely rare that something I sell for 200+M takes more than one day to sell.
You're screwing the middle class, there.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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Upping drop rates to the point where our buddy the "casual gamer" can get what they want without recourse to the market defeats the point of the system.|
Originally Posted by Lakanna
Of course, you said it yourself in here: Market billionaires. Guess what happens when you come in with a suggestion to up the drop rates so that people who DON'T want to use the market get a reasonable way to achieve them? I can probably dig up the old post where I suggested upping team drop rates.
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If they wanted you to be able to get all the stuff you want with a very limited investment of energy, they'd have made a store not a loot system.
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| Preserve the market, preserve the current way of having the market be the only realistic way to purple out a character, the only realistic way to earn enough INF to buy the IO sets you WANT. That's what I was talking about, same as always: the market is the best way to do things, and the market forum regulars want to keep it that way. no alternative options should be opened, and some posters go so far as to recommend repealing merits and tickets, because they bypass the market. |
The market does what it does exceptionally well, there's no need for other avenues of acquisition. The devs like them as additional timesinks and sops to the crybabies, but they certainly aren't necessary.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Wrong. You can get the IO sets you want by, and I know this may blow your mind, playing the game, then you take the drops you got by playing the damned game and sell them on the market. Then you use the money you made by playing the goddamned game and use it to buy the IO sets you want.| Preserve the market, preserve the current way of having the market be the only realistic way to purple out a character, the only realistic way to earn enough INF to buy the IO sets you WANT |
Not. A. Hard. Concept.
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It confuses a lot of people.|
Originally Posted by SlyGuyMcFly
Wrong. You can get the IO sets you want by, and I know this may blow your mind, playing the game, then you take the drops you got by playing the damned game and sell them on the market. Then you use the money you made by playing the goddamned game and use it to buy the IO sets you want.
Not. A. Hard. Concept. |
I have an old AR/Dev I've taken out of mothballs and started messing around with. As he hadn't been played since I9 his finances were in a shambles and he was slotted with a mish-mash of old SO's and DOs. My goal in resurrecting him is to make him an IO monster build and see if it can make him as fun to play as he was in the olden days.
After a respec to dump all his junky enchancements I was sitting on a couple million inf. I started playing him and with minimal effort (checking all his recipe drops & checking raw vs crafted pricing, and flipping Alchemical Gold) he made 100 million on the trip from level 36 to 40. Given how earning power is supercharged when the level 50 generics recipes start droppping, I'm confident he'll have all the inf he needs by the time 50 rolls around.
The people who have trouble outfitting with l337 sets have a defeatist mindset. "Oh, that stuff is TOO EXPENSIVE I can never afford it!" so they don't even try.
The reality is that while price tags may seem daunting those mountains of inf don't take long to earn if you apply yourself even a little bit.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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Yeah. I tried that on my brute. farming, running missions, running TF's, etc etc etc. And then I started buying recipes, crafting them, and selling them. I went from under 100k to a hair over a billion in a month just doing that, not even playing.|
Originally Posted by SlyGuyMcFly
Wrong. You can get the IO sets you want by, and I know this may blow your mind, playing the game, then you take the drops you got by playing the damned game and sell them on the market. Then you use the money you made by playing the goddamned game and use it to buy the IO sets you want.
Not. A. Hard. Concept. |
How long do you think that would take by doing what you describe? I figure that it took me less than 24 hours over the course of a month, just logging in, collecting my recipes, crafting, and reposting them, to make that billion. Meanwhile, i was playing the game on other characters, the richest of whom sits at around 200 million.
I stand by it: if you aren't using the market, you cannot make any serious progress in getting a character IO'd. Which makes it the only way to do things if your goals include that. And that's exactly how posters here want it.
I'm more than happy to go back and forth on this again, but it's best to agree to disagree. Goat hit it on the head a while back: I'm an idealist. I thinkt hat IO's SHOULD be customization options open to the vast majority of people, not rewards that only the very highest tier of players should be able to get. And I especially disagree that only those who spend time working the market are the only ones who can afford the top-end sets. It's a basic difference in thought, and I know that the devs do not share my perspective. But I dislike people trying to describe the market as something that benefits all players, or something that, if you aren't using it, you don't deserve the shinies. It's a great system for what it does, but what it does is NOT "make IO's accessible to most players." It's more "concentrate wealth, including INF and top-tier IO's, to those players most able to use the market effectively." THAT is what the market is good for.
