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Perhaps I wasn't clarifying well enough - I'd say casual players do have the choice but choose not to farm due to feeling they can spend their time doing more fun things rather than some kind of tedious farming ( be it in market, or in AE or where ever).
| Those people invariably come off as presenting this mythical casual player as someone not being given the choiceor the chance to play market PvP due to time constraints. |
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.
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We have to remember, the store isn't just there to make sure we can get what we want as fast as possible. I'm absolutely convinced that obtaining IOs is intended to be a time sink above and beyond the standard time sink of getting to max level (50). The thing is that a store with these kinds of prices would ultimately be less of a time sink than the current system unless continuously maintained. The market is actually sort of a self-correcting time sink in the sense that prices tend to rise with people's ability to earn inf.|
Originally Posted by Another_Fan
The simple solution is a store that will sell anything in the game for inf. Not a little inf mind you but a whole boatload of inf. Common salvage at 25k, uncommon 250k, rare 5 million (the rare situation has already seemed to stabilize itself) IO recipes at a similar ratio to current going prices.
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I'm fairly sure the market exists to facilitate our ability to actually get things given a time sink defined by random drops. Without the market, we'd all have to either wait until we got the drops we personally need or barter for what we wanted with a smaller audience (or resort to out-of-game tools, like these forums). We'd also only be able to trade with people on the same server.
An outright store is a time sink too, but it's far less dynamic. The devs created an outright store with the merit system, and we can see what they did with it - in a broad sense, it takes more time to earn merits to buy a whole build than it does to earn the money needed to buy that build on the market.
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
Yes, people who play the market seem to be that hated. It seems to often be based on a lack of understanding of economics combined with the need to blame someone for their lack of purples, or whatever it is they want right then, sometimes even commons. Since we're being hated for something we don't actually do (drive up prices, screw the little guy, etc.), I usually just let it roll off my back, or just stay away from the market forum when I'm not feeling up to being abused for how I play a game.
I've used this analogy. Let's say that a whole lot of people believe that whoever has the aggro gets a bigger share of the XP, and for the sake of argument, that this is at least vaguely plausible, if wrong. People would pretty much hate tanks, particularly tanks that TAUNTED during a mission. They'd show up on the tank board, calling the tanks names, asking them why they were such horrible people, and so on. They'd produce evidence like "I was on a team, and halfway through this mission, the tank dinged and I didn't!" The tanks, at first, would try to explain the XP system, and how it wasn't affected by aggro. They'd produce guides to XP and aggro. A few would get the message. Most wouldn't. Eventually, some of the tanks would just take to insulting everyone that came to the board accusing them of wrongdoing. They'd call themselves "ebil taunters". Threads would degenerate into personal attacks. Everyone would be CERTAIN they were right, and the bad forum behavior of some the tanks would only be further evidence that they were exploiting the system at the cost of the rest of the team.
And thus we have what often happens on the Market Forum.
"That's because Werner can't do maths." - BunnyAnomaly
"Four hours in, and I was no longer making mistakes, no longer detoggling. I was a machine." - Werner
Videos of Other Stupid Scrapper Tricks
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Originally Posted by Another_Fan
The simple solution is a store that will sell anything in the game for inf. Not a little inf mind you but a whole boatload of inf. Common salvage at 25k, uncommon 250k, rare 5 million (the rare situation has already seemed to stabilize itself) IO recipes at a similar ratio to current going prices.
This would provide stabilization to the market by bounding its volatility and it would provide a much needed inf sink. It also would solve the current supply problems for people that like to buy things at levels other than 50. |
You can already basically do both of those with Merits and Tickets.
You can buy literally everything outside of PvP recipies and Purples through a combination of merits and tickets.
The problem is laziness and impatience.
The problem is people wanting the item they want RIGHT NOW.
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Yes.| Re: Are we that hated? |
I suppose it should be a badge of honor to be hated by stupid people, but I just find it depressing. I don't expect people to know much about economics, especially if they're only in high school, but so many of the anti-market posts are self-contradictory, illogical, and easily disproven. I used to try to help people, but now I mostly avoid the Market forums. It's just so sad. CoH is only a game, but economics is real. If people can be so confused about the market in a game, then they must be completely helpless when faced with things like their 401(k) plan. Not being able to afford purple recipes is annoying. Not being able to afford retirement, that's tragic.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
Having read that thread and this one, I once again find myself shaking my
head at the utter lack of understanding and simple logic from many of the
posters.
