Freespec = 500 canes; discuss
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2009-11-13 16:04 in The Market and Inventions
I think it'll drive the price of candy canes up rather than the price of respec recipes down (assuming that 500 candy canes costs less than the price of a respec recipe anyway which I think it will). At the same time very few people bother to buy respec recipes anyway, between trials, vet specs and freespecs with most Issues the majority of people have more respecs than they need so I don't think it'll be all that popular.
EDIT: Based on the feedback thread in test it seems like it'll be harder to get candy canes this year.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Miuramir
Based on the Winter Event 2009 test yesterday, one of the things you can buy for candy canes this year is a respec, for 500. Text indicates it counts as a freespec. Standard disclaimer about numbers may change before live, etc.
I don't follow either the respec recipe or the candy cane markets, but I'm curious what this may do to the price of either or both of them. Presumably, there will be at least some price pressure forcing a respec toward the cost of 500 canes; how does that compare to previous events? Which price is likely to do most of the moving? Seems like a potentially interesting discussion, and a chance for those that think they can predict the market to test on an unusual case. |
Minimal its not a recipe you buy as you would a respec recipe, but rather the ability to add a freespec, that won't stack with existing freespecs.
Edit: Trying to think of just what percentage of the population would be interested seems to give me something that looks like the Drake Equation.
Quote:
His point was that it will (potentially) impact the cost of respec recipes since it is a substitute good (i.e. a shopper can buy either one respec recipe or 500 candy canes).
|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
Minimal its not a recipe you buy as you would a respec recipe, but rather the ability to add a freespec, that won't stack with existing freespecs.
Edit: Trying to think of just what percentage of the population would be interested seems to give me something that looks like the Drake Equation. |
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
His point was that it will (potentially) impact the cost of respec recipes since it is a substitute good (i.e. a shopper can buy either one respec recipe or 500 candy canes).
|
It is a very very limited subsitute
The holiday respec applies immediately. The only way you can use it is if you have a character that has used its I16 freespec already or is newer than I16 needs a respec, whose player can't or won't get a regular earned respec for it or needs than three respecs and has insufficient vet specs available.
The above is based on trying to craft a holiday freespec on test with a character that had a freespec already.
I know at least three people who are fairly long-term players who have, on at least one character, burnt all their vetspecs, and some respec-run specs, and several freespecs. (I myself have one character who's gone through... hmm... at least five respecs. Two characters like that. One was started in June '04... I got to level 32 without mez protection on a scrapper, let's just put it that way. )
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Quote:
Yes, I'd agree.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
It is a very very limited subsitute
|
The canes can only be redeemed during the event, right? When it's over, there's no way to get that respec, right? So after January the canes will be useless again, and everything will return to normal. Unless they're planning to put the cane-redeeming elf somewhere in the always accessible universe?
Quote:
That's why I don't think the price of respec recipes will drop. People who actually market them are more likely to take a long term position and hold them until after the event ends. Of course the price of canes will probably go up.
|
Originally Posted by Rodion
Yes, I'd agree.
The canes can only be redeemed during the event, right? When it's over, there's no way to get that respec, right? So after January the canes will be useless again, and everything will return to normal. Unless they're planning to put the cane-redeeming elf somewhere in the always accessible universe? |
the price of canes varies from 10k - 1mil usually during the event and settles around 100k-200k the rest of the year.
At the 100k price, a canespec would cost 50 mil, which really isn't that far off from respecs currently (60-90 mil blueside), and if the price of canes goes up, respecs would then be cheaper.
I am an ebil markeeter and will steal your moneiz ...correction stole your moneiz. I support keeping the poor down because it is impossible to make moneiz in this game.
There is no way I am doing that stupid BNY mission 100 times to get a respec.
Quote:
Well good news then, it no longer awards candy canes! Now you apparently have to do a mini-raid with four GMs to get 20 candy canes.
|
Originally Posted by Laevateinn
There is no way I am doing that stupid BNY mission 100 times to get a respec.
|
Quote:
Try to imagine a cross between Hamidon and Recihsman and you've sort of got an idea of this raid. It takes something like 3 teams or 2 really tuned-up ones to pull it off. Honestly, given those choices on ways to get canes in bulk give me the BNY mish any day.
|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Well good news then, it no longer awards candy canes! Now you apparently have to do a mini-raid with four GMs to get 20 candy canes.
