How to solve WW/BM Inflation

actually just you fail. there are lv 53 things that drop that can be sold on the market. it was alot easier in coding with having all lv 53 things instead of trying to code in for certain things. and as of now, you have no idea if the devs plan on adding these lv 53 things that don't exsist yet into the game. so, again, it is NOT an EXPLOIT. it is wai. deal with it.

Our market is so simple a child can quickly figure it out, if they have the inclination.

I started from square zero with the market- I'm terrible at math, had zero interest or background with any type of economics more advanced than balancing a checkbook or adding up the cost of the stuff I added to my shopping cart.

And yet now look at me, a member in good standing of Club Eeeebil and a veritable prince of the market.

Did I achieve this eminence by enrolling in an econ class at my local JC?
Nope.
I thought the market was fun, I played around with it and over time figured out how and why things happened the way they did. I learned about the market the same way I learned everything else in this game- organically.

If that sort of thing doesn't interest you, no problem...SOs still work great!


Market whines nearly always boil down to entitlement whines-
"I DESERVE the 'good stuff'! Why should I have to make an effort when it should be HANDED to me because I pay a monthly fee?!?"

In this game as in life if you're unwilling to work for luxury goods, learn to make do with less.

Gah, he's making me look bad! I haven't been able to give my wife more than... Well, maybe a billion inf of stuff total? MUST GET MORE PURPLES!

You're just saying you don't want to HAVE to. That the stuff should be EASIER to obtain.

Sorry. The charge of lazy beatnik still applies at that point.

Why should others be penalized because YOU choose to self-gimp on some cockeyed "moral" grounds?

YES. Otherwise the game is a rapid gear-quest to the top and then people drop it after a month or so.

Yeah. If you want something you do what's necessary to obtain it.
If you aren't willing to do that, you didn't want it badly enough.
And humans tend to like "easier" as opposed to "harder". Therefore they'll look to achieve optimal results for minimal investiture.
Some lazy, greedy bums are always going to want stuff just HANDED to them because they feel the world OWES them.

Does Captain Obvious want to teach us anything else we already know?

Again, there are more options than just these three. Please remove your blinders.

We're not arguing about what people are "most likely to do" based off your narrow perception of an issue.

And you can get your account locked for it.

I am not my brother's keeper and have no way to control the actions of others.

And what am I supposed to do about that?

List stuff for less so someone "more deserving" can get it? No, because it's still highest-bidder wins.

Inspect every last inf to see if it says "generated by RMT"? Yes, I'm laughing at you right now.

What I CAN do is trust that the people who make and run the game will catch these people in the act and lock their accounts, effectively destroying any inf they have.

They're never going to stop. PERIOD. The most the developers can hope to do is make it as rough on them as possible and remove as much of the profit from the equation as they can.

Neither. If the market is crippled, people will do it off the market.

It can't.

Just because it's doable doesn't mean it's smart either.

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A costume piece that drops very rarely sitting on the market for 14-40 million INF is worthless to me.

A costume piece I can *use* on a character has far greater worth. Given the costume creator is one of the big selling points of this game (as opposed to the market, which ... yeah...) it made sense to make those more accessible.

(Note, this is not an argument supporting the OP. Just that I have quite a few issues with the quoted statement and sentiment.)

See my Guides and Tutorials

Here's his stats from the anniversary event last year.

I've looked at a more recent screenshot and it hasn't changed.
Click for the full-sized image.

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Yup. And you've done a FINE job thus far!

NOT!



I think you need to step the implantation technique up from conventional explosives to something a bit more powerful. Maybe something like nukes...in the three digit exaton yield range.

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And you failed to read the post, it seems. Name one, just one, level 51+ recipe that legitimately dropped in game...

Oh wait, you can't because it never happened.

Note that I did not say the were never any level 51+ drops. I know of a few: Single Origins go up to 53 as rewards (rare, but possible), there was a loophole (fixed) where level 51-53 Hamidons were dropped (the developers should have reverted those to 50, but chose not to at the time). Apart from dropped, not crafted, enhancements there are the combined enhancements (special origins and single origins) that cannot be sold on the market due to specific rule changes.

However the level 51+ recipes or crafted IOs simply don't exist as far as the drop system is concerned. Given this, I find it hard to believe that anyone with an ounce of thought would think that the developers would think that people should be able to bid on non-existent items isn't a bug (unintended action). Anyone saying that it IS intended is either self-delusional or lying. If anyone had a single shred of evidence to support the position that it is WAI, it would have come to light since Issue 9. And don't try the blatantly circular argument that "because the developers haven't fixed it, that means it is WAI."