A gedanken experiment - What if:
A> The devs made a change that upped drop rates on everything by a
factor of 1000? Every day, you get 1000X the amount of salvage, recipes,
T/D/SO's and inspirations... Literally clog the system full of goodies...
What would the market prices do?
B> Flip side - The devs cut the drop rate by that factor of 1000... Now you
have to kill 1000X as much just to get 1 insp or 1 salvage, or 1 recipe...
What would prices be in this case?
------------------------------------------------------------------
Did anyone fail that experiment? Is there anybody who cannot actually
see that in Case A, prices would plummet, and everybody would be literally
deleting stuff non-stop just to make room?
Is there anybody who can't actually see that in Case B, prices would go
astronomical? Everything would be rare - anything you get you'd hoard for
simple fear of not being able to get it again. Anybody who has anything
desirable at all would get top dollar for it (probably Off-Market) if they
chose to sell. The market would be literally devoid of items for sale (of
anything not universally considered pure junk).
These are (intentionally) opposite extremes. The nice thing about them is
that there is little doubt what would happen if they were in place.
So, changing one simple thing (drop rates) can span the entire gamut of
results. Not surprising, given it's one of two key drivers in all economics -
supply.
Obviously, the game situation lies between those two points, but given
that PvPIOs are being sold off-market currently, and certain salvage
(Clockwork Winders most recently) are unavailable at times, it seems
we're getting closer to B than A as a result of the past few releases.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with flippers, casual players, inf cap,
inflation, hyper-inflation, RMT, or whatever the latest ebil marketeering
scheme is thought to be happening this week. There is *nothing* we are
currently seeing in the market that is NOT adequately explained by
identifiable game changes and their corresponding effects on economics -
most notably, supply.
It is amusing (in a head-scratching sort of way) to read posts from people
saying that they don't need/want to understand economics, while at the
same time being confident that their "tweaks" to the economics of the
game will solve all the problems.
Unsurprisingly, the proposals from those folks who fail to understand simple
economic factors are typically woefully shortsighted, if not completely
ludicrous.
In other words - a typical day on the forums... 
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
LOL. Market isn't for casual players? So, casual players don't want/like the benefits of set bonuses? Sounds like discrimination to me. Can we please get a DEV to say, "casual players stay out of WW"! Or, "WW isn't made for the casual player hence the low drop rates and only farmers and pvp'ers can use sets".
Devs? Can you back up that theory please?
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The impetus behind that statement is that anyone who really gets into the guts of the Invention System is no longer "casual". There are degrees, but fundamentally, spending the time to learn how Inventions work strongly implies some tendency towards power-gaming, because the Invention system is, frankly, fairly arcane.|
Originally Posted by eryq2
LOL. Market isn't for casual players? So, casual players don't want/like the benefits of set bonuses? Sounds like discrimination to me. Can we please get a DEV to say, "casual players stay out of WW"! Or, "WW isn't made for the casual player hence the low drop rates and only farmers and pvp'ers can use sets".
Devs? Can you back up that theory please? |
Edit: this gets back to the joke about the casual player with purples slotted in their Warshade. Anyone who even aspires to that sort of thing is, historically, not a casual player.
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:
Oh they'd be different all right.|
Originally Posted by MeanNVicious
They are 100% right. It's simply the truth. Rant on about economic mechanics all you want, and use it as an excuse to justify what you do. The simple truth is - if so many people didn't purposely flip with the intent to drive up prices for their own profit - the prices would be COMPLETELY different in our little market.
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| And yes that means far far lower. Period. |
Marketeering puts in a price floor as well as a price ceiling. It defines an area of "acceptable" pricing. The more people who do it in a certain niche, the closer the floor and ceiling become and the more the price stabilizes.
Could a single purchase in a completely uncontrolled environment be less than this equilibrium price? Sure! Could it be more! Yeah!
