I've been on the forums for almost six years now and I still haven't posted enough to be in the Forum Cartel. Humph! So I'm just going to go ahead and triple post here.
Actually, what I wanted to mention was that there's an important bit of data that I don't have but the devs should. How much inf do you earn as you level up, ignoring the market?
Take all the inf from defeats, add in all the NPC value of all the drops you'd get on average, and what does that come to? Then figure how much people need to buy DO's, SO's, etc. I'm guessing that people earn way more than needed. Heck, since long before Inventions were added, any character over level 30 was absurdly wealthy. When they added invention drops, they reduced enhancement drops (TO's, DO's, SO's). I think that, despite that, the actual take home pay of most characters went up significantly, even before market sales.
At any rate, those are numbers which the devs should be able to get. Yes, it varies depending on who you fight and how much you team, but still, they should be able to get an approximate range. If people can easily earn far more than they need for SO's, then a reduction in earning seems reasonable.
Avatar: "Cheeky Jack O Lantern" by dimarie
Solo using even con minions
49 528 minions to get to 50
27 404 383 inf from the defeats
(Roughly double this for vendor sales, I don't have it exactly)
1321 Pool A drops overall
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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I'm guessing that an enterprising soul (with too much time on their hands) | Actually, what I wanted to mention was that there's an important bit of data that I don't have but the devs should. How much inf do you earn as you level up, ignoring the market? |
could come up with a ballpark estimate of that.
Edit: I see Catwhoorg was thinking the same way I was.
In the simplest estimate, I think that P-Wiki has the number of minion kills
needed per level and we have some insight into basic droprates, so a rough
vendored drop value could be estimated. Adding those up would give you
a L1-L50 estimate for folks who levelled through simple street sweeping.
Given mission bonuses and such, that initial estimate would be a simplistic
but useful lower limit to compare against the approximately 18 Million costs
(over career) for store-bought SO's (from one of your previous posts
awhile back, Peter).
I'd venture a guess that the number would easily be 5X or more than that 18M...
My I-3 main had over 30 million on him when he hit 50, and it's much easier
these days.
Regards,
4
PS> I like some of Fulmen's inf sink ideas, and I'm especially fond of one
of Smurphy's old ones (rent a billboard for your toon's name/pic for a week
for an exhorbitant sum). Certainly, creative ways to drain inf could be both
useful and fun for the playerbase...
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.
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
the devs should solicit us locals with their market questions, since we've consistently demonstrated a far finer grained understanding of its hows and whys.
I used to think they knew what was up with the market. But it's been clear for a while now that they just make random changes without thinking them through, then gape in confusion at the ensuing carnage. |
A-freaking-MEN!
Now, on a scale of 1-100 (1 being no chance, 100 being certainty), how likely do you see this as happening?
Clicking on the linked image above will take you off the City of Heroes site. However, the guides will be linked back here.
A long time ago I created a spreadsheet based on the defeats per level.
I have tried to keep it upto date, but I haven't added the recent level 50 inf change. I needd to knuckle down and do that, as well as get it uploaded onto Google doc or similar.
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617
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I normally grimace when I see someone quote a long post then just add a couple of new lines, but look, now I'm that guy! |
Originally Posted by Fulmens
Couple ideas to move things gradually down:
1) Ability to buy merits at a ridiculous rate- I suggest 2 million per merit or more. Something that people will complain about and not use. . . except for people who need just a merit or two more. Or people like me who are looking for juicy ways to burn inf. I think a million per merit is just not ENOUGH. Make it part of an April Fool's event. I dunno. 2) The "stop paying for the game, lose your Wentworth stuff after 2 months" option. This is a more conservative version of the old 60-day rule. 3) Lower the inf-to-prestige ratio to, say, 333 to 1. I think people will use it MORE if they get more out of it- perhaps as a blip until people adjust but I think the effect is there. 4) Lower the sellback price of level 50 common recipes. (Already mentioned but worth repeating.) 5) Expensive 1-shot goodies; consider a once-per-half-hour craftable item that recharges all your other powers instantly. How much would you pay for that? A million? Ten million? How much would someone having trouble with Lord Recluse pay for that? How about million-inf Tier 3 IO's, available for emergencies? One LRSF teamwipe could burn a hundred million inf on the spot. 6) 12.5% Wentfee (5% before, 7.5% after) on anything over 10 million inf. If you flip or crap something for double the price now- say, buy item + ingredients for 20 million and sell for 40- you're generating a total of 6 million of Wentfees. Under the new system you'd generate 7.5 million (the item and ingredients, individually, are under the limit) so, in theory, you'd only be able to spend inf 8 times instead of 10. Inf in the system should drop by 20% as a result. And people who are buying low are unaffected. EDIT: 7) Guaranteed server transfer of inf at a 10% fee. Like using the market to do it, but without the possibility of screwing up and buying the wrong Level 29 Training Enhancement. |
Those are all superb ideas, Fulmens. Even the price points you suggest for things like purchasable tier 3 insps and merits. I especially like the "stop paying and lose your auction stuff" idea. I hated the old 60 rule because I often let alts go for a very long time without playing them. But it's a different situation when someone lets their account go idle. I also think they should free up names for any account that's gone dormant for a year or more, but that's a different issue.
Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.
Those are some cool ideas. I'd still like to see more endgame-purchase stuff to burn my dough on, but I'm concerned that it would be seen as a stick to people who don't play...rather than a carrot to those who do.
IE, 250M inf. to unlock...
500M inf. to unlock...
Hrm.
There are no words for what this community, and the friends I have made here mean to me. Please know that I care for all of you, yes, even you. If you Twitter, I'm MrThan. If you're Unleashed, I'm dumps. I'll try and get registered on the Titan Forums as well. Peace, and thanks for the best nine years anyone could ever ask for.
I'd like to propose that we keep the devs out of our market discussions. Not sure about anyone else but I'd prefer not to have a Market i13.
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Somehow, I'm afraid, devs going to dedicate resources to further curb AFK PvPIO farming without addressing drop rates and demand
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Originally Posted by Tokyo
I'd like to propose that we keep the devs out of our market discussions. Not sure about anyone else but I'd prefer not to have a Market i13.
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About changing the drop rate:|
Originally Posted by SwellGuy
Too bad Castle doesn't seem to see it is the drop rate that is broken.
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Originally Posted by castle
The only way I'd be comfortable increasing the drop rates is if we could make then Bind on Pickup, tech which we don't currently have.
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I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
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On a team of 6 fighting +1s, I think that's:|
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Solo using even con minions
49 528 minions to get to 50 27 404 383 inf from the defeats (Roughly double this for vendor sales, I don't have it exactly) 1321 Pool A drops overall |
"your share" of 112,000 minions (18,667 minions)
13,700,000 inf from the defeats (and whatever share of the vendor sales)
508 Pool A drops overall.
... does the inf per critter go up by the XP multiplier? I'm guessing "no" but I've been wrong before.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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Your stuff is only guaranteed to be safe on active accounts, ie being unsubbed for 60 days can lose stuff, compared to an active account can go years without logging a toon in to check market.|
Originally Posted by Aura_Familia
No it does NOT.
EDIT: They changed the 60 day rule ages ago. If someone quits now and comes back in two months, their stuff should be there. If it isn't it's a bug and if they petition they will get their stuff back after cust service investigates. |
http://www.cityofheroes.com/news/pat...lease_not.html
Edit: beaten well and truley - sorry to repeat
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
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Right, but then people even slotting one PvP IO without extensive farming just wouldn't happen.
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Originally Posted by tanstaafl
About changing the drop rate:
so increased drop rate might well mean no PvP IO going for cap price again... |
@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."
"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."
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I have well over 10 billion, mostly from AFK marketeering.
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Originally Posted by The_Coming_Storm
Who seriously has 2 billion inf from regular, non farming play? wow... no reason anything should be over 2 billion.
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Infinity and Victory mostly
dUmb, etc.
lolz PvP anymore, Market PvP for fun and profit
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Look up "too awesome to use" sometime. If you make a consumable too expensive, people will buy one for "emergency use", and then never encounter an emergency sufficient to overcome the psychological barrier for using it, negating any value as an inf sink. Instead, you want to set the price low enough and the value high enough that people will buy and use them like mad.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
5) Expensive 1-shot goodies; consider a once-per-half-hour craftable item that recharges all your other powers instantly. How much would you pay for that? A million? Ten million? How much would someone having trouble with Lord Recluse pay for that? How about million-inf Tier 3 IO's, available for emergencies? One LRSF teamwipe could burn a hundred million inf on the spot.
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Say you priced top-end inspirations at 50k each. Who wouldn't buy a tray-full before trying something hard? How frequent are LRSF teamwipes compared to attempts at soloing tough AVs and EBs?
Or take your one-shot recharge as an example. I wouldn't find that too useful at 10 million inf: at that price, the only thing I'd use it for is recharging godmode powers during a tough, long-running fight, and I just don't get in very many of those. Drop it down to 100k, and my plant/storm controller will keep a stock on hand to quick-recharge Vines whenever stuff hits the fan.
The idea of buying merits is a good one, but I think you've set the price too high. An average player can generate about 20 merits an hour through TFs, or 8 an hour through story arcs. The price for a merit needs to be set in line with that. Based on inf per hour levels discussed elsewhere in the forum, that would be between 50k per merit (level 50 defender generating a million inf per hour, divided by the TF rate) and 3 million inf (dedicated farmer generating 24 million inf per hour, divided by the arc rate).