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

Got to get a bigger gun...

My head is nodding back and forth! I cannot help myself! My common sense has overcome me! AUUUGH! (Mudder!)

While the cheap bastich in me recoils at the thought of spending that much on a badge that does nothing, even if it came with a costume, I'd probably buy it (eventually). I have the CoH equivallent of Three Stooges Syndrome. I'm a base geek, a badger, a marketeer, and...and...and..

Re: Montgomery Burns

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it doesn't matter that one hasn't dropped yet. and just because you see it as an exploit does not mean that it is. why aren't you lobbying against the insps that don't drop any more? or the base salvage that doesn't drop anymore? if they don't drop anymore should they not be taken out of the market to? do you now see why it is useless to try to argue that just because something doesn't drop it should be removed to try to lower prices? it will not work.

as mentioned by a few other people in various threads like this one, we need infl/inf sinks. plain and simple. it might not completely solve the problem but it will help to alleviate it a little.

And this is why I dismissed them earlier in the thread.

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

The point remains this. Even if they pull out un-gettable recipies, there are still things on the market that no longer award that can be used for reservations of inf.

Argue that all you like.

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We'll just have to agree to disagree then.

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If they have dropped, and still exist in the game, then they are legitimate candidates for bids. Dropped inspirations and base salvage can still be used. Stuff that cannot and have not dropped ever shouldn't be allowed to bid on. This is a simple concept.

I'm not arguing that at all. All I'm pointing out is that an exploit should be closed.

Are you saying that removing all that "stored" inf will not be a sink?

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

That's an assumption on your part. One could just as easily hypothesize that RMTers were wonderfully successful, which led to an influx of competing firms that collectively cranked out so much inf that prices came down. In that scenario prices would be fallling even as the amount of RMT-generated inf skyrocketed.

I make no assertion that that's the truth, just that it's a valid scenario. It's also easy to find real examples of this phenomenon e.g. oil prices high enough to encourage new production, which led to increased supply, which drove down prices. Falling prices do not automatically imply falling demand. It just means that supply is outstripping demand.

... um... duh?

Each critter has a fixed chance to drop $widget. If a $widget is generated by the Random Number God, that $widget is given to a random member of the team. Drop rates aren't affected by teaming (positively or negatively), but teaming reduces the number of drops you get (since you have to share the same number of drops with more people).

... on the live servers

Dev stats aren't really particularly reveant. They can just grant themselves whatever they want. For example, JLove has shown up playing a Blaster with every single Blaster power in existence, including multiple primaries and secondaries. Positron has shown up with every single Hero and Villain badge on one character, including all of the patron arc badges, and including the Joker badge which was added to the game files as an April Fool's prank on the pigg divers, but there is no way to access it in the game. Castle has [The I Win Button], which kills all critters on the map which have already been spawned (which he used for testing drop rates). Castle is normally a Fire/Fire Blaster, but for the setup at Manticore and Sister Psyche's wedding, he was tossing down Tar Patches in Atlas Park, which were affecting the players.

Just because the items don't award anymore does not mean they don't exist. I still have a bunch of those things that don't award anymore, like 52 HOs, base salvage, high level TOs, and the old lavendar inspirations. I'm a collector, I collect stuff.

If the level 53 recipes ever are taken away I have all this lovely old stuff just waiting for you. I double dog dare you to bid on them.

Go ahead, bid on them. You might just win. That's the way the market it supposed to work.

Strength of Will inspirations are still available in Siren's Call.

Thanks for the tip. I don't pvp much and didn't realize. I still had a couple of these left on a 13 blaster on Pinnacle I haven't played in 5 years. I didn't realize you could still get them.

That's not why I posted them. Someone asked if they could see them and I popped the picture up for them. Nothing more was intended.


Then there's NCSoft Prescient.

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I'm lazy 'cause I don't advocate prices or systems that increasingly encourage people to perceive a need to buy inf or AE farm to attain what they want.

Gotcha.



Aye, damn them "moral" grounds. Moral and ethical concerns have no place in business; what kind of crack am I smoking?! Where do I GET such ideas!?!



For my own casual observations, most of the people I know that've quite didn't quit 'cause they were going "O'man, I gots everything. Bored nao, time to quit."