Maybe that's how the devs want things. I guarantee that's how most market forum regulars want things.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
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Exactly. The market is just a shortcut to wealth.|
Originally Posted by Lakanna
Yeah. I tried that on my brute. farming, running missions, running TF's, etc etc etc. And then I started buying recipes, crafting them, and selling them. I went from under 100k to a hair over a billion in a month just doing that, not even playing.
How long do you think that would take by doing what you describe? I figure that it took me less than 24 hours over the course of a month, just logging in, collecting my recipes, crafting, and reposting them, to make that billion. Meanwhile, i was playing the game on other characters, the richest of whom sits at around 200 million. |
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Originally Posted by Lakanna
I stand by it: if you aren't using the market, you cannot make any serious progress in getting a character IO'd. Which makes it the only way to do things if your goals include that. And that's exactly how posters here want it.
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I did the same with my Thugs/Traps MM and my SS/WP Brute.
So unless by "serious progress" you mean purpling-out a toon, selling drops intelligently is a sufficient source of income.
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Originally Posted by Lakanna
I'm more than happy to go back and forth on this again, but it's best to agree to disagree. Goat hit it on the head a while back: I'm an idealist. I think that IO's SHOULD be customization options open to the vast majority of people, not rewards that only the very highest tier of players should be able to get.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lakanna
And I especially disagree that only those who spend time working the market are the only ones who can afford the top-end sets. It's a basic difference in thought, and I know that the devs do not share my perspective.
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Originally Posted by Lakanna
But I dislike people trying to describe the market as something that benefits all players, or something that, if you aren't using it, you don't deserve the shinies.
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1) Play normally. Takes too long for many.
2) Farm. Too boring for many.
3) Market. Too... ebil? for many.
I repeat: The point of shinies is that most other people don't have those shinies. The way one makes few people have shinies is by making shinies hard to get. So if you want shinies you have to work for them. Simple as that.
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Originally Posted by Lakanna
It's a great system for what it does, but what it does is NOT "make IO's accessible to most players."
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Lakanna
It's more "concentrate wealth, including INF and top-tier IO's, to those players able to use the market at all" THAT is what the market is good for.
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Playing the game for extended periods concentrates wealth, including INF and top-tier IO's to those players able to play the game for extended periods of time at all. Note that I mean "play their 50 for 4 normal gaming weeks" and not "play their fifty for twenty consecutive hours."
See my point on why shinies are shiny as to why top-tier IO's should only be available to those who work for them.
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Does "using the market" include just selling things you get from playing, including merit-created items?|
Originally Posted by Lakanna
I stand by it: if you aren't using the market, you cannot make any serious progress in getting a character IO'd. Which makes it the only way to do things if your goals include that.
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by SlyGuyMcFly
So unless by "serious progress" you mean purpling-out a toon, selling drops intelligently is a sufficient source of income.
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So is selling drops "using the market"? Or do you mean things like flipping, etc?
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Good question. I don't think that many people can run TF's and get enough drops to purple characters. Either you have amazing luck, or are far more patient than I. I really don't see how simply selling drops can net you the money to get everything you need to complete a "dream build." (Note- specifically qualified statement, so I don't have to hear "You don't NEED..." again.)
As I said, I farmed a lot with my brute, sold off most of the recipes and salvage that dropped for him, ran SF's, and ran regular content. The income was respectable, but wasn't enough to come anywhere close to completing the final planned build for him. I started with crafting recipes, buying the salvage and recipe for about 800k, then selling the crafted enhancement at 8 million per. Selling drops may make you money, and to be honest I got a lot of my build, the uncommon and rare stuff, by crafting it myself from my own drops and salvage. But that was nowhere near the INF I would need to pick up 5 LotG +recharge, a handful of pool C uniques, and 3 purple sets. SO I came here, and had much the same arguments, mainly with Nethergoat, about rarity, reward per time spent, and who really is and is not entitled to be able to make their characters better.