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| Before you rant on about supply and demand think of this - when the market first came out - and there was zero supply of anything - you would assume that would be the peak of pricing no ? But it wasnt. Those prices were but a fraction of what we see today for comparable items (yes some new things exist but the top tier items were equally rare at that point in time). Marketeers have steadily driven up pricing on anything they could flip. |
Blaming it on the marketeers is just your way of finding a scapegoat.
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| People want and need to buy these things in our little closed market. |
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| The flippers are simply the ones setting the price. They prey on the want and need and exploit it for their profit. |
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| Without marketeers I guarantee you pricing would never have ever gotten near this point. |
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| Its just the truth. |
911 Truth?
We're not interested in "truth". We're interested in FACT. The former is a nebulous, highly relative term. The latter is not.
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| So many of you come here and brag about how you drove up the price on item "x" all the time. Revel in the mad profits you make by exploiting the system. You blatantly admit to it pretty much daily. |
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| Those you call lazy arent actually lazy. |
What's the word you'd use for this sense of entitlement?
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| They are just observant. |
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And calling you out seems to make marketeers freak and go into massive self defense mode. Trying to defend what they do and say "its not us really...". When in fact it is, and has been all along. LOL ... seriously WTF ?! |
And no, I won't sugar-coat that for you.
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So this essentially boils down to "I don't like the current market system because I don't like the behavior engendered in sellers by buyers willing to pay omega level stupid prices for stuff that's been listed at a far lower price floor."|
Originally Posted by je_saist
Sadly, I agree with this post. The grammar and spelling, not so much.
I've gotten rather annoyed with the various I just sold an enhancement for X amount of Influence, I can't believe some sucker actually bought it posts I see floating around the forum. I've lost count of the number of people celebrating in Global Channels for having sold a common salvage for a huge amount of cash. |
O-kaaaay! Nice to know!
So if you listed a 1990 Dodge Caravan minivan in the paper for $1000, and someone came along and dropped a check on you for $35,000 you wouldn't be absolutely incredulous too?
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What for free? I dont beliive it, did you owe money |
Originally Posted by Silas
Once, a marketeer punched my dog.
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No, but calling people lazy because they don't want to do what the marketers do and still want everything "NOW" is.|
Originally Posted by eryq2
To call people lazy because they do't wanna do what "marketeers" do isn't right either.
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| The only reason i use the market is to sell all the drops i get farming. I rarely even IO any more because of the prices. |
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| I surely don't want to place a ton of bids and hope they fill on what some people think is "reasonable". Not everyone WANTS to run back and forth crafting and selling or looking for "niches". It's way too time consuming. I'd rather play a toon, then IO as i feel like it. If i want to IO at 35, we should have pieces to do that. We shouldn't have to wait til we hit 50 so we can get pieces. |
If you don't want to do these things, you don't have to. You simply have to resign yourself to the fact that it will take longer to get the nice stuff you want.
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| Yes, we all know how to make inf in WW. Noone needs a guide. Buy cheap, sell high. But i don't have the time to do that just to make inf. And i surely don't wanna have toons just to play the market. To me, it's a waste of time. I thought it was City of Heroes. Not City of WentWorth. |
Its kinda like Willpower. Less defense than straight defense sets. Less resistance than straight resist sets. Less healing ability than regen. Yet, due to the unique synergy between the three factors, it's hybrid solution comes out as HIGHLY capable.
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I can see why you don't like the market, it does require placing bids after all. Thats just inhumane.
| I surely don't want to place a ton of bids and hope they fill on what some people think is "reasonable". Not everyone WANTS to run back and forth crafting and selling or looking for "niches". It's way too time consuming. I'd rather play a toon, then IO as i feel like it. If i want to IO at 35, we should have pieces to do that. We shouldn't have to wait til we hit 50 so we can get pieces. |
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Flippers only contribute to the inflation of the price floor but only as a reaction to buyers. Buyers contribute to the inflation of both the price floor and the price ceiling.|
Originally Posted by Rodion
There's no question that flippers cause inflation.
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| "Illegitimate" marketeers are trying to corner the market on certain items, hoping to drive prices up through sheer scarcity, then sell their stock in the new high-price regime they artificially created. This type of monopolistic behavior is banned in most modern markets. It's what led to the silver crash in the 1980s, when the Hunt brothers tried to corner the silver market. |
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Originally Posted by eryq2
LOL. Market isn't for casual players? So, casual players don't want/like the benefits of set bonuses? Sounds like discrimination to me. Can we please get a DEV to say, "casual players stay out of WW"! Or, "WW isn't made for the casual player hence the low drop rates and only farmers and pvp'ers can use sets".
