Are we that hated?

It's not meant to facilitate people moving inf between their own characters. I mean, sure, you can use it for that, but you lose 10% of the wealth - if you can get a friend to help you, it works out a lot better.

Rather, it's meant in the general sense to move inf from the more wealthy to the less wealthy. Broadly speaking, that means from high-level to low-level characters. High level characters don't have a lot of attractive ways to generate, say, Luck Charms, but low-level ones get them just for playing (assuming they fight certain foe categories). So the lowbies end up with something the highbies want, and for which the highbies can pay a premium compared to what the lowbies can ever earn fighting mobs.

I really disagree with you. And its almost just as likely that I won't be able to explain my stance in a way that you will agree with me, but I will give it a whirl.

For over 2 years, all I did in this game was PvP. I thought of wierd lineups, I powerleveled PvP toons, I IO'd out PvP toons. It's the one thing I do in this game and it's the one thing I know a lot about. I'm Far from the best, but you can definately tell by watching me play that I know what I am doing.

I'm going to give a first hand example of why you can't PvP competitively with SOs. I was in RV the other night before I respecced my empath. My empath on live had SOs only - since I PvP'd on test server, IOs didn't matter to me on live. There was a competitive team on villain side and I was trying to form a team hero side to even the score. My night went like this

1. Levitate knocks you up - can't do anything for atleast 2 seconds
2. Dominate holds you for 2 seconds - again, still can't do anything for an additional 2 seconds
3. Respawn in the hospital. you're already dead

Now, I may joke that I am bad at PvP, and I am compared to some of the top tier participants, but I know how to survive a Spike if its possible. It is NOT possible with SOs to stop this type of a spike. It is not possible without even a small amount of IOs - you need a lot of IOs to counter this spike.

Flash forward to last night. My empath has respecced and I had to gut a base I used to use to copy IOs to test for build testing to get the IOs I needed (wow my grammar sucks - that sentence blows, anyways) Now, in an arena match, here is how it went

1. Levitate doesn't move you
2. Domainte holds you for 2 seconds -
3. Phase goes off and I live

The difference that IOs give you is 2 seconds in this scenario. and THAT is why they are required.
Now, this is my experience, and I have been around the block. If I can't stop a KB spike with SOs, then how should a new person to PvP or a casual PvPer do it?

So, is the problem with the availability of IOs, or the necessity that PvP requires of them? is it both? is it neither? All I know is the status quo currently isn't working. Im almost forced to resort to purchasing Inf from Gagoras because I can't spend weeks grinding out money like UberGuy suggests to get the necessary IOs needed to compete.

I completely understand where the market guys don't want things handed everyone on a silver platter because were 'lazy' or 'casual,' I don't want to have a complete Pimped out IO'd build - I know the work required to get it. I just want to be able to compete and have the IOs that are required to compete not cost 500million total. I want to be able to play the part of the game that I like without being forced into a mini game that I do. not. want. I'm sure people can understand how I feel just by thinking about how mad they would be if they were forced to PvP just to be able to do an end game task force.

i will throw the same argument that others have, you can compete in PvP with so's. infact, freedom is the only server i can think of where kb is used as much as possible so the only io's you really need are kb ones. i can also tell you that you can pick up kb io's anywhere from 500k-5mil. or you can get them free by running some AE, getting some tickets and rolling lv 10-14 bronze rolls. i drop at least 1 karma and 1 steadfast every time i roll. you need 41-43 points of kb to stop the effect from effecting you.

guess what else? if you sell your drops at the market it funds your builds.

guess what else? if you have 2 types of players, PvE and PvP, going for the same io's, purples and PvP io's, you are going to pay out the nose for them. supply vs demand.

The standing question though is what the correct response to this fact should be.

If that was the intent, AE broke that too. The high level characters that run AE make Luck Charms the same way they make any other piece of common salvage they might need and not have on hand.

On the other hand, before the advent of AE I saw the price of Luck Charms at the AH, and concluded: if I ever get one, I'm keeping it. If I get more than one I'm saving it. And the base was expanded to include 12 salvage racks. Since AE, the hoard is more about convenience than necessity.

I would counter that you cannot, infact, PvP with SOs. I have given several reasons why. KB is one of them, most definitely not all.

If you have evidence that shows that I am wrong, please show it. Keep in mind that you said compete, not participate. Yes, you can participate with SOs. your participation will be hitting the respawn button over and over again and not having a chance at getting any drops or rep or having a good time.

If you can explain to me how you can compete in PvP with only SOs, I would be glad to admit I am wrong (believe me, there isn't any snark to that comment, I really really want to admit I am wrong)

And for the record, you can't get to 41+ KB points without Zephyrs, which are a little higher than 5 million at the moment (more like 40-100)




Edit - the starcraft 2 beta is out now, so I official concede all debates. Very good points everyone and I hope our discussions were as rewarding for you as they were for me

Except it didn't break it at all. They still regularly sell for 50k or so. Your aversion to spending that kind of money on them isn't universal, because for a lot of people who play at level 50, 50k isn't very much money.

i have gotten it with only 1 zephyr, that i dropped durring a roll with tickets. i also figured that with the nerfs to the AE, they would be driven up in price and bought up somewhere around 50 of them so i don't have to worry about those. but enough about that. you can compete, yes compete, in PvP with so's. it is harder and you will die, but that is part of PvP. and as i understand it, it helps to put some PvP io's on the market. but yes, PvP'ing with so's is do-able. not recommended, but do-able.