Instead of making merits purchasable, I'd make some of the merit purchases also purchasable with inf. 1 million inf for a random rare salvage roll, or 30 million inf for a random rare recipe roll should remove inf from circulation at a reasonable rate.
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It does.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
... does the inf per critter go up by the XP multiplier? I'm guessing "no" but I've been wrong before.
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Oh. That reminds me. Teaming is actually an inflationary force. 8-man teams don't generate more recipes per kill, but they generate 2.5x a much total inf per kill as a solo player. (That's then divided among all 8 team members.) That increases the ratio of inf in the system to recipes (and salvage) in the system. Obviously everyone doesn't play on 8-man teams, but it's probably safe to bet that a large fraction of the players aren't soloing.
Over-level mobs do basically the same thing. They have the same chance per-mob of dropping something, but they each drop more inf than an even-level version.
Playing in the AE after your tickets are capped does something similar. You create money, but stop gaining even the potential to create additional recipes as a result.
Basically, anything that can create meaningful inf but can't drop recipes helps drive prices up. Anything that increases inf rewards without increasing drop probabilities proportionally helps drive prices up.
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
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Right now, a merit is probably worth around 750k-1M inf, based on what you'd get selling some of the more costly things you can spend merits on, then dividing by the merit cost to fabricate a recipe for one outright.|
Originally Posted by Katie V
Instead of making merits purchasable, I'd make some of the merit purchases also purchasable with inf. 1 million inf for a random rare salvage roll, or 30 million inf for a random rare recipe roll should remove inf from circulation at a reasonable rate.
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That means right now, 1M for a random rare salvage or 20M for a random recipe roll is probably about right, possibly a little high. The interesting part is that, if the scheme works and drives money supply down, that'll drive prices down, which will make the money roll high, meaning (savvy) people would go back to spending merits on random rolls because they're worth less. It'd probably work out, but I suspect it'd actually oscillate around instead of really stabilizing. Of course, in our market it's rare for anything to have stable prices/exchange rates for long anyway, so no one would probably notice.
One thing I can say is that the fact that we have categories of good that can only be bought with inf (like purples) means that, if I want those goods, I either save up money to get them and/or convert other psuedo-currencies into inf. I always look at spending merits directly (to save money) or spending money when that's cheaper so that I can convert merits into money to come out ahead. I would still do that under any regime where inf was the only way to buy purples (or PvPOs).
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
Selling Merits for Inf has the effect of increasing the number of players who have access to IOs. This effect may or may not be something the devs want to do. Selling merits for Inf is similar to increasing drop rates.
Comparison of Selling Merits for Inf and reducing Inf awarded for kills:
Selling Merits for Inf
Amount of Inf in system is reduced.
Amount of items in system is increased.
More players have access to items.
Inf awards reduced
Amount of Inf in system is reduced.
Amount of items in system is constant.
The same amount of players have access to items.
The key question is "should more players have access to items"? I think the devs implementation of the Merit system and their changes and lack of changes in various drop rates of items such as Purples, Pool Cs, and PvP IOs answers the question of where they stand on such an issue.
Other solutions need to consider the vast amount of Inf already created and destroyed on a daily basis. Some solutions proposed in this thread are simply a very small drop in a very large bucket. It would be best to keep in mind the scale of the issue and consider how much change various proposals would make on a consistent and continuous basis. Changes, to have any noticeable effect, need to alter the course of billions of Inf every day.
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So...I'm doing my part to help through soloing!|
Originally Posted by UberGuy
It does.
Oh. That reminds me. Teaming is actually an inflationary force. 8-man teams don't generate more recipes per kill, but they generate 2.5x a much total inf per kill as a solo player. (That's then divided among all 8 team members.) That increases the ratio of inf in the system to recipes (and salvage) in the system. Obviously everyone doesn't play on 8-man teams, but it's probably safe to bet that a large fraction of the players aren't soloing. Over-level mobs do basically the same thing. They have the same chance per-mob of dropping something, but they each drop more inf than an even-level version. Playing in the AE after your tickets are capped does something similar. You create money, but stop gaining even the potential to create additional recipes as a result. Basically, anything that can create meaningful inf but can't drop recipes helps drive prices up. Anything that increases inf rewards without increasing drop probabilities proportionally helps drive prices up. |
Shouldn't at least some of teaming inflation be offset by teams running TF? A team of 8 whizzing through an ITF creates 208 merits in about an hour - solo this might take me the better part of a career. Granted, teams running endless newspaper missions don't help there at all (assuming random boss Pool C drops are negligible). I wonder what the TF to non-TF team ratio is.
The over-level mob issue has led me to not up critter difficultly as soon as before, not because of drop-to-inf but because of drop-to-xp. Especially with patrol xp speeding things up already (typically rotate two if not three toons).
