Wentworths/Black Market, in game 'economy'
By
Adeon Hawkwood,
Posted on: 2009-11-18 24:50 in Suggestions and Ideas
Certain PvP IOs are selling for 2billion apiece. What sort of suggestions are you looking for?
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No.|
Originally Posted by Super_B_EU
This isn't more a suggestion on my part more fishing for a suggestion/improvement, anyway:
Does anyone else feel that the cost of certain things in WW/BM are making certain aspects of the game more & more inaccessible to certain people? |
See, those items are available to everyone. The people who put them up get them from the same place I do (drops, merits, etc.) WW/BM is for the impatient.
Why do those items cost several hundred million? Because people will bid that. Yes, in part it's due to people *listing* that high - but on the other hand, the last time I got a purple, I listed it for 10 inf and got 100-some million. Whose "fault" is it that that sold for that much?
You can spend one of two things to get the items - INF, or time. How patient are you?
The whole point of having "loot" in the game, and having it at different levels of effectiveness and availability, is to provide a goal for people. If you aren't willing to put in the effort to get the best gear in the game, then okay. I'm not, and I get that.
What I do have, I didn't farm for. I worked at it. And I still have a bunch of characters with SOs that function just fine at all levels. They're not crazy killing machines, but I didn't but the effort into them to earn that.
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
You (the OP) are making the fatal error of examining a market as if it was a store.
It is not, it is a market.
High prices are a problem at a store, as you (generally) only buy there.
High prices are significantly less of a problem at a market as you both buy and sell there. In fact every single sale on the markets here is a transaction that is both a purchase and a sale to a player, and meets the sellers minimum accepted price.
You may not wanty to pay say 100 million inf for an IO, but there are others who do and enough people willing to accept that 100 million with a happy smile on their face.
The easiest way to afford what you want to buy, is to sell enough of other things to pay for it.
Check the market guides for easy ways of making inf.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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You do not have to use the IO system and the only place where the power level of IOs really makes a difference is solo (or very small teams) anyway. Even then you only really notice if you're cranking up the difficulty (and frankly powerset selection makes a lot more difference than enhancements even then).|
Originally Posted by Super_B_EU
It's all very well saying you don't have to use the recipe system, but the sad truth is.. you do. I mean if you didn't everyones build would be essentially the same & it would probably render certain powersets obsolete for certain tasks both PvE & PvP..
Not to mention I bet it would make some people feel pretty useless if they are on the same team with a character with the same powersets, one decked out with the most expensive IO's - the other having SO's.. one would be far superior than the other at every task. |
On a large team you do not notice performance differences between IO'd and non-IO'd builds. In a team environment buffs and debuffs very quickly outstrip the performance of IO bonuses. For example, my blaster has a moderate amount of ranged defense (~26% IIRC) through IOs and on a team this is virtually irrelevant. I'm not planning to be shot at a lot in the first place and suppose the team has a FF defender? He alone will take everyone to the soft cap on defense (not to mention that carrying a few lucks around can boost defense a lot anyway).
The only IO bonus that I can think of that isn't easily overwhelmed by buffs is Recharge. A perma-hasten build will have something like 180% recharge (including IOs and Hasten) whereas even Adrenalin Boost only adds 100% recharge and Speed Boost adds a measly 50%. Even then the bonus isn't as significant as it looks, the primary benefit of more recharge on a team is to get powerful team buffs (RAs, AM, ML etc.) up for more time and unless you keep a stopwatch to time how often the emp kicks off an RA you're unlikely to notice the difference.
When it comes to team building selection of ATs and Powersets matters a lot more than IOs. If I was told that my team could have either a Rad defender with SOs or an Empath with a purpled out IO build I'd take the Rad every single time. Yes a Rad with IOs would be slightly more powerful than a Rad with SOs but I am unlikely to either notice and don't particularly care.
Everything you do in the game that earns XP, earns $Inf.
Honestly, without doing anything even remotely like "Farming" or "Marketeering", I've noticed that just by selling all my drops at "sell it now" rock-bottom prices, I've made way more (several times more!) from sales of drops than by the $Inf dropped directly from foes. I have characters that have done that who have earned 300 million, plus a build slotted out in upper-medium sets but haven't earned more the 10-14 Million in direct $Inf dropped from foes (measured by badge progress).
*Disclaimer: Recipes that were obviously Vendor Trash (i.e. extremely low-demand) I sold to vendors.