Again, I ask - How is it do-able?

how about stop thread jacking? this is the last time i am answering your question as it does not pertain to the topic of this thread.

if you get on a competent team, you will last longer then being alone. just because you percieve that you can not PvP with so's does not mean that someone else has the same issue as you. i had a friend try this not to long ago. after getting set up with io's he said the difference was there but on a competent team he didn't worry about not having io's. i watched this with my own eyes. and this was on freedom.

now, back to the original issue...

Like I said earlier up, I doubt I would be able to persuade anybody of my views because their experience would differ. I could continue, but why bother, you think Im wrong and I think you're wrong - in the end, doesn't matter.

I look forward to the day when changes are made, that is all

You know this is the market forum, right?

Heroes, Villains ♦ Reviews ♦ Retrospect

At what cost? For the average player, merits or tickets would be much better spent with random rolling. I can see adding a tiny percentage of random rolling producing a Purple, but disagree that making them purchasable with Merits is a good idea.

Man. And here I thought you didn't have an ounce of humor in you.

THAT was funny as hell!

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I could tell you, but I'd get banned from the forums...

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how about stop assuming you know what he is talking about. he was complaining that he could not PvP with so's. that does not belong in a market thread. i suggest you go back and re read everything that was posted by him to do with that respect. it may have started out a 2 part whine, but turned into a PvP forum question.

Except for this:

which supports my assertion that supply is broken for these items. Making them purchasable with merits fixes that problem and setting a merit price at an appropriately high level (whatever that is) balances them in terms of how easily obtained they are compared to less rare items.

Ultra-rare obviously isn't intended to mean off-market sales at 2x the inf cap or more. Just like common/uncommon/rare is reflected in market prices for items that are already purhcasable with merits, the same can be true for ultra-rare.

The one "forcing" you to do it is...wait for it...wait for it...you. Nobody else.

Again, you were never promised anything in this game would be cheap or easy to obtain.

Another thing, how long did you take to acquire your "necessary" enhancers?

How much of what you paid can be attributed to the "Gotsta buy is NAO!" tax?

You're choosing to participate in an activity that pushes the notion that you have to be heavily augmented with IOs to be "competitive". If you wish to participate in it, you're making the choice to move into a very rarefied style of play and, knowing the market conditions, needing to accumulate either large quantities of inf, or be lucky enough to pick up PVP IOs.

Saying "I don't want to" is essentially you telling people that you want to not have to do the same exact things they have to do to come to the same end.

Putting price caps on to make things "cheaper" will simply result in stuff being generally unavailable (as stuff either just sells immediately at the price cap, or people hoard them and sell them off market via trade).

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and we all know how castle handled PvP...please do not let him get involved in the market.

and one of the devs stated, i believe, that they did not want purples purchasable this way. ever. they are meant to be ultra rare which means hard to come by which means a time sink for people so they play the game longer. makes perfect buisness sense. what he is refering to is PvP io's, the drop rates on those do need to be looked at as the population that is trying to feed the market with them is sooooooooo small.

It could also suggest that there's simply too much influence in the system to properly balance influence-priced transactions. Inflation is always the result of too much money chasing too few items, not just a one-sided lack of supply, and influence is all too easy to earn in the game at the present time.

No. They are NOT. Simply because the tactics you choose to utilize leave you wanting for this form of mitigation doesn't mean they are REQUIRED.

I'm really sorry that you're having a hard time acquiring stuff you want for specific purposes, but it still doesn't mean the stuff is required. Highly desirable? Sure! Game-changing? Sure! Required? Not on any day of the week, and twice-no on Sundays.

If you want to continue with GearQuest so you can compete against someone else with a 30-billion Inf build, you're inflicting it upon yourself.

Does it mean you couldn't work with a bunch of friends and go after PVP at the SO/Common IO level while avoiding the IO set fiends?

There's no "problem with availability". There's a market of 100K+ people in the game. PVPers are 1/2% to 1% of this population (or less). Yet this doesn't mean the IOs are less enticing to the other 99+% of the players. And for the most part they're purposefully scarce. Especially since everything but purples and certain holiday-specific recipes are purchasable by Merits now.

And, while you're in PVP thumping an opponent, there are players out there just like you who're earning inf in PVE at a rate that dwarfs yours.

Why exactly do you deserve to get one of these desirable IOs more than someone else? Because of some mistaken notion that you NEED them more?

Correction, it's not working FOR YOU because of choices you make in how you play.

Then you don't want the stuff or *ahem* NEED it that badly. Again, at no point were you ever ENTITLED to get the stuff easily or cheaply.

If you want it, work for it. LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

It's called patience. Do without for a bit while and spend a little time multiplying your wealth. Saying "I don't want to do that" is simply asking for stuff to be given to you. And that's never going to happen.

I hate to be blunt about this...well, no I don't especially since it's necessary.

TOUGH NOOGIES.

The way you are choosing to participate in the game pretty much mandates that you do some long-term planning and inf building and stop expecting stuff to simply be available and cheap the second you finish PL'ing to 50.

I DO understand how you feel. I merely don't sympathize, because an alternative that'd make you happy would bork the game. BADLY.

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Flippers don't raise the price, bidders do.
What flippers raise is the price FLOOR.

Essentially, in a VERY small number of transactions in an unflipped commodity, some buyers will get away with a lower price. The majority of them though will wind up paying more.

Steady pressure at a price floor will smooth out the wild swings from occasional low to much longer periods of high pricing.

Part of the reason salvage has gotten so much more volatile is due to the changes in base storage. Buyers don't necessarily have a massive reserve of stored items to fall back on anymore. These massive stores removed some of the pressure to buy at any cost from the market and helped keep prices lower. Now that that's no longer an option, that market pressure is driving up prices.

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WRONG!

Maybe you cannot PVP against other people with multi-billion builds. But you can still PVP.

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