Suggestions:
Super Packs Done Right
Influence Sink: IO Level Mod/Recrafting
Random Merit Rolls: Scale cost by Toon Level
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It should help, probably weighted towards pool C/D stuff, since I am guessing most merits that get spent go into random rolls. Of course speed runs through TFs probably help drive the inflation of purples, but in an interesting way. Speed TF runs (which tend to minimize mob defeats), actually increase the ratio of merits produced per purple produced. I can't even begin to speculate how that ratio works out in practice, but if they're major production forces, it creates an interesting triangle between fast merit producers, purple farmers, and PL/inf farmers. (I only distinguish purple farmers from PL/inf farmers because some purple farmers will bother to run missions at -1 difficulty to speed drop rates.)
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Originally Posted by gec72
Shouldn't at least some of teaming inflation be offset by teams running TF? A team of 8 whizzing through an ITF creates 208 merits in about an hour - solo this might take me the better part of a career. Granted, teams running endless newspaper missions don't help there at all (assuming random boss Pool C drops are negligible). I wonder what the TF to non-TF team ratio is.
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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
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Fixt funny that our resident economist failed to mention that one of the primary results of monetary deflation would be increasing the purchasing power of liquid assets.
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Originally Posted by Chriffer
Inf awards reduced
Amount of Inf in system is reduced. Amount of items in system is constant. The same amount of players have access to items. Payers who have large amounts of in have greater access to items |
So in a perfect world (according to Chriffer and Ragman), all Inf rewards would be cut by a significant amount, and the Market would have price caps. How many other ways can we find to massively benefit Marketeers?
Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
I've moved on to Diablo 3, TopDoc-1304
Katie_V: "Too Awesome to Use" is a good thing to consider, and one I've overlooked. I'm hoping for something that's Too Awesome To Use... much.
One of the big causes of TATU is things that have a limited number of charges that can never be renewed. Most of my characters have five Amys each because of the TATU effect. If it's just money... I'll throw 100K at the Market to get a tier 3 inspiration; I'll throw a million at the Market to get ten. If the SG has a bad day, I'll buy up dozens of insps to refill the storage bins.
One of the other things I see is that we have game-improving items that are often ignored, either through obscurity or because the game is so easy we don't need them. Ethereal Shift/pistol/bat temp powers, Shivans, rockets, base buffs. Only Shivans get much use there.
Uberguy: I don't want the prices to be "About right." I want it to be a slight financial penalty, buying merits to get rolls. I want people to complain that the price is too high (like they do about inf-for-prestige) but do it anyway (like they do about inf-for-prestige.) I don't want farming for cash for merits to be a viable replacement for doing TF's, and I don't think the Devs want that. (Farming is antisocial, while TF's are social, and building social bonds = Good Thing for a MMO.)
Changing the subject again, I just figured out why cash-for-merits is a problem. Because you can move 200 million over to a level 20 alt and get ten rolls.
Maybe some sort of diminishing return, like TFs? 1 million for the first merit, 2 million for the second merit, 3 [4?] for the third, on a 20 hour timer? (What is the current TF timer? Still 24 hours?) That way if you're "just a couple short" you can afford them, but if you want to buy ten you're looking at a considerable expense.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
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That doesn't make sense to me. The reason it doesn't make sense is simple. If it's that expensive, I think people won't use it. Remember, you're willing to run out and intentionally destroy billions of inf on a lark. Most players I've met aren't willing to destroy 100k inf without a damn good reason.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
Uberguy: I don't want the prices to be "About right." I want it to be a slight financial penalty, buying merits to get rolls. I want people to complain that the price is too high (like they do about inf-for-prestige) but do it anyway (like they do about inf-for-prestige.)
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I see a lot of cases of people where people are terribly irrational about inf-based prices. Consider the folks we have post in here who use merits to outfit their characters, despite the inefficiencies of doing so for most goods compared to converting those merits to cash and then buying the goods with inf. Even people converting tickets to random common salvage to save spending 50k or 100k strikes me as an inefficient use of those (especially since you usually have to roll several times to get what you actually want).
There's also the consideration I mentioned earlier that purples and PvPOs, (the things that really have the bigtime price rises that's got us talking about this) can only be bought with inf. If I want purples and they take cash to buy, I will not spend my cash on things I don't use very often. (And I'm extremely likely to be suffer from TATU on the things I do buy.)
I think what I'm saying is that if we want people to spend inf across the broad base of players, we have to give them things with low psychological barriers to purchase, but make those purchaes things they find attractive enough to buy often. I believe lots of frequent burn will remove more inf from the system more reliably than a few epic chunks.
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
billi-NO
@Catwhoorg "Rule of Three - Finale" Arc# 1984
@Mr Falkland Islands"A Nation Goes Rogue" Arc# 2369 "Toasters and Pop Tarts" Arc#116617