|
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:
Agreed, unfortunately I missed it on test but from reading the comments thread unless they make it easier or do a significant increase in the reward (especially the merit reward) I don't think people are going to do it much which will mean the only Candy Canes are from people opening presents.
|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Try to imagine a cross between Hamidon and Recihsman and you've sort of got an idea of this raid. It takes something like 3 teams or 2 really tuned-up ones to pull it off. Honestly, given those choices on ways to get canes in bulk give me the BNY mish any day.
|
Quote:
And from people who hoarded them from last year's event. [grins ebilly]|
Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood
Agreed, unfortunately I missed it on test but from reading the comments thread unless they make it easier or do a significant increase in the reward (especially the merit reward) I don't think people are going to do it much which will mean the only Candy Canes are from people opening presents.
|
No, that's not it. 
Nope, still not ebil. 
Gah! Who designed these stupid smilies???
Ahh, that's more like it!
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Lohenien
the price of canes varies from 10k - 1mil usually during the event and settles around 100k-200k the rest of the year.
At the 100k price, a canespec would cost 50 mil, which really isn't that far off from respecs currently (60-90 mil blueside), and if the price of canes goes up, respecs would then be cheaper. |
Just from what I remember from last year, I think the elimination of baby new year giving candy canes is going to have a bigger effect on candy cane prices than anything else. I was getting candy canes and powerleveling myself like mad off that mission last year. I can't speak for others but the idea that the winterlord is just a frozen Reichsman on a timer isn't appealing
Edit: Baby new year is still there, he just no longer gives canes.
fewer canes + another desirable thing to spend them on = higher cane prices.
How much higher depends on how easy or hard the new mission is to farm.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Quote:
Seriously, what we saw looked like effort on par with a Hamidon raid. Not quite that bad, since it was actually accomplished with three teams, but it took those three teams time comparable with a Hamidon raid.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
How much higher depends on how easy or hard the new mission is to farm.
|
Honestly, unless your home server doesn't have and can't assemble a Hamidon raid crew, you're going to get a better financial return actually raiding Hamidon unless they way boost the number of canes the "Winter Raid" grants. Hami's 53 merits, and the Winter raid was, I think 20 canes?
The part I think makes this questionable "farming" material is that in order to "farm" this you need the cooperation of around 20-25 other people, minimum. Classical prisoner's dilemma: you can go hang out in the process of trying to kick off a raid, or you can just go do your own thing by yourself and farm presents. Joining a raid helps everyone if it succeeds, but wastes your time if it doesn't, or if it takes too long.
My money is on a big splurge of it to feed the badger frenzy and then very little follow-through.
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:
Pretty sure they still have BNY mishes.|
Originally Posted by B_L_Angel
Just from what I remember from last year, I think the elimination of baby new year is going to have a bigger effect on candy cane prices than anything else. I was getting candy canes and powerleveling myself like mad off that mission last year. I can't speak for others but the idea that the winterlord is just a frozen Reichsman on a timer isn't appealing
|
EDIT: But with the SK changes in I16 it means people won't be blowing through lower-level missions just for the reward.
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
They have them, but they reward no canes.
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
What's happening with the other items you can spend canes on? Auras, badges, costume parts etc. In theory, there's 355 canes worth of stuff to buy per character for anyone who made a new character since last year and wants "everything". Learning what's happening with the badges and costumes will also impact the price of canes.
"Hmm, I guess I'm not as omniscient as I thought" -Gavin Runeblade.
I can be found, outside of paragon city here.
Thank you everyone at Paragon and on Virtue. When the lights go out in November, you'll find me on Razor Bunny.
hmmm i´ve been hoarding canes for winters gift but maybe should sell them.
Quote:
While I'm certainly of the opinion that the event needs some retuning, it's not quite that bad. We won the mission with several minutes to spare redside with less than 2 full teams of completely random people, at least some of which weren't even 50. Admittedly, we had some fire, good debuffs, and enough buff / healing to get by; the blueside try I was on didn't do as well even with slightly over 2 teams because it wasn't as good a mix. |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
The part I think makes this questionable "farming" material is that in order to "farm" this you need the cooperation of around 20-25 other people, minimum. Classical prisoner's dilemma: you can go hang out in the process of trying to kick off a raid, or you can just go do your own thing by yourself and farm presents. Joining a raid helps everyone if it succeeds, but wastes your time if it doesn't, or if it takes too long.
|
I'd guess that a well-organized team of 8 deliberately picked characters could probably handle it; it's probably actually easier than Reichman in some respects, particularly if you've got fire for your DPS. An uber team of AV-soloing toons could probably get by with even less; You probably want 16-20 if you're dealing with pickup teams, though, and I'm seriously concerned that getting enough folks together on lower-population servers after the initial rush will be a problem.