While I was here, I paid attention to every thread on making money. Goat's guides helped me to see that it was even easier than I had thought, and that making enough INF to get whatever I wanted was not only going to be faster using the market to achieve my goals, the market was literally several times faster and more effective than trying to earn that finished build any other way. So I did. I kicked myself out of the billionare characters the other day, when I placed bids for the remaining 7 purples I needed to complete my brute. Total cost for him was a little over 3 billion, although some sets I paid more to get at a lower level: none of his IOs except for the purples are above level 40. (one of the original ideas or this build: Ice Mistral SF's)
If I had NOT crafted recipes I bought, had not memorized the level 50 common recipes just to turn my junk salvage into profit, had not learned to use the market, I would still be working on my first purple set, and not a chance I would have everything else I wanted for it. The market isn't just "more efficient." It's an order of magnitude, at least, more efficient for earning the high-level rewards that IO's are supposed to be. Which I don't believe is a healthy state for a game. I also believe that it is not a good sign for a game when we see posts, month after month, of "things are too expensive." People are coming to the forums, signing up, and posting JUST on that issue. I'm certain that the prices ont he market don't earn any good word-of-mouth recommendations from people: "it's a great game, but only the really rich characters can afford the good stuff, and prices are outrageous. Don't bother with it."
And for those who think the devs should not pay attention to the market, that's as funny as saying the government should stay out of Medicare. The market is a part of the game, adn currently the ONLY part of the game that can ensure regular progress to IO's, which are often described as end-game content. It would be irresponsible of the devs to NOT keep a close eye on the market and how it is being used, especially by the small group that uses it so well that they can bypass all other game content except to PL a character to 50 and instantly purple it out. There are regular posters here who COULD do this easily. Rewards for using the market are out of line with rewards in the entire rest of the game. And I really don't think there is a way to change that that doesn't massively disrupt the market. So either the devs leave it alone with its broken reward rate, or they make changes that would benefit the playerbase as a whole (at least, those who want IO'd characters) and probably implode the market.
McFly: are you seriously saying that if they created a "gold" set,t hat offered no extra bonuses, but was 10 times as rare as purples, that they would go for as much on the market? it isn't the RARITY the most players care about, it's the EFFECT. Which is why I disagree in principle with the WoW mentality of making the best stuff ultra-rare in the first place, but that's an entire other post.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.
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5M inf a day is 100M in 20 days. Every time you get something you can sell for 10M, 20M, 50M, shaves off chunk of those days. 5M inf a day is pretty much what I get most days if I spend zero merits. (Well, it was until I16 hit and my solo drop rate went in the can.) On good days I get something better.|
Originally Posted by Lakanna
Good question. I don't think that many people can run TF's and get enough drops to purple characters. Either you have amazing luck, or are far more patient than I. I really don't see how simply selling drops can net you the money to get everything you need to complete a "dream build."
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Merits change the picture dramatically. If you're able to hold out for the long-haul, random rolls tend to be the highest average return per merit. If you're not patient, there are alternatives. LotGs are pretty good short term investments at 200 merits, especially on the Black Market. If 200 merits is something you can put together in a few day's time, these are nice "burst" progress towards a purple or what have you.
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| The market isn't just "more efficient." It's an order of magnitude, at least, more efficient for earning the high-level rewards that IO's are supposed to be. Which I don't believe is a healthy state for a game. I also believe that it is not a good sign for a game when we see posts, month after month, of "things are too expensive." |
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| People are coming to the forums, signing up, and posting JUST on that issue. I'm certain that the prices ont he market don't earn any good word-of-mouth recommendations from people: "it's a great game, but only the really rich characters can afford the good stuff, and prices are outrageous. Don't bother with it." |
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
I wanted to address this separately.|
Originally Posted by Lakanna
McFly: are you seriously saying that if they created a "gold" set,t hat offered no extra bonuses, but was 10 times as rare as purples, that they would go for as much on the market? it isn't the RARITY the most players care about, it's the EFFECT. Which is why I disagree in principle with the WoW mentality of making the best stuff ultra-rare in the first place, but that's an entire other post.
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Consider one of the common standpoints on why pervasive powerleveling is bad for the game. If you can race to 50 easily, the theory is that many players will consider the game too easy, get bored and leave. There are a lot of counter arguments that can be made, but this is pretty much an industry-wide view in MMOs, and it's shared here.