If it seems that prices for everything are too high for your tastes, remember that prices are high for your sales as well. Go hunt some more pixellated pinatas and see what juicy loot falls out. It's not hard.
If you want to see lower prices at the Market, the only way to do it for more than a few hours would be for drop rates to increase, or for a high percentage of players to change thier gaming styles. When an event occurs, players flock to it, and drops for that critter(s) goes down rapidly in price.
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Technically no. The design of IO drop is that everyone can get it if they play. A lot of the stuffs can be acquired solo, and you can buy anything from the market.|
Originally Posted by Super_B_EU
Does anyone else feel that the cost of certain things in WW/BM are making certain aspects of the game more & more inaccessible to certain people?
|
Practically yes, because the more you play, the more you get. Therefore, if you don't play a lot or don't play in the "optimal" way to maximize your profit, you'll find that it'll take you forever to achieve certain goals, although you'll eventually get there.
However, asking in the forum probably won't get you anywhere. There are people who enjoy the current system and the market, and have a sense of achievement for being able to do something that other people can't. This is always a problem for a system with items, as there are always people who can get the good stuffs, and there are some who feel that they are under-achieving.
This has been discussed many many times in the past. The IO system is something for level 50s to spend their time to further improve themselves. Therefore, it is intended that equipping your character with IO sets to be time consuming. I think the issue here is how time consuming it should be. From the dev point of view, I bet it should take forever such that you'll pay their salary forever.
In my opinion, something which is a billion is a bit too much. I prefer the expensive stuffs to sit around 100 mil, then IO-ing a character with all the expensive stuffs can be done in a reasonable amount of time. However, this is only me, other people will have different opinion.Quote:
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Originally Posted by Super_B_EU
Why don't you just avoid using the IO/Recipe system?
It's all very well saying you don't have to use the recipe system, but the sad truth is.. you do. I mean if you didn't everyones build would be essentially the same & it would probably render certain powersets obsolete for certain tasks both PvE & PvP.. Not to mention I bet it would make some people feel pretty useless if they are on the same team with a character with the same powersets, one decked out with the most expensive IO's - the other having SO's.. one would be far superior than the other at every task. |
There are some expensive builds. It depends on the situation, sometimes it makes a difference between heaven and hell, for example perma-dom and an ordinary dom. Some builds are just expensive for some minor improvements.
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I know where you're coming from, I've been there. You have to adjust your mindset. You can get anything you want by not wanting things you can't get.|
Originally Posted by Super_B_EU
Does anyone else feel that the cost of certain things in WW/BM are making certain aspects of the game more & more inaccessible to certain people?
|
Sounds stupid, right? Well, I have lots of characters and all of them have IOs. I have four or five characters with a single purple set each (mostly low-demand Stun or similar sets). Out of dozens of characters I have not one Luck of the Gambler: +Recharge or full Numina sets. I don't want those things, so I don't have a problem.
I do, however, have a lot of characters that are fun to play. Many of these characters can solo +0/x8 missions (including some defenders). I don't make single dimensional characters that can totally decimate one particular type of mobs on one particular map. I make characters that are tough, can solo and play on teams, and do all the things I want to do.
I try to be as self-sufficient as possible, and find it fun to build characters as cheaply as possible. I don't gimp characters by picking useless powers that serve as mules for expensive procs, or just to get an extra 3.13% ranged defense (however, I'm one of the seemingly few people who consider Stuns and Sleeps to be useful). If I need lots of recharge, I'll get it by taking Hasten and finding recharge bonuses in uncommon and rare IO sets. I don't even consider trying to get LotG: recharges.
If the price of rare salvage is outrageous, I'll run missions in AE for tickets and use them to get the salvage. If I need a bunch of uncommon recipes for making a second build, I'll run a lot of AE and use the tickets on Bronze rolls. That'll get me a bunch of recipes that I need, some that I can sell for tens of millions on the market, and a lot of junk that I'll just vendor.
What you do need is patience. You can get most rare or uncommon items you want on the market within your budget -- if you wait long enough. You may have to take an IO at a lower level than you really want, or make some other compromise. But ED often makes such things irrelevant.
As others have mentioned, prices are high because some players are impatient and wealthy. It's my guess that a lot of the people who are driving the prices sky-high are farmers who have lots of money and are making special-purpose, single-dimensional farming characters that are optimized to do one thing very well. They need the specific IOs they're going after to make their whole gig fly. Those of us who just want characters that are tough, responsive, pack a good wallop, and play well on teams can build characters 100 times cheaper.