Also note that the "small fry" snow creatures in the winter realm have a chance of dropping canes on defeat. Having even a few minutes to clean up the zone afterward can increase the cane yield significantly; I think I ended up with 29 canes for it all told, although some of those might have been from the initial triggering winter lord. The initial winter lord rewards the usual 2 merits, so a typical return would be 8 merits and about 30 canes for your half hour's work if you can take the real Lord Winter down.
As for preparing... what you do to trigger it is run around and open presents, so it's not like you're just standing around waiting for people to show up to the hive.
Miuramir, Windchime, Sariel the Golden, Scarlet Antinomist...
Casino Extortion #4031: Neutral, Council+Custom [SFMA/MLMA/SLMA/FHMA/CFMA]
Bad Candy #87938: Neutral, Custom [SFMA/MLMA/SLMA/FHMA/HFMA]
CoH Helper * HijackThis
Quote:
ewww. They took another holiday event meant to be done in good spirits and fun and broke it like the halloween one so only Freedom and Virtue on the first week of the event will have Pop. to get anything done!? They didn't get the feedback that everyone hated the halloween event's difficulty and got madder about missing so many badges, etc on so many toons instead of happy for a new type of content |
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Seriously, what we saw looked like effort on par with a Hamidon raid. Not quite that bad, since it was actually accomplished with three teams, but it took those three teams time comparable with a Hamidon raid.
Honestly, unless your home server doesn't have and can't assemble a Hamidon raid crew, you're going to get a better financial return actually raiding Hamidon unless they way boost the number of canes the "Winter Raid" grants. Hami's 53 merits, and the Winter raid was, I think 20 canes? The part I think makes this questionable "farming" material is that in order to "farm" this you need the cooperation of around 20-25 other people, minimum. Classical prisoner's dilemma: you can go hang out in the process of trying to kick off a raid, or you can just go do your own thing by yourself and farm presents. Joining a raid helps everyone if it succeeds, but wastes your time if it doesn't, or if it takes too long. My money is on a big splurge of it to feed the badger frenzy and then very little follow-through. |
? Then of course the other fact that since the event will be so difficult, any toon below the perfect 5-0 won't get a team because they'd be dying and not damaging enough anyway, so lowbie toons will have an extremely hard time getting any holiday rewards./vent lol
10 50's To Date! Check out Titan Sentinel; it got my CoH presence synced online
I'm of the opinion that it takes too much time and coordination for something that's supposed to be a simple distraction. 6 merits and 20 canes (8 merits if you're around for the GM kill before the event) is a puny reward for a 30-minute event that may or may not succeed. Apparently having people farm GMs for two weeks out of every year (four if you count Halloween) is such a terrible occurrence that the system needed to be completely redone to stop it. Who knew?
@macskull, @Not Mac | XBL: macskull | Steam: macskull | Skype: macskull
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
"One day we all may see each other elsewhere. In Tyria, in Azeroth. We may pass each other and never know it. And that's sad. But if nothing else, we'll still have Rhode Island."
Quote:
Sounds like this is getting changed as of tomorrow's testing. Glad I didn't put in more bids for canes last night... Still, the supply won't be as enormous as last year, with SSK to keep things in check - it just won't be gutted.|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
They have them, but they reward no canes.
|
http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showt...54#post2411754
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Based on the Winter Event 2009 test yesterday, one of the things you can buy for candy canes this year is a respec, for 500. Text indicates it counts as a freespec. Standard disclaimer about numbers may change before live, etc.
I don't follow either the respec recipe or the candy cane markets, but I'm curious what this may do to the price of either or both of them. Presumably, there will be at least some price pressure forcing a respec toward the cost of 500 canes; how does that compare to previous events? Which price is likely to do most of the moving? Seems like a potentially interesting discussion, and a chance for those that think they can predict the market to test on an unusual case.
Miuramir, Windchime, Sariel the Golden, Scarlet Antinomist...
Casino Extortion #4031: Neutral, Council+Custom [SFMA/MLMA/SLMA/FHMA/CFMA]
Bad Candy #87938: Neutral, Custom [SFMA/MLMA/SLMA/FHMA/HFMA]
CoH Helper * HijackThis