"Loot" is an alternate progress to leveling. Really kick-*** loot is analogous to getting to level 50. New, more kick-*** loot is kind of like gettng a new level cap. Just like with XP, the devs don't want everyone getting access to the best loot easily, because it is there to be something they are to strive for. The more powerful it is, the longer it's to take, much like reaching level 50.
What you seem to be asking for is a new paradigm in MMOs. That's fine, but the question one has to ask is: is there a compelling reason for our devs to try it?
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
Please don't take what I'm going to say here in the wrong way but if you think that you couldn't have reasonably done so with out the market I would have to point out that you are incorrect and there are many resources that you didn't use for one reason or another.|
Originally Posted by Lakanna
If I had NOT crafted recipes I bought, had not memorized the level 50 common recipes just to turn my junk salvage into profit, had not learned to use the market, I would still be working on my first purple set, and not a chance I would have everything else I wanted for it. The market isn't just "more efficient." It's an order of magnitude, at least, more efficient for earning the high-level rewards that IO's are supposed to be. Which I don't believe is a healthy state for a game. I also believe that it is not a good sign for a game when we see posts, month after month, of "things are too expensive." People are coming to the forums, signing up, and posting JUST on that issue. I'm certain that the prices ont he market don't earn any good word-of-mouth recommendations from people: "it's a great game, but only the really rich characters can afford the good stuff, and prices are outrageous. Don't bother with it."
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1) If you are a member of a large super group you could have traded items amongst those members.
2) If you are a member of a large coaltion you could have traded items amongst those members.
3) If you are a member of a (or several) large global chat channels on your server of choice you could have traded among those members.
4) You could have used the market forum for both WTB and WTS or trade even type transactions.
Had you done those things it could have potentially gone faster for you than using the market.
The reason that the market is THE most efficient way to get the IOs that you want is that it allows you to broaden your customer base by several magnitudes.
1) You can trade with players who are in different zones from you.
2) You can trade with players who aren't in the groups that you game or chat with.
3) You can trade with players who aren't on the same server that you are.
4) You can trade with players who live in different countries from you or have a different schedule from you even when one of you isn't on line.
5) You can exchange something that has no in game effect (influence) for something that does (enhancements).
The market is even better for the players who have less time to play than it is for those that have more time to play because you can buy and sell during those long stretches where you are off line.
The market also consumes some time so there is a time/reward mechanic involved. It is rather more akin to rested XP than anything else.
It allows you to earn inf while off line so it can be kind of seen as rested influence.
The problem with trying to do something other than the market for trades is that any other system would reduce your chances to get what you want rather than increase it. No other system is going to be as effective at doing the 5 above things. That more than any thing else is the reason that self determination of drops from merits and tickets is bad and it had quite the negative effect of raising prices rather than lowering them.
Every time 200 merits is spent buying a specific recipe 9 pool C recipes, that could have been used by someone else, failed to come into existance. This raises prices as people become more and more impatient.
Tickets did the same thing to common and uncommon salvage prices, Purple prices, and costume and respec recipes.
The sticker shock problem that you site would be easy to dispense with too. It's only unreachably expensive because the numbers are large. If the devs dropped every thing having to do with inf by decreasing the numbers 1000 fold people wouldn't perceive it as such a problem. (Ie: inf rewards at 1/1000 th of what they are now and people sitting on 2 billion inf are now only sitting on 2 million and do that across the board on every item). The perception of sticker shock would be gone.
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| And for those who think the devs should not pay attention to the market, that's as funny as saying the government should stay out of Medicare. The market is a part of the game, adn currently the ONLY part of the game that can ensure regular progress to IO's, which are often described as end-game content. It would be irresponsible of the devs to NOT keep a close eye on the market and how it is being used, especially by the small group that uses it so well that they can bypass all other game content except to PL a character to 50 and instantly purple it out. There are regular posters here who COULD do this easily. Rewards for using the market are out of line with rewards in the entire rest of the game. And I really don't think there is a way to change that that doesn't massively disrupt the market. So either the devs leave it alone with its broken reward rate, or they make changes that would benefit the playerbase as a whole (at least, those who want IO'd characters) and probably implode the market. |
And as an FYI I do think that the government should stay out of medicare. Any time the government takes over or creates something of that sort so many resources are wasted it's not even funny.
