How to solve WW/BM Inflation

This isn't as easy as is sounds, the 2 billion inf limit is close to the maximum possible 32 bit signed integer (2147483648).

Having to go through and check that in every possible case the '$inf variable' is declared correctly in every possible subroutine is certainly a non-trivial matter.

I would be just as happy if the limit wasn't raised. I only suggested it as a way to ammeliorate the screaming of the market manipulator crowd. The 2 billion limit as designed really should be the limit. If the devs choose to raise it, then that's the new limit and should be enforced by the game design and not be possible to exploit around. Storing "safe" bids is an exploit.

1. Reduce Influence - No, I would still like to be able to afford SOs and costume changes during a character's natural progression to 50 without having to resort to the market. The market is supposed to be optional. The earning rate is not the problem. 2 billion influence earned 'naturally' takes a long time. The earning rate and limit are sufficient.

2. Raise Drop Rates - I'm convinced drop rates have been borked since the last issue. In my experience, others' may vary, I have been getting considerably more generics and less set pieces since the last issue. I haven't seen a purple drop since July, again others' experience may vary. Fixing that, if it is indeed a problem, would be nice. It still wouldn't adress the root problem of people being able to exploit the inf limit, which in turn drives up demanded prices from market flippers.

This. Raise drop rates. There, done, prices drop on everything.

One could reduce the ability of level 50s to produce Inf and not affect the ability of other level characters. Do level 50 characters get a bonus to Inf earned? If so, perhaps a reduction in such a bonus is merited.

I am unsure of how to respond to such a statement because I do not comprehend. Could you please provide me with your reasoning so that I may further understand your opinion? Hoe does the Inf cap relate to "drives up demanded prices"? How do "market flippers" factor in?

Level 50s do earn more influence than level 49s. The rate of influence goes up by level, as does the cost of enhancements, costumes, and crafting. Crafting of level 50 IOs is correspondingly expensive. I don't see a need to reduce the earning rate. I believe that would be detrimental to players who do not farm.


Example:

A player has several standing, safe bids on nonexistent recipes for 1 or 2 billion each. This is how he stores excess influence beyond the limit, by exploiting this loophole. As he puts in bids for high amounts on items he wants, he then cashes in bids on the nonexistent recipes, enabling him to bid for yet more, well beyond the 2 billion limit. Rinse and repeat. This allows him to flip purples and other expensive non-purple IO recipes and then resell them at a higher cost. As he cashes in sales he in turn stores the influence to repeat the process. He is able to levereage more currency than a nonexploiting player, giving him more power over controling market forces. The market responds and prices go up.

The loser here are the more casual players. Prices of flipped items are driven higher and higher beyond the ability of the average player to purchase because of the ability of players abusing this exploit.

Certainly a player who does not use this exploit could place an item up for an extravagant price. Likewise that player could bid for several items at high prices cumulatively even beyond the limit as he earns more. However the average player simply cannot compete with those abusing this exploit to leverage more currency.

Additionally, cancelling these exploitative bids on nonexistent items would suck a lot of currency out of the game, doing something to balance the game economy. Given that any such change to the game would have to be tested, players would know about it ahead of time before it came live. Players with such bids would be able, by use of trade from character to character, to prevent the loss of their currency. That is, assuming that all of their characters aren't abusing the exploit and that they had any friends to do the trades for them.

I believe that prices would begin to stabilize. Rare and highly prized items would still command a high price, but not the prices they do today.

If you go solo +0/x8 missions you will almost certainly get at least one purple after 10,000 mobs. You will probably get three to five. It doesn't take as long as you might think.

There was a problem that they fixed with purples dropping. It's possible there are more bugs, but unless you can demonstrate statistically that you're not seeing a purple after 10,000 mobs, I won't believe it. I've probably had a dozen purples drop since they made that fix, around I16 or a little after.

come one Sharker that sounds kinda thin, way more 50's then a year ago when prices were what I would call stable. The game has been out for 5 years it is very unlikely that this many more 50s appeared in the last year then the first 4.

The real reason prices are like this is because of AE that's when everything started to go screwy with the market.

Recently the earning ability of level 50s was significantly raised.
http://wiki.cohtitan.com/wiki/Patch_...-10-14#Rewards

Describes it as "Fixed an issue where Level 50 (level capped) characters did not receive double influence when they exemplared down (with that option selected)" but the effect was an increase even at level 50

and that is where all the new 50's came from. that is what i was saying but forgot to mention the AE.

hmm you may be right lol its kinda late and i still got an stf to run a 2 hours lol

How did you go from "I want to be able to afford SOs as I naturally progress in level" to "I want my 50s to be able to afford IO crafting costs"?

No, it is not an exploit to play the market and make as much infl/inf as you can. However, the cap of what you can have is 2 billion.

Using a bug to have more than that is an exploit. Level 53 recipes do not exist. Those entries in the market are a bug. Using that bug to bypass the inf/inf limit is an exploit, IMO.