Though, I know a few dozen in my assorted coalitions and SG alone that are playing other games out of sheer frustration with market prices. Maybe that's just my mileage; it could well just be that I happen to socialize with the unrelatedly mashed-up social circles that just /happen/ to all be people that do put quite a bit of effort into accruing wealth and /still/ can't afford to IO their toons how they'd like!

Or maybe we're all just dumb. Yeah, that must be it.



No thanks, I refuse to simply accept whatever prices profiteers and inf-buyers with poor impulse control set forth. Frankly, if there were a ship for me to raid and kick its tea into the harbor on the matter, I'd do it.

As it is, the closest I've got is bandying words with you on a forum. Eventually I'll run out of concern and move on with my life, but not just yet!



Ok, sure, fine, there are technically near-limitless options, including offering to ERP for inf and saving it up until you're there. One could also panhandle under Atlas' butt and probably make out pretty ok if one was creative and endearing about it.

Similarly, one could put together an SG with the goal in mind of singling SG members out and collaborating effort to tweak them out, then moving to the next, and so on; that's a good option.

But, I listed the rather evident ones that most people /will/ pick from. Subjective functional observation of probability. I'll be very certain to be precise and clear so as to avoid any and all ambiguity for you in the future.


You might not be, but I am. It might help if we were having the same argument, but prolly not. The whole underscoring crux of my real concern is that inf sellers are being inadvertantly facilitated by ever-rising market prices.

And there are people who go "Don't care, got mine!" and rake it in flipping purples and PVP IO's to cash in on making sure those high prices -stay- high, which only escalates the problem as fewer and fewer people are able to legitimately afford to purchase such 'luxuries'.

It is completely and utterly immaterial if they 'need' them or not. It is entirely relevant as to whether they want them or not. DO people WANT those things? In most cases, yes, with varying degrees of concern ranging from the "It'd be nice" to the "I WILL DO ANYTHING FOR MOAR PURPS!"

Take a guess at what happens when an increasing number of people are hedged out of a market that's got prohibitively high costs on the best stuff? Sure, some go "Meh, didn't need that stuff anyway" and roll on, happy enough with what they do have.

Others (in which bracket I fit) go "Grargh, why do I hate life?" and go farming, TFing and favor-trading to cobble up spiffy collections of the stuff I want. Oh, but I be vurry surry, I apparently don't "want it enough" to just swallow whatever BS the market presents me with?

Forgive me if I take that as a compliment.



Aye, you can! And no, no, you're not responsible for the choices of others, but it'd sure be nice if more of the general playerbase, especially those with knowledge of the markets and how to generate inf legitimately went "Hey, let's get civic and help people not think they need to suck on the inf-seller's crack pipe."

Or maybe even, "Hey, let's not support the markets that inf sellers roll it up in."

But, I know, I know, if there's a thin nickel to be made, there will be a Bernie Madoff that will do any single thing they can to make it, no matter who it hurts or how it screws anything up for anyone else.

No, I'm not comparing you specifically to Bernie Madoff; I don't actually know what your specific practices are, so I'd do well to not criticize them and will, in fact, retract all prior assumptions about them.

I'll even extend a genuine apology for having verbally swiped at you about it, as you are, in fact, correct; the market can be played without hurting others to do it.

And I will agree that, in that extent, it's perfectly legit even by my lofty standards.





You can stick to markets that aren't rather obviously high-traffic dependencies for the inf sellers.

Question is, will you? Nobody can make you. Nobody can even tell you that what you're doing is wrong outside of rather specific moral/ethical contexts like I unapologetically carry around.

So, laugh away if you feel the need. The 'I got mine and if I don't see anything I don't have to care about where anything came from' mentality is really quite impressive, though.

You clearly care about something to argue as you're doing, but it only seems to be to defend a status quo that makes you rich and blankets you with some apparent sense of plausible deniability of or any connection to anything that might be a problem.

Perhaps I'm not the one with the blinders?



Artificially (And intelligently) regulated markets are the biggest bane against the gold market there is. Aye, sure, people are always going to be lazy and looking for the easiest ways to get the most out of anything.

Some will exploit bugs in the engine, others will pull whatever shady stunts they can figure out how to pull until they get sufficiently slapped for it or prevented from so doing, and if they can, some will make rude gestures at any 'agreements' they've made with a click-click and buy, steal or detriment anybody to gain advantages for themselves.

So, maybe capping the markets wouldn't be the best idea; I'll admit that there could be better ways to address it.

In tandem with other addresses, it could work very nicely. Cap the markets, increase drop rates somewhat and take the general emphasis off shinies.

