A small change with a big impact?

Wouldn't it be a lot easier for the devs to just increase the drop rate of respec recipes?

It is not just the cost, but the time it takes to respec. I wouldn't go through the hassle of respec just so I could throw some lvl 35 doctored wounds on the market.

You must do respecs very differently from me then. For me a respec happens once, perhaps twice in a characters life time.

I usually level it up using commons, or cheap frankenslotting and perhaps a few top end IOs that I know that they will be keeping like a -KB, or a Numinas, Miracle or steadfast res/def.

Once I've played it long enough to

A) decide I'm keeping it and

B) decide which powers and synergies I like/want.

I plan my final build from there and start saving up recipes and IOs for the end build.

Once I hit 50 I respec and slot the permanent IOs. I usually don't respec again after that.

All of my toons have all their vet respecs, and only 2 have used a respec trial respec. Otherwise it's all been free specs that have been given out with every issue.

To date I've sold all the respec recipes that I have received as drops.

Part of the point to the current system is to act as an influence sink for people with tons of IOs. If the devs were willing to give you the proceeds, they would also have allowed you to sell them.

At best the devs might accept redemption at the intrinsic cost of the enhancements; i.e. something near the value of the recipes for them at the stores. But the point to the suggestion was wondering if a system that added supply to the market that also obeyed the devs current design constraint to not allow people to fully profit from those extra IOs (without significant effort and extra expense) was still agreeable.

The suggestion also creates opportunities to prevent flooding: if Dr.B gets too many of certain kinds of enhancements and the supply reaches a critically high level, Dr.B could be programmed to destroy them to prevent the market from being oversupplied.

I'm just thinking out loud: I don't know if the devs would go for such a system, or if they did if its practical to implement, because I'm not sufficiently familiar with the implementation of the markets. But the notion of market makers for certain items has always struck me as an interesting one to pursue in general. Perhaps ironically, possibly the best way to implement this idea would be with an in-game marketeering bot.

I tend to level a toon to 50, build it to its maximum potential, then move onto something else. When I run out of room I strip my least favorite builds of their top-shelf IO's and delete the toon along with 50-60 "good" IO's. Even with my 3 vetspecs, if I use one or two leveling up, thats not many open slots to grab IO's to put onto the market.

I'm not kidding myself into thinking that this is a big enough issue for the Dev's to really to put that much time and money into. That is why I liked my idea of enhancements just becoming unlockable, it would be an easy (easier) fix than any other way, that I could think of, to get those enhancements back onto the market. I don't really believe it is a big issue, rather a small and easy way to help supply the market.

Considering you recently tried to sell a Glad armor unique for 3-4 billion, I can see why you're so desperate to defend the OP's idea.

Have a lot of PvPIOs you need stripped?

I could get behind a "quick respec" system which would allow you to shuffle around powers and slots without having to train up from level 1, but I think one of the reasons we can't have a system like that is because the game doesn't keep track of when you place slots, only when you pick powers.

Currency is incredibly common in this game, yes. It's just that the majority of people who say "I WANT THIS NOW AND DON'T WANT TO PAY THAT MUCH" don't realize how common it is, or how easy it is to make. If everyone did, there'd be no reason to ask for the system the OP is wanting.

I'm going to guess you've never tried to pull every valuable IO off a character. I don't mean just ten, or just a few, I mean every one. I can only take ten at a time off, so I need to respec once, pull out ten, and make sure to keep my build similar enough to how I had it so I can slot all the remaining IOs. Then I do it again, until I have all the stuff off. That's not a "3 minute" process. Meanwhile, I need to shuffle the IOs I'm getting off to alts or base storage bins. Again, that takes time.

Right - inf is yet another time sink. Let's carry your argument out: the only difference between a level 1 and a level 50 is a few million XP. So they're really the same thing, without having to spend lots of time gaining that XP, right? I mean, let's take away the necessity to earn XP, so everyone can have free 50s!

Anyone can afford "to do this now" if they take a few minutes to read and get educated on the way the system works. It's really not that hard. I haven't done any serious marketeering in over a year and a half and I still make a billion inf a week on average so that shoots your "only the marketeers can do this!" theory right in the foot. If people want to toss IOs around all willy-nilly, they can do that right now, it just takes a bit of effort to do.