Devs? Can you back up that theory please? |
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By some, sure. I would think it would be a combination of "hahaha - look at me, I have so much money and you don't because you're [Dexter]styuuuupid[/Dexter]"; and a view that those playing the market aren't playing the market to further for the benefit of their characters, but are just doing it to amass more influence and items that they can ever possibly use. In other words, they're just plain greedy.
Of course, those might be attitudes that would come across on the forums or in chat channels. Similar to non-PVPers and trash talk - they just don't like having their noses rubbed in it.
(Speculation. Personally, I just deal with the market. If I ever feel I need more INF, I'll concentrate more on the market. Now, PvP, THAT I just avoid like the plague. )
Suggestions:
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Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
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Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
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It's not my place to try to decypher what is meant. When someone says, "the market is not for casual players", it pretty much says it all. If it's not meant that way then it should be typed in the way it's to be determined. When i say," greenbeans suck", it don't mean, "if i were to add ketchup to my greenbeans, they would suck".
Just because people set up 10 toons in WW to flip, try to buy low, or whatever they do shouldn't be the only way to get stuff and to be refered to as lazy if they don't want to take these measures is moronic.
I didn't say marketeers were why i don't IO much any more. I said the ever increasing rates are making me just throw commons on them. It shouldn't be like a 2nd job to get nice stuff for our toons and it is. You either have to buy inf, search the market for niches, or farm like i do. It's just becoming more of a hassle to log my 3 accounts and farm nonstop for nice IO's.
Like i said, it'd be better on everyone if people weren't so hung up on having a crazy amount of inf. If it takes 10bil to have a 1mil inf toon, have at it. Enjoy.
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I've never given you a thing.|
Originally Posted by rainmaker
I find this laughable.
I've bought my share of overpriced salvage due to the "Marketeer's minigame" and people like you have never given me a cent. I'm not here to say don't do it. But certainly don't pretend to be altruistic. It's hypocritical. Don't try and act like some kind of Robin Hood. You're a businessman exploiting people's desires plain and simple. But the good guy you're not. You're certainly entitled to your market game and I'm not here to say it's wrong. But don't expect the rest of us to support your self serving assertion that you put it back into other people's hands. And yes... your game affects the casual player alot. |
Why should I?
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Price manipulation in the market occasionally annoys me a little, but I don't see it as a big problem. If I am honest, I know if I had the time and inclination, I'd probably do the same thing.
As it is, I'm too lazy and not online often enough to get anywhere with that, and when I am online there are things I'd rather do with my time.
So when I see the last 5 on a common salvage selling for 500K, I just sigh a little, put in my buy order and go do something else. The market will correct soon enough and I'll get what I want without paying a fortune for it.
Casual players really are the LEAST effected by market manipulation, since we have the luxury of being able to wait, since it may be days or even weeks between the times we log in to play. A reasonable bid left in for that long is going to yield results most of the time.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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Except we covered this in the other thread. You don't have to do those things. I don't do them. I just play some every day, usually 2-3 hours though sometimes real life means I can't play. I solo some, I TF some, and I am IOing out character number nine, who started getting goodies at level 37, and is now nearly fully outfitted except for a set of purples. (The characters' still not 50, so I can't slot purps yet.)|
Originally Posted by eryq2
You either have to buy inf, search the market for niches, or farm like i do. It's just becoming more of a hassle to log my 3 accounts and farm nonstop for nice IO's.
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If I can do this, it disproves your claims. If I can do it, why can't you?
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:
You can get good sets playing casually. I spend no more than 15 minutes at the market each time I log on and I've got alot of sets on my characters. I'm definitely a casual player, I play only a few days a month, and if I can amass hundreds of millions of infamy and slot up my characters, then so can you. |
Originally Posted by eryq2
It's not my place to try to decypher what is meant. When someone says, "the market is not for casual players", it pretty much says it all. If it's not meant that way then it should be typed in the way it's to be determined. When i say," greenbeans suck", it don't mean, "if i were to add ketchup to my greenbeans, they would suck".