But where to put emphasis on? It's gotta go somewhere, right, or people get bored?

Where indeed. Stuff to /do/ with all those shinies perhaps? There's lots of stuff to do and plenty more coming down the pipe with i17 and GR on the way, but what then?

Oh deary dear, what -then-?

I'll give -you- a few days to mull that one over. It seems rather evident to me, but what could I possibly know about MMO's and how player retention and engagement can work?



Think outside your box. You're awfully quick to tell me I'm wearing blinders while demonstrating your own in very nearly the same paragraph.

The market. Is not. The problem. The market is just a thing in the engine; a bit of code, if you will; that enables people to engage in silent, blind auctions with only previous sales data to guide the decision-making process from a cold start with.

The problem, as I'm sure you'll disagree, has considerably more to do with what a socio-ecomonic scholar might call a participle of the contextual theory of demand. Specific to this is the pointed fact that demand is a perception.

What do people perceive as being in demand, and why? According to the market, a very specific variety of IO's.

Why? Why would they want those overpriced things? The set bonuses off them aren't -that- much superior to those found on rare or even uncommon IO's, so what is -really- pushing that market?

Prestige maybe, and not the base-building kind? Do people just want bragging rights? Well, maybe, but I think the answer to that is also the answer to the question "Why DO so many people work so hard for all those badges?"

Completionism? Because it's there, some people will want it just to have it and feel like they've 'finished' something. That's a pretty powerful motivation for some, as the plethora of people with 300, 400, 500, 600 or even tipping 700 badges will attest.

Could be part of the all-important why underscoring the matter, eh? Is it rational? Is it reasonable? Well, who knows; it clearly seems to be for some, while certain others disagree.

But unlike with most badges, IO's very directly impact the effectiveness and utility of your toon as well. Sure, there are accolades that do the same thing, but getting those in no particular way depends on anyone else's decisions.

For some reason, I just don't hear anybody complaining about accolades being too hard to get.

And yet, I hear people complaining all the time about purple and PVP sets being too stupidly expensive. Blow such complaining off as much as you like, marginalize it to your heart's content, but there it remains.

Think it'll just go away if you stick your fingers in your ears and go "Lalala, can't hear your whining, you're all crybabies and you're dumb, lalalala!"?

Tragically, that doesn't work. Unfortunately, the intelligent will ask "Now why are they complaining?" and examine their reasons to sift through them for answers as to the whatfors and whyfors.

Are some, in fact, just lazy? Sure. Some really do just want everything handed to them, and some, in fact, feel they deserve to have it all handed to them. But let's with-hold judgement on that for a tick.

Some others are perfectly happy to spend their time doing quite a bit of stuff to get what they want, and I think most of us fall into this category. We've all got different tolerances for the grind as well as preferences for what we will and will not do that might fall into grey areas, such as farming, AE farming or other 'quick and dirty but legal' ways of things, including flipping the markets.

Ok, so flipping is less 'quick' than it is 'dirty and legal', but I digress.

Certain others, for reasons ofte nas inscrutible as they occasionally are anything but, will do anything to and past the point of demonstrable reason, to get what they want.

Those sorts will lie, cheat, steal and connive in any way available to them to get their way, and that is frequently in attendance to a near-complete to complete lack of concern for what impact their activities have on anyone else.

Why?

If you don't know, then I suggest you find out to the best of your abilities.

If you don't care, then you're not qualified to speak so loftily as you do any more than a self-stated mathemetician that dismisses multiplication as irrelevant is qualified to speak on mathematics.

But let us focus even more on this all-important question of -why-. Why do people want what they want, and do what they do to get it?

Muddle on that for a while. Entire libraries exist on the topic, and funnily enough, a growing number of them are specific to the psychology and socio-economic phenomena fundamental to and, in some cases, -unique- to MMO's.

But don't take my word for it, not that I dare for one second imagine you would.

I do not come to this forum armed only with a pouting lip for not having been able to afford a Ragnarok set and an angryface urge to bop you or any other legitimate player on the head for why.

I do not come to this forum with the urge to make things easier for myself -alone- to do or achieve or indeed to accomplish anything.

Take a look at my post count. I clearly don't feel the need to come flouncing around here very often, and I really don't care to make a habit of it.

However (And this is a big however), after speaking at length with at least a hundred various people on one server -alone- about these matters, I'm aghast at several things.