Like any high-performance item, getting the last 1% is the hardest part. Unless you're willing to spend the kind of time the min-maxers are to get that last 1%, you probably won't notice the difference in everyday play.
What Rodion said. The market isn't going to change - it's supply and demand in action. People will pay what they will pay, and if they want it bad enough, they will pay more than you've got. What you can and should change is your own expectations and goals.
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I'd consider myself a hardcore CoHer (It pretty much is the only game I play other than Tekken 6), but even then, I doubt that I'll ever see that much influence or infamy.|
Originally Posted by DumpleBerry
Certain PvP IOs are selling for 2billion apiece. What sort of suggestions are you looking for?
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What is it that I'm not doing right......*runs away crying like a little girl*
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Not farming and/or playing the market.|
Originally Posted by Nightphall
What is it that I'm not doing right......*runs away crying like a little girl*
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The same reason that if I combined all the INF on all my characters, both accounts (side-exclusive, of course,) I doubt I'd hit that - even after a few purples.
Skip the no red/blue trading so one character could have all the inf of all my characters? Maybe one would be near. Maybe.
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The only practical way to get really large amounts of influence in a reasonable timeframe is to either become a marketeer or become a farmer and sell your drops. Of course the really hard part is resisting the urge to buy shiny things. With the decline in AE farming it takes longer but back in it's heyday I made over a billion through marketeering in about 4weeks.|
Originally Posted by Nightphall
I'd consider myself a hardcore CoHer (It pretty much is the only game I play other than Tekken 6), but even then, I doubt that I'll ever see that much influence or infamy.
What is it that I'm not doing right......*runs away crying like a little girl* |
Basically marketeering is the easiest way to make cash. I recently started a new character and with no cash infusions or lucky drops he still has about 60mil at level 20
The other option is simply playing your 50s in normal content.
One of the reasons I have a decent bankroll is that Catwhoorg the character is at about 2000 hours played.
A level 50 through drops and raw inf per defeat vastly outweigh the earnings of other characters.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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No.|
Originally Posted by Super_B_EU
Does anyone else feel that the cost of certain things in WW/BM are making certain aspects of the game more & more inaccessible to certain people?
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Having the best stuff that you want easily accessible is not an aspect of the game.
And as has been pointed out you can get around that stuff easily.
You can get along well without set IOs, and the normal IOs are fully fine and fairly cheap.
(If you dont need them this very minute AND threw away all your salvage)
Yes, since one can level fast now one also gets less drops until one makes it to a certain level, which lowers the drops one gets until one wants a certain thing. Point. But you can still sell, or work for it. You can turn XP off and only collect cash if you must have it at this level.
Possibility of fast leveling is one thing. But being able to level fast AND getting enough drops to buy the rare stuff easily just from selling everything to the NPCs for its token value? No. Clearly not needed.
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No, you don't.|
Originally Posted by Super_B_EU
It's all very well saying you don't have to use the recipe system, but the sad truth is.. you do.
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| Not to mention I bet it would make some people feel pretty useless if they are on the same team with a character with the same powersets, one decked out with the most expensive IO's - the other having SO's.. one would be far superior than the other at every task. |
Shard Warrior - 50 MA/Regen/BM Scrapper
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I think, I kinda understand what the poster is talking about, but do not entirely agree with the poster's conclusion.
I can see if stuff costs a gazillion influence, that many casual players will not be able to afford that ubber IO recipe any time soon. Odds are the poster is as unlucky as I am, and drops in general are extremely rare, so after doing mission after mission there is not much to show for. For instance after doing 3 ITFs at level 50, I never got an invention, received like 7 regular IOs (ACC, Immob, etc), 24 white salvage, and 8 yellow salvage and 1 orange salvage (which was worth thrash). You sell the junket stuff, and can walk away with about 500K influence, which is not too bad, in reality; but its a joke when compared to the prices of desirable stuff. But this is only an unlucky streak. I had in occassion done 3 ITFs walked with 8 valuable orange salavage, yellows and white salvage, 4 purple recipes of all qualities, etc, when I finished selling them I got like 500M influence for my trouble.
At times randomness sucks, thats all I can tell you, normally my luck sucks, but at times Karma finally intervenes.