Just because people set up 10 toons in WW to flip, try to buy low, or whatever they do shouldn't be the only way to get stuff and to be refered to as lazy if they don't want to take these measures is moronic. I didn't say marketeers were why i don't IO much any more. I said the ever increasing rates are making me just throw commons on them. It shouldn't be like a 2nd job to get nice stuff for our toons and it is. You either have to buy inf, search the market for niches, or farm like i do. It's just becoming more of a hassle to log my 3 accounts and farm nonstop for nice IO's. Like i said, it'd be better on everyone if people weren't so hung up on having a crazy amount of inf. If it takes 10bil to have a 1mil inf toon, have at it. Enjoy. |
Yeah, I'll probably never slot a full set of ultra-rare purples, but who needs em? If I get even one of those in a drop, I'm happy because I know I'm set for a good long time. I can probably fully slot up an entire powerset for a character on the profit from just 1 purple recipe. As a result, it just doesn't seem economical for me, given my time constraints, to try to get a full set of purple. But I can get other sets.
Having nice things isn't "everything slotted purple". For us casual players, just some of the regular IO sets are just fine.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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My Eyeballs bleed when I read this stuff.
Ok, here are some universal truths:
1. You don't need IO's or the market to play the game. SO's are fine (no really).
2. Infamy/Infuence isn't created by the market. Someone somewhere is playing the game and generating cash and drops (salvage, recipes, enhancements, whatever).
3. The ONLY limiting factor is TIME. I would argue that it seems "fair" to pay "play money" to someone who is willing to sell something you want rather than try to acquiring yourself using method 1. IF you've decided that you want lvl 35 Common IO's rather than buying SO's at lvl 35, 40, 45 and 50 why not pay a fee to someone who is willing to take their finite resource, i.e TIME, to "hold" if for you so you can buy the stuff you need for a level 35 IO.
4. Complaining about flipping seems silly because the "high" prices of products ENSURE that they are available whenever you want to buy them, feel free to "negotiate" a price. Why pay 50K for an Alchemical Silver when you can bid 25K and get it tomorrow.
If all the above is confusing to you take a toon to 35. Set a timer. Use the market for IO's, Salvage, Recipes to outfit it. Flip to alternate build. Set a timer. Go scrounge up the same stuff you need to outfit out that toon. Report back in a month when you are unable to get the stuff you need (assuming no AE tickets).
Heck I'll bankroll the experiment for you.
Then tell me if you don't think your TIME is more valuable then some "play money" that you've been complaining about.
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Quote:
Good luck with that. The best I can do for you is that both during I9 beta and after release I discussed the question of the purpose of the market with the devs, and posted their basic answers repeatedly back in the day (back when I was more active on the market forums). The market is intended to be a mini-game within the game, and as such it is a form of PvP in at least some respects. It isn't explicitly designed to exclude "casual" players, but that's a matter of definition. Players seeking to participate in the market must assume that they are buying and selling with and against other players, and the devs will no more police that activity than they will police who teams with who.|
Originally Posted by eryq2
LOL. Market isn't for casual players? So, casual players don't want/like the benefits of set bonuses? Sounds like discrimination to me. Can we please get a DEV to say, "casual players stay out of WW"! Or, "WW isn't made for the casual player hence the low drop rates and only farmers and pvp'ers can use sets".
Devs? Can you back up that theory please? |
Its designed to make it relatively easy to participate, and relatively difficult to manipulate in many respects (although all markets have some ability to be manipulated regardless). Like almost all aspects of the game, such as inventions, casual players can participate, but they cannot automatically expect optimal returns relative to players that spend more time learning the system.
As to the question of whether flippers cause inflation, essentially they cannot do that. In order to be a flipper, you must buy things - which makes you the highest bidder for that item - and sell things - which makes you the lowest seller for that item. Flipping only closes the gap between the highest bidder and the lowest seller**. Whatever the highest bidder and lowest seller were before the flipper every arrives, he can only drive the price to some value between those two.
And in fact, flipping is a self-annihilating process. In theory, someone could outflip the flipper by simply bidding a little more, and selling for a little less. Essentially you are going inside the flipper: placing your orders within the gap of the flipper***. Eventually, this process reduces the gap to the point where the flipper cannot make a profit on the activity (or any reasonably high enough one to be practical). However, that is what flipping does: it *reduces* profit margins on sales and *increases* the likelihood of executions.