The government doesn't have to worry about making a profit nor does the government have to worry about waste (though they should) and costs to do the same thing on the private side would easily be 1/2 to a third lower than what it costs when the government is in charge mainly because they don't have to be responsible managing the money.
No matter what you will have players that do better than other players no matter what the subject. A fire/kin is going to outproduce a FF/elec.
A player with better twitch reflexes is going to do better than a player without.
A player with a better computer and a faster ISP is going to do better.
A player that has been playing the game for 48 months will probably be doing better than a player that has been playing it for 3.
A player that is color blind or deaf may do worse than players that are not.
A player that is handicapped by having only one hand may do worse than a player that has 2 hands.
Players that are interested in, and take the time to PvP, will do better at PvP than those that don't.
Players that are interested in, and take the time to use the market, will do better than those that don't.
You can't "normalize" basic differences in our humanity with out destroying it. You can't "normalize" power sets or the market without doing the same thing.
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
i think lakanna suffers from the same sickness that the OP has... it is the dreaded IWANTITNAO...as expressed by this quote...
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while i think they understand the way to make money, i don't think they understand how to use that money. i also think alot of people fail to realize that when the AE came outpeople stopped doing regular farm missions and therefore ceased to produce purple drops. now that people are doing regular farm missions again i have noticed an increase in purples on the market and a slow drop in the prices of said purples.| ...are far more patient than I. |
just because you have a 50 doesn't mean it has to be fully kitted out right away. this gives time to plan out the build thoroughly and make sure it is what you want without wasting a ton of respecs.
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So Far:|
Originally Posted by SwellGuy
I wonder how many threads whining about purples the OP will bring us?
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Whining about Purples - 2
Rehashing Base Love - 1 (although no complaints)
Frustrated with the Pay Base Rent/Power Control Bug (base won't reactivate) - 2
While this poster may not have a firm grasp of the market or economics, I do feel for their frustrations in other areas such as Bases.
Hopefully, the OP will find the answers he seeks and adapt his views to be more in accordance with the realities around him.
Comic and Hero/Villain Culture
Saturday January 29th, 2005 (12:37 PM) ~ Monday August 9th, 2010
Those Who Lived It Will Remember Long after your Ban Hammer Crumbles and the servers flicker dead.
We Will Remember This One Moment In Time! ~ Shadow Ravenwolf
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Wrong. The Market is currently the easiest way to get Ultra-rare IOs. Nothing more. By saying "adn currently the ONLY part of the game that can ensure regular progress to IO's" you are intentionally misrepresenting the issue, making it look like that the only way to get IO's at all is by marketeering. Please stop.|
Originally Posted by Lakanna
And for those who think the devs should not pay attention to the market, that's as funny as saying the government should stay out of Medicare. The market is a part of the game, adn currently the ONLY part of the game that can ensure regular progress to IO's, which are often described as end-game content.
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Originally Posted by Lakanna
McFly: are you seriously saying that if they created a "gold" set, that offered no extra bonuses, but was 10 times as rare as purples, that they would go for as much on the market? it isn't the RARITY the most players care about, it's the EFFECT.
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Sure, mechanical benefits are part of the appeal, but it is not all of it. The thing is, most people feel that if they spend more time and effort playing a game, they should be rewarded in some way for it. Some people like mechanical rewards and other people like rewards that improve their social status (badges, costume pieces). Purple sets, by virtue of rarity and power are designed to satisfy both camps.
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Originally Posted by Lakanna
Which is why I disagree in principle with the WoW mentality of making the best stuff ultra-rare in the first place, but that's an entire other post.
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| I also believe that it is not a good sign for a game when we see posts, month after month, of "things are too expensive." People are coming to the forums, signing up, and posting JUST on that issue. I'm certain that the prices ont he market don't earn any good word-of-mouth recommendations from people: "it's a great game, but only the really rich characters can afford the good stuff, and prices are outrageous. Don't bother with it." |
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You know, I wasn't going to address the Gold Sets thing, but I have to say, I'd forgotten about this phenomenon, and I absolutely agree. From what I saw, at their peak popular costume pieces were selling for around 20M inf, back at a time when things like LotGs:R and Miracle+ uniques were about 40M inf. So you could pay for two costume pieces or buy a Miracle +Recovery - back when level 50s could not produce Miracles, meaning they were significantly more rare than they are today.|
Originally Posted by SlyGuyMcFly
Actually they would. Provided these Gold Sets loudly informed anyone and everyone that said character had a Gold Set. If you want proof of this, look at what happened when the Costume Recipes first came out: They where expensive. Then the devs upped the drop rate, more and more people started getting the previously super-rare costume pieces and now nobody gives two ***** about them.