You actually are on a "down with marketeers" rant. Well, either that or the whole thing is just one big conspiracy theory by a bunch of collaborating marketeers who are sitting around rubbing their hands saying "Yesssss, let's keep all the inf for ourselves, to hell with everyone else." That this very forum exists is direct counterproof to your example - when I13 was coming out, lots of marketeers (myself included) said "Okay, merits would make me rich based on my playstyle, but it's going to hurt the market as a whole and the 'casual player' is going to get the worse end of this." All the "how to make inf" guides are just the marketeers looking for ways to benefit themselves, right? Nevermind the fact that many niches and market strategies are dependent on people remaining ignorant, which makes posting these guides directly in opposition of the marketeers' "interests."

So, again... this idea is nice in theory but it'll never happen because it wouldn't work well in practice. See my bit about "free 50s" for the reasoning behind this - if you take away the stick and just give people the carrot, they're going to complain every time the stick comes back around.

@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."

Do you really think this change would make everything that available? I don't; I just think it would help make some mid-level IO's more aquireable, as well as getting the good but not great IO's more aquireable.

It would make everything more aquireable - that's part of the problem with it. Lots of this game's players have altitis: they'll play something for a while and then go on to something new, oftentimes never touching the old character unless they log it in for badges or something. If they want to IO those characters, they need to invest the time and inf into doing so for each individual character. With your proposal, they wouldn't, and they'd have no real need for the market as a purchasing tool. While the example you quoted might be a bit extreme, I don't think it's that far off base - when people have a few of each of the types of IOs they commonly use, they'll simply shuffle IOs between characters as they see fit (basically, as a particular character becomes their "main"). Would be interesting for those who keep a stable of characters, though. Basically, after a certain point, people would simply stop using the market because they'd already have access to all the IOs they could possibly want.

For a real-life in-game example of this, hop over to the test server and check out the market there: it's pretty much dead and prices are rock-bottom on most things, because people IO characters there by copying loot over from their characters on live. When I PvP'd on test (or was trying out level-bumped characters during closed betas), for example, it was nice to have essentially infinite amounts of enhancements to tweak a build exactly as I pleased. The devs have pretty much come out and said that copying IOs over from live to test is just the way the system works, and they're okay with it for testing purposes (heck, they even go so far as to recommend testing a respec on the test server before actually committing on live).

@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."

The high priced "game-breaking" IO's are already jumped from character to character. Its the wasted mid-priced IO's that I hate deleting or sitting on unused toons. I think a better system would be a "quick respec" (like mids) and that any unslotted non-generic enhancements get dumped on the market.

A system like that seems (I have a general lack of programming knowledge) to have a lot of work involved, along with bringing up certain other issues. That is why I proposed that enhancements just become unlocked. Personally I would still buy the mid-priced stuff because it would be too much of a hassle to move that stuff around. Like i've said before I doubt anything would be done about it, I just wanted to promote discussion on an idea that I thought could help the midrange market.

Fulmens mid-level project is what got me to thinking about other ways of increasing the mid-level IO market. I believe it's sad that a number of players actively have to lock down toons to even create a supply.

If the devs rumored mail system comes into existence in GR, then I can never see this idea coming into reality.

Having enhancements unlocked with such a system would indeed make it stupidly easy to move stuff from one character to another. I personally would never use the market again. I would never buy anything or sell anything. EVER. And there would be no point to inf.

Between all my IO'd out 50s I have every recipe I'd ever need. If other vets did this that would hurt the game for new players, as the best IOs would never get onto the market. There would be no need to sell them, as there would be no need to buy anything. Anyone new coming into the game would have a harder time IOing out there toons.

This is a bad idea just based on that alone.

I'll stop there.

EDIT: Even without the mail system, I can still pretty much move IOs and inf around CURRENTLY very easily. If enh were unlocked I'd never use the market even NOW with the current lack of a mail system.

Is that so ? As of late I have been timing how long it takes me to do things with a stopwatch, I also put marks into my chat logs for other things.

An initial stripper respec , takes me about 10 minutes, subsequent strips take about 8. That is under situations where I don't care what the final build is and I can be completely insane about power picks.

So to completely strip a character and store the IOs for later use (assumes 5 respecs) takes about 1 hour. This includes things like making the decision on what the IO priorities are, time spent zoning back and forth to jack in galaxy etc.