The only way a "flipper" can cause inflation is to somehow cause people to bid more than before. The flipper cannot just arbitrarily keep up with the higher bids because they are capped above by the sellers. At some point bidding higher kills the profit on the exchange. The only way a marketeer can drive prices upward is to stop flipping and attempt a corner. This is where the marketeer buys up as much of the supply as possible, making it difficult or impossible to obtain the item****. Eventually, people will get impatient and start bidding higher to obtain the item faster. If the item is such that the players can be goaded into escalating the bids rapidly, the marketeer them starts selling slowly into the rising bids - slow enough to prevent a price collapse. Eventually, the marketeer can "reset" the buyer expectations for the item and cause them to bid higher of their own accord for at least a substantial amount of time. If they can sell enough of their stock at the higher price without excessive buying, they can profit on the corner. If they guess wrong about supply (if they try to corner an item that can flood into the market) or psychology (if the try to corner people will just not buy the item or wait them out) then they can lose a lot of influence in the attempt.
These days, I am neither a farmer nor a serious marketeer, but I have no problems selling items into the market to make influence, or buying most of the inventions I want at reasonable prices. The battleground in the markets is only for the top 1% most expensive and desirable enhancements, and I'm usually willing to wait for a good opportunity to acquire those. If you don't farm, don't want to learn the market, don't want to marketeer, do want the most expensive items and are an impulse shopper you will probably have difficulty. But that's by design: if its not difficult under those extreme circumstances, its going to be ludicrously trivial everywhere else.
** I've done it myself between I9 and I11, but I got bored of it to be honest
*** Yeah, I've done that too, just to see what flippers would do when they were being outstraddled. Some repeat the process, some go away. One or two actually posted rather angry forum posts about it without knowing who did it.
**** I haven't specifically done that before, but I have in the past executed strategies designed to break a corner. Ironically, with flipping. Probably one of the most interesting things a marketeer can attempt is to break a cornering attempt without simply swamping the person attempting the corner.
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To echo Uber, I have an ar/dev that had been parked for YEARS due to various changes to the game that made playing him more of a chore than a joy. I un-parked him a while back with the express interest of seeing how much inf a 'casual player' could earn in today's environment without making any special effort (i/e, just playing 'normally', running contacts, teaming, whatever- no farming, no market games at all).|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
Except we covered this in the other thread. You don't have to do those things. I don't do them. I just play some every day, usually 2-3 hours though sometimes real life means I can't play. I solo some, I TF some, and I am IOing out character number nine, who started getting goodies at level 37, and is now nearly fully outfitted except for a set of purples. (The characters' still not 50, so I can't slot purps yet.)
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By the time he hit 50 he was nicely kitted out with 'good' IO sets (Positron, etc) and had enough in savings to make me laugh anew at all the poor-criers we get around here. I haven't looked at him in a few months, but I'll check his bankroll when I get home and post the total here.
Honestly, you earn enough inf just playing 'normally' to afford anything you want short of uniques, purples & PO's.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
And in fact, flipping is a self-annihilating process. In theory, someone could outflip the flipper by simply bidding a little more, and selling for a little less.
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I really wish my old thread on flipping Ancient Bones hadn't gone to feed the forum monster. It graphically demonstrated the birth, life and death of a flipping niche.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Various solutions have been given, such as increasing the drop rate of enhancements, creating an event in Praetoria that awards a guaranteed purple, or lowering the prices on AE ticket to salvage conversions. I'm not saying any of these solutions is the right one... but I highly doubt that the the number crunchers on the developers staff are not keeping track of the market, and those who deliberately abuse the market, and more importantly... those who admit to abusing the market in game, and on the forums.
The simple solution is a store that will sell anything in the game for inf. Not a little inf mind you but a whole boatload of inf. Common salvage at 25k, uncommon 250k, rare 5 million (the rare situation has already seemed to stabilize itself) IO recipes at a similar ratio to current going prices.
This would provide stabilization to the market by bounding its volatility and it would provide a much needed inf sink. It also would solve the current supply problems for people that like to buy things at levels other than 50.