If you don't want to be too much at the mercy of luck, do TFs and accumulate the merits, then trade the merits for expensive recipes such as Numina Regen/Recov, they sell for nearly 200M. As a norm, this is my prime means of getting the IOs I really need, and making influence. If you do several TFs a day, and alternate them, you would be surprised at how fast those merits accumulate.
I would like for merits and tickets to be able to let you choose purples and pvp recipes as well; of course for a fair price in merits.
Amazingly, despite purples are very very good for power recharge, they are not that good towards capping defense, resistance or other characteristics of note. So despite you can not buy them with merits, the ones that really can turn your character into ubberness, are available.
Hugs
Stormy
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Yes, the enhancement values of IO sets are impacted by ED, but the set bonuses are applied after ED has been calculated. So if you are stuck at +96% damage in that power's enhancements, but have +5% damage in set bonuses (from sets in other powers usually), then that power will strike at +101%.|
Originally Posted by Shard_Warrior
First, IO sets are impacted by ED just as normal SOs. To believe toons with IO set builds are "far superior" is simply not true. This all depends on power selection and slotting. What makes one toon "superior" to another is player skill, not IO sets. Personally, I've teamed with plenty of people who have not a single IO set in their build that do just as well as those with them.
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"far superior"? Well, IO's will give better performance than SO's, but I will not use such subjective terms as that. For your standard attack power's SO slotting of 1 Acc/3Dam/1 Rech/1EndRed, you can do that with a set of L30-ish IO's (from any set without a Proc), get about the same enhancement values and never have to worry about them rotting as you level up. (and get a few minor set bonuses)
Or you can slot the upper L40's version of the same IO set and get let's say 96%ish damage, and 60%+ on each of Acc/Rech/EndRed. Better than what you could get on SO's.
As for your final point of Player Skill being the most important factor?
Yes, I would agree. I never gauge my team-mates by the bonuses listed beneath thier power selections.
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True, set IO % values outperform +3 SOs somewhere around level 40. But that is not the point.|
Originally Posted by BBQ_Pork
Or you can slot the upper L40's version of the same IO set and get let's say 96%ish damage, and 60%+ on each of Acc/Rech/EndRed. Better than what you could get on SO's.
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Standard non-set IOs have the same % values (aside from slight gains when a set IO enhances several stats) and are readily available and really cheap if you can wait a day or two. (As there is a steady supply from those who want the crafting badges and you can buy the recipes at any invention table.)
Yes, IOs are quite a tad better than SOs at level 50, but they dont cost millions. Only a select few set IOs do, and the difference between them (+ bonuses) and the standard IOs can give a character a little more flavour or close the last few seconds you are without Hasten (when not slowed down), but doesnt make or break a hero. (Or villain.)
I'd like to be able to solo GMs and AVs. But they're just too gosh darn hard. So I think that perhaps we should make GMs and AVs more like minions -- that way everyone could solo GMs and AVs.
On a second note, as soon as people stop paying bazillions, the market prices will drop.
It's the people who think that the shiny IOs are so valuable who're driving up the market prices.
The people who are helping to reduce the prices are the people who don't try to buy them for bajillions.
Ask yourselves: "Am I a part of the high price problem? Or am I a part of the high price solution?
Also, thank you very much everyone who buys my drops for bajillions. Preeshiatechya
This isn't more a suggestion on my part more fishing for a suggestion/improvement, anyway:
Does anyone else feel that the cost of certain things in WW/BM are making certain aspects of the game more & more inaccessible to certain people?
Various recipes that originally where somewhat expensive when sitting at about 60/70m are now getting closer & closer to becoming 400m a go... not to mention a few of this new PvP recipes some of which are sitting at over 1B...
Keeping in mind the influence per kill hasn't been increased so how is achieving such high amounts in a reasonable/realistic amount of time unless you have 3 accounts & farm your fingers red raw? Not that there is anything wrong with farming or having more than 1 account... I just feel it is alienating quite alot of people.
Why don't you just avoid using the IO/Recipe system?
It's all very well saying you don't have to use the recipe system, but the sad truth is.. you do. I mean if you didn't everyones build would be essentially the same & it would probably render certain powersets obsolete for certain tasks both PvE & PvP..
Not to mention I bet it would make some people feel pretty useless if they are on the same team with a character with the same powersets, one decked out with the most expensive IO's - the other having SO's.. one would be far superior than the other at every task.
Thats all I got for now..