Anyway if the goal is to provide supply a store selling recipes at somewhere between 5 and 10 times the a longterm average would accomplish this far more easily, and provide a much needed inf sink.

Missing the point completly again. This isn't about the IO's being moved from charecter to charecter, its about the wasted IO's, that will never be placed on the market again. I can already move the desirable IO's fairly easily.

A respec is currently going for 150 million redside. So the total sales from selling IO's that I pull off of a toon has to equal around 170 million for a small profit. Any IO's that are on my build worth less than 17 million stay there, wasted IO's that could be dropped on the market. I dont even care that much about making a profit my problem is that these IO's that can be valuable to someone get completly ignored. If I make a profit along the way great.

I liked Arcanaville's idea better than mine. I just don't believe the devs would put that much time into such a small issue. I provides an inf sink, supplies the market and puts the IO's to use. Provided it brings up other issues. If anyone has a better idea I'm more than welcome to suggestions on what could be done with the extra IO's.



Edit: I thought neg rep was for having questionable behavior, not merely suggesting an idea someone disagrees with?

Not disagreeing with this, but it's due to a series of changes in the game over the last two years or so:

* Less debt - leveling faster
* Patrol XP - leveling faster
* XP curve changes - leveling faster
* Levels 1-24 XP adjustment - leveling faster
* Inf "bug fix" for level 50s - more inf generated at 50
* Merit/ticket rolls based on your level rather than a chosen level - more max-level supply generated

Many people predicted merits would have this "squeeze" effect - supply would concentrate at particular levels (in this case, mostly max-level for a given set) and market movement at levels below that would be sluggish or non-existent. And hey, that's what happened. It's another case of the devs saying "We MUST fix this behavior in our playerbase!" without really thinking about the far-reaching consequences.

Basically, the problem is that due to changes to the market, the earning potential of 50s, and the leveling speed of lowbies through the mid levels, people just aren't spending enough time in the low and mid levels to generate the kind of supply that we've got at 50. Combine that with the fact that people can hoard merits as long as they want so long as they have the inventory space (as opposed to immediately doing a roll upon completion of content), and you've got our current market situation.

@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."

While your analysis may be true, it doesn't apply to me. I'm a farmer. I have only dabbled in Marketeering. I earn my Inf from farming and selling in order to twink my chars. I have around 20 chars fully twinked with purples and such, and another 25 or so who could benefit from easy IO transfers. If this change was implemented, I'd be able to stop farming and do something else. Maybe leave the game because I've done everything else. I have no vested interest in maintaining the status quo with respect to the Market. So rather than analyzing WHY I am for or against the idea, why not analyze the idea itself as I have. Of course you could always turn around and find some reason why farmers would be against this idea, but then I'd have to question why you are so in favor of it.

You claim this is a QoL fix, but it is not. It would make the game massively easier. If you could unslot IOs to transfer them to alts, friends or SGmates, then everyone would be running around with the best gear in the game. You may think that would be great for players, and a lot of people may agree with you, but a lot of you would get bored and leave the game if that happened. The Devs know that, and that's WHY we have Ultra-Rare items in the game. It has to do with motivation, emotional investment, perceived worth, and various other psychological phenomena.

I've been doing a lot of PUG TFs recently on Infinity. During one someone said, "I remember when TFs used to be hard." IOs have given us back everything taken away by ED and GDN. I regularly find multiple people capable of soloing the TF (spawned for the full team) till the AV at the end, and some could even do that. Damage is up, Defense is up, END use is down. But that's because people have spent a lot of time and effort to acquire the best Enhancements in the game. Give that carrot to everyone and there's one less thing to work for, and one less thing keeping us in the game. And this change really would make the best gear in the game available to everyone.

You must enjoy farming immensely if that is why you are still here. Or, have I misinterpreted and its something else ?

and....we'd find new ones, just like we've done every time a rule change shook up the status quo.

what's your point?

His point is, since he can't fight the reasons fundamental to your disagreement, and feels he has the weight of righteousness on his side, his only recourse is to demonise all contrary opinion as being part of an immoral department of self-interested and self-invested conspirators who follow the conspiratory trend of being somehow both sophisticated supergeniuses capable of keeping a thousand plates spinning and at the same time, complete retards unable to adjust to minor shifts in the marketplace. In essence, he is engaging in argumentum ad hominem.

Those who can't do, complain.

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