The Purple Answer

Great post. I like how it touched on how purple demand (probably) went up due to all the PLed toons from AE over the past few months. No doubt a few of them thought purpling out would be just as easy.

I also wonder how much the sense of entitlement is (mistakenly) driven by people who pre-design their builds in Mids and related programs; I can recall seeing only one "rate my build" thread in the ATs section that was done with frankenslotting. One. Ever. Seems they mostly focus on numerous purples and top-rung sets.

Nice post Top Doc. I haven't a single character 'Purpled out' if that's the phrase. Yet all of my 'fully IO'd' characters(seven I think) are rediculously tough. There are a couple of my characters that probably could afford to get a bunch of Purples, but I really haven't needed them.

If you have a specific goal in mind for each character, whether it be Regen, HPs(or a combination of the two), Ranged defense, typed defense, etc...it's relatively easy to do....with minimal time spent playing the market. Purples really aren't needed.

I blew my 1.4 billion my warshade had last night on as many purples as I could get and lacked.

If Synapse is right and we are crazy and the recipe drop rates are fine, I overspent. If the players are right and there is a problem and the recipe drop rates are broken, I probably saved 10 billion influence over the long haul. (This is just comparing it to the PvP recipe situation.)

Yes, great post indeed.

I have to admit, though, that although I recently capped out at the 2 billion mark and so have actually put on a hold on my ebil schemes (plus I also want to wait until the market settles) that the "needy person in me" (for lack of a better phrase) is hoping that the price of purples drop due to the return of players to non-AE content.

That is, I understand and completely agree that purples ARE and SHOULD REMAIN ultra-rare items. (I am just saying, lol, that I am hoping they drop just a bit so I can go on a minor spending spree and outfit one of my character---human nature I guess to want the porsche for cost of a ford).

I sell any purples I get as drops (which is usually in a TF or on Tanker Tuesday) because purples are a complete waste to me. I have 11 50s just laying around taking up space most of the time, so "purpling" them is pointless.

Raising the drop rate of purple sets isn't all that useful, unless you have a love affair with playing 50s. Letting us keep our set bonuses when EX'd with all IO sets, now THAT would be useful.

I agree with all and only have minor disagreement with this:

Quote:

MOST IMPORTANTLY, the Devs set the drop rate. There is absolutely nothing that we as players can do about that.

What the Devs want/do changes. And player input is one of the factors that can change what the Devs want/do. The recent reaction about the drop rate problem is a great example. Wasn't it true that the Devs saw no problem until the players complained...err....added input?

And if there is a specific level of rarity the Devs have in mind for purples then AE made the number lower than what they had in mind. (Because they set the drop rate before AE) I don't think their idea is "no rarity is too much". So a player who complained about purple rarity during recent times had a point.

And we've made the mistake many times of assuming because the Devs hold an opinion once, that means it never changes in the future.

I say all this as a player who has exactly the number of purples I want and have no complaints. (Somehow I've gotten 3 purple drops just this week)

I don't really think the devs want a specific level of rarity. They're happy with a fairly broad range. If the drop rate was still OK for them at the height of AE farming, and is still OK now that players have moved out of AE and back to regular content, then the either their acceptable range is very broad indeed, or they simply don't watch it/don't care.

The current drop rates were set when Purples were introduced, and haven't changed. I'm making an assumption that the devs can check and see how many are in circulation/slotted on characters, and if they have done so, then they must be OK with the drop rate overall.

Oddly, I've gotten more purples while testing the i16 drop bug than since i14 went live. All put up for sale.

I've got 14(?)...15(?) 50s and about only 30 purples among them. Even at today's prices, I could afford several sets across 3 servers, but I don't find them incredibly necessary.

It's got me thinking...if the Devs are okay with the purple proliferation that's sure to come (once the recipe bug fix goes live) then how much are they dialing up the critter (optional?) difficulty in COX:GR?

Great post, but I think if you want it stickied the title of the thread could use some work. Something more generic methinks.

'General information about Purple recipes.'


Perhaps something along those lines. The current title is vauge at best.

I'm just wondering... what powersets to you guys use for your purple farming? Do more people lean towards say a fire/kin troller these days? Something else perhaps? Just curious.

Ok...my ridiculous luck continues. Another purple drop last night. That's 4 this week. And I'm not logging insane hours. If it's a bug I'm going to report it....at some point in the future.

I do strongly suspect that purples will drop significantly in price, back down to the pre-AE prices or perhaps even lower. It is now trivial for 50s to set up +0x8 "farms" from every mission. I don't know much about the drop rate bug and fix, but it sounds like it affected purples and will be fixed "soon". So for everyone that wanted the purple prices to drop, it's probably about to happen or is happening already.

Great post, Doc.