You may disagree. That's okay, we'll just disagree. I can't read the devs' minds, that's why I have made this suggestion. If they don't like it or don't have the time to fix it, they will ignore it.

I would like to be able to buy SOs and costumes while I level up.

I would like to be able to craft IOs after I hit 50. If I can do it before, that's nice, too.

I hope these concepts are comprehensible.

But they do exist. That's why they show up on the market. There isn't anything in the game which drops lv53 recipes, but the recipes exist in the game's database.

Seems like you're just trying to move the goalpost, to me.

I'm sorry, I don't understand this opinion. I consider this opinion irrational, flawed, and simply ludicrous. I understand the concept that a person who has money can buy more stuff than a person who has less money. I cannot understand how a seller having more money can force someone to pay more money than they otherwise would. Players can't bid with more money then they have. Sadly, one can only be fleeced, cheated, and robbed for only so much money. Without a system of credit you can only force someone to pay so much. Buying up all the inventory does not guarantee the ability to sell those items at a higher price. My point is that when you say "This allows him to flip purples and other expensive non-purple IO recipes and then resell them at a higher cost" you are simply wrong. It does not allow him to flip purples in such a manner.

My understanding of your conclusion is even more baffling. My understanding is that by forcing players who have 2 billion or more Inf to spend money it would cause prices to fall. Spending more money would cause prices to rise. Money not spent is money not raising prices. Thus, money in bids for non-existent items aren't raising prices. You may attempt to counter with "but more money will flow through the market and thus more Inf would be destroyed". The money would travel to a "Black Market" where players trade off the market and do not pay any fees. Example of players trading off market. Your proposal would cause more items to rise in price and more items to be traded off market.

On a related note, players could simply place bids for items that cost 2 Billion or more. Either buying the item and selling it off market for more than 2 billion or having a storage place for their inf. Also, players could create alts to hold money or store their money in items traded off market (see link).

This, I believe, defines why it is a bug that they show on the market.

If one of the badges that cannot be earned suddenly appears on a character, that too is a bug. Same difference.

Edit:
Unless you seriously expect the developers intended for undroppable recipes to be sold or bought. To me, if the developers did intend for the level 51+ recipes and crafted IOs to be bought and sold, they would allow those recipes to drop. It is somewhat circular reasoning to say that just because the market has them in the list that it isn't a bug.

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

This won't work.

If you simply removed level 53 bids and removed all recipes/IOs over level 50 (51-53), then players would come up with other ways of storing the access influence.

The simplest way would be to create bank characters and store an excess 2B that way. However, I'm sure you'll point out that there would be limits to how much such a thing can be done.

However, you can also store access influence not just through bids but also sales. Consider you had two accounts. Account #1 buys up all the level 12 confuse trainings on the market and lists one for 1 inf. Account #1 buys it for 2B. Account #1 just sold his 1 inf for 2B and never cashes it in. Account #1 has just stored 2B without having to resort to a bid. This method doesn't require any level 53 recipes, and is just a variation of the influence transfer method a lot of players use. If you don't have two accounts, a trusted friend or SG mate could be used as well.

Finally, as other posters have pointed out, simply reducing the amount of influence that can be stored won't do a thing to reduce price inflation. That's flawed logic. The issue isn't just storage but also how quickly a player can accumulate influence. I can get from 0 to the influence cap in 6 days. I've done it 9 times. There are other players that can gain influence just as fast (if not faster). The restriction you'd put on how much influence we can carry wouldn't affect us much at all. Further, I have multiple characters I can farm with, so I could even rotate them as I needed.

I understand that you're making a suggestion to perhaps help those who are less capable of making influence. However, the problem you are trying to tackle is much more complicated than can be solved with a simple (and somewhat misguided) solution.

Steele,

What you just wrote flies in the face of generally accepted economic theory. Restricting money supply does not directly lead to lower prices. That's the biggest fallacy in your suggestion. In fact, the lack of influence can lead to a lot aberrant behavior such as encouraging more black market transactions or even barter where high priced IOs essentially become currency. Imagine if all of the rare and purple IOs were bought by crafted Luck of the Gambler +Recharge IOs. This sort of thing happened in Diablo II where a rare item, the Ring of Jordan, became the de facto currency because gold was worthless.

From Wikipedia:

Simply removing influence or the capability to store influence won't solve the problem you want to address.

Also, purple IOs and many of the rare IO sets aren't meant for the casual player. That isn't their intent. The devs made them specifically for hardcore players, and hence their value should be commensurately high. If a casual player desires these things, then there exist ways that such a player can slowly accumulate them by either playing the market and/or playing their 50s alot.

I don't believe that this will completely solve the problem with WW/BM. It took a number of things to bring the situation to where it is today. I do believe that this step, removing the recipes and illicitly stored inf/inf, is a simple change that will have an appreciable effect. Further steps would involve things like drop rates which have proven to be very complex.

To completely solve the problem? It brings to mind the Vietnam war saying "We had to burn the village to save the village." Destroying the market and starting from scratch isn't a realistic option, though at times it sounds pretty good.