Inf sellers do more business than most think they do being one of them. Oh, sure, most are too smart to ever admit it or talk about it, but just those that have admitted to having bought inf in the past without specifying anything more than that has made me go "WHOA!"

I'd sure love to see some full data on who has and hasn't as well as why. I would -LOVE- to see such data, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. But, alas, the best I can do is ask people.

Lots of people. And depend on their veracity in the replies made for all of it, which seats it all firmly in the realm of probable possibility.

And that's scary enough for me. It's less scary than downright depressing, however, as it makes it fairly well indicatively -certain- that this /is/ a problem and it /is/ impacting the markets, and /if/ it is impacting the markets (which, really, what else is it going to impact? SO prices? O'wait, those are artificially regulated, it -can't- impact those!), it is /not/ impacting them in favor of anyone exceeeeept...?

The inf sellers, the inf buyers and those profiting on their transactions and facilitating the maintenance of monumentally high prices.

Who's it hurt?

Everybody else, except in such occasion as that someone gets a purple or PVP IO drop that they can haul to the market and cash in on, if they don't keep it themselves.

Now, you might ask, why don't we all just smile and nod and focus on finding more of those and cashing in on them? Would that not be THE ULTIMATE ANSWER to all our (read: my?) woes?

NO!

No, it will -not- answer my complaints, because my complaints do -not- hinge on personal profit nor gain. YOU BET YOUR SWEET A** I know very well how to capitalize on a market circus as that has been created here, and you can laugh at me for refusing to do so /all/ you very well please. G'head, laugh it up Chuckles.

I am refusing to contribute to a problem of proportions that do not have impact in the game only. I won't invest in Coca Cola, I won't invest in Nike, I won't invest in Microsoft, I won't invest in Apple, I won't invest in Wal-Mart, and I sure as all royal snot will not invest in the Gold Industry.

Call me an ethically hide-bound fool if it pleases you. I really, really don't care.



Right back atcha. Right. Back. Atcha.

Ummm by IOing are you talking about purples? How much effort?

What sort of experiment would convince you its not hard? Many times in market section there has been a level to 50, sell everything for 11 inf and see what you end up with, with most having 100+ million at the end. Thats very little effort, not even looking at last 5

Then a lvl 50 would earn a lot more with 'some effort' at 50.

How much INF do you think it takes to get set IOs, and what sort of IO out do you mean?

You should hear me doing gang buster. 200 fragging capa marcones.

The ones I'm specifically on about have been bitten by the completionist bug, and have thrown up their hands and walked out the door (most temporarily to await changes in the overall system i17 and GR might bring) in response to the aggregate problem of drop rates going weird (So they often say; I can't prove that. Yet.) as well as ever increasing prices in the WW/BM markets.

These aren't new issues for most of them, and frankly, to call any of them lazy would be a point of absurdity. They're just past their points of tolerance for what is acceptible in terms of prices for, specifically, purple sets, PVP sets, Miracle +Recovs, Regenerative Tissue +Regens, LotG Globals, and so on.

These are not stupid, uninformed people. Some have been playing a heck of a lot longer than me, some haven't been, but exactly none of them are kneejerking or crybabying because things can be expensive and some stuff takes work to get.

We're all fine with expensive and work in my social circles. What we're not ok with is blatant foolery, and what I for one see transpiring in those markets is absolutely foolish in regard to Melee, Targeted AoE, PBAoE and PVP IO's.

But, to specifically answer your question rather than just pontificate, to make a perfectly good and very effectively IO'd toon, it costs no more than 500-700 mil, provided one goes light on LotG globals, high-demand uniques and Numinas.

One can even purple out non-PVP-valuable powers on various AT's for relatively little, which indicates that the real crux of the problem is somehow centric to PVP-Valuable IO's.

Does this indicate that the 'hardcore PVPers' are the real mainstay of "The Problem"? Frankly, I dunno; too soon to tell.

But it does indicate that it bears some genuine examination. When the availability of purple IO's is flat-out turning people off to certain AT's altogether, even in just the social circles I keep, it kind've goes out of mere speculation and into genuine concern.

At least, it does for me.


XD Well, I'm not saying that complaints couldn't be put forth about it. I've griped about 1000 rikti monkeys before, but never too terribly seriously, and some of those defeat badges have proven to be good excuses to get a bunch of people together to go kill stuff anyway.

Believe it or not, as wouldn't be evident in my posts here, I'm a big fan of finding ways to turn a normally dull task into something enjoyable for myself and others. Like farming for defeat badges and accolading and whatnot.