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That's pretty compelling.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
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I thought there was a cap.
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Originally Posted by Chaos Creator
There is a limit: 2 billion inf.
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First, you need to define "realistic" in regards to buying IO sets. Absolutely no alternative method introduced by the devs has been what I would consider as "realistic" in terms of allowing characters to completely bypass the market. Instead, they function as pressure valves which allow enterprising players to pick and choose the best methods. For example, buy cheap, highly available items on the market, buy items with radically high market prices with merits, buy rare salvage with tickets, etc. However, using merits or tickets exclusively to try to outfit your characters, while likely faster than relying on random drops, is still a fairly epic process which the market would beat out.
Why would the devs want things to work that way?
Because random drop rates control the average injection of these "carrots" into the game system, and a trade mechanism is the only way for randomly distributed goods to find their way from people who get them to people who actually want them (assuming someone who gets a drop doesn't also want it).
Any system that truly bypasses this random distribution + market delivery channel mechanism on a per-player basis is, almost by definition, going to be more efficient at collecting these goods than the devs would find desirable. This is because if such bypass mechanisms allow each character to focus on obtaining exactly what they want without regard to the rest of the game system. It provides and excellent channel for min/maxing with reduced focus on benefit to the general community.
Remember, the devs are extremely likely to view the rate at which players in general can "IO out" their characters very similarly to how they view the speed with which people can reach level 50. It behooves them to limit it, and so they don't want it to be too fast or easy.
Beyond any dev concern for balancing these market alternatives, there is a player-based consideration. The balance between using the market and alternatives like merits presents a rather classic prisoner's dilemma. Market alternatives risk being good enough that players abandon the market to focus on them, even though having enough people involved in the market actually keeps everyone involved improving faster than the market alternative. But the market is unpleasant to risk-averse or just concept-opposed players, so that has to be balanced in the picture or these people will jump on the alternative bandwagon even when it is a meaningfully inferior option. This is a self-reinforcing spiral - people leave the market, it becomes less attractive, so more people leave, and so on.
So the devs don't want the market alternatives to be too good beyond a point, and the market users don't want them to be both inferior to the market and yet close enough that lots of people bail on the market.
So, you see, people who don't want market alternatives aren't always looking out for themselves in the sense of wanting to keep control. We recognize an open market as one of the most efficient mechanisms for redistributing goods to all players when those goods have an overall supply is managed by the devs for reasons that have little to do with the market itself.
1: The devs are regulating the reward rate. From what we've seen, the devs are regulating the rate of reward specifically on tickets and merits, but recipe drop rates haven't changed, with the exception of costume drops, since they were put into the game. I think purples especially have a drop rate that is far too low to begin with, but saying something like that int he market forum brings out the people SCREAMING about them being "ultra-rare." The devs seem to not care about the market prices of things.
2: A free, unregulated market helps everyone. Not entirely true. I know that price caps are a terrible, terrible idea, but an alternate source of recipes that can bring prices down, AND provide a straight-up INF sink, would serve everyone well, except those who make billions of INF by flipping market slots.
3: The market is intended to be as efficient as it is. I Seriously doubt the developers envisioned level 5 characters with hundreds of millions of INF just from playing the market. They seem to be all over the risk and reward ratio for normal gameplay, but marketeering is a niche that generates massive profits for zero risk. I think that's one of the definitions of "aberrant gameplay" that they take issue with if it were anything but the market. The only real way I can see to bring it back in line is to make it less profitable, which means increasing supply. Higher drop rates, or an alternate supply of recipes. Anything else will mean that the market will continue to be aberrant, high-reward, no-risk gameplay. And that's exactly how many people want it.
BTW: I agree completely that no other system so far has provided a reasonable way to achieve goals that include slotting set IO's. The market is really the only way to do it within any realistic timespan, which is what I really dislike. You MUST use the market if you want IO's, there is no other realistic way to do things.
119088 - Outcasts Overcharged. Heroic.