City of Heroes: Live Forum Archive

Discussion: Free Character Server Transfers for the Double XP and Reactivation Weekend!

3dent

By 3dent,
Posted on: 2010-02-26 15:22 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Captain Fabulous View Post
Well you're right, it comes down to perception. But while people tend to really hate long travel times to missions they seem to like farming because the former is simply dead wasted time whereas the latter, while skull-crushingly boring, at least makes you feel as though you're accomplishing something.
Speaking for myself, I'm not a big fan of either, but YYMV, so...

Quote:
I didn't say it doesn't function like a real-world market, I said it shouldn't be compared to a real-world market, as the benchmarks for a successful market are completely different for each. A real-world market, in order to be successful, needs to be stable above all else. Inflation must be kept to a minimum, and there usually needs to be at least some form of regulation in order to keeps things in balance. Otherwise it collapses and your economy fails. It's easy to keep earning money in a game -- you just keep playing. And you have no overhead such as paying rent and utilities, buying food and clothing, transportation costs, etc.

Since none of those things are a concern in a game there is no incentive for the developers to regulate the market. On the contrary, the more inflative and unregulated a game economy is the better it functions, at least from a dev standpoint. In real life a stable economy is necessary for people to survive. Not so much in a game.
Interesting... this raises the question of inflation being a planned effect, or merely a side-effect that becomes more important over time.

Quote:
Well this isn't really true. It's because we are strong-armed into using the market to acquire the items we want due to the structure of the loot system as well as artificial limitations placed upon us in terms of acquisition and retention. Did you ever think to yourself "things would be a lot easier if there were maybe 20 kinds of salvage instead of hundreds"? The massive number of salvage items and recipes ensures that you'll almost never have exactly the right combinations you need to make what you want, which forces a trip to the market. This limitation is further compounded by the extremely limited amount of storage space we're allocated. If you were able to store every single salvage item and recipe you were awarded we'd spend a lot less time at the market. Which is exactly why we can't.
Well, my point is that it was a time saver for my characters in the game as it stands. If the mechanics of getting items were different, then my experience with the market might have been different, certainly.
And actually, the thing I am most likely to be lacking is the recipie, not the salvage. If I need salvage, I usually don't go to the market, that's what AE tickets are for.

But I certainly take your general point in terms of complexity driving shortage.

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- Mahatma Gandhi

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by Sardan View Post
Don't get me wrong, I'm not against bumping up drop rates (especially on PvP IOs), but your statement is incorrect. The other factor in the escalating prices of IOs is the amount of currency in the system. There aren't many inf sinks in this game but there's a torrent of new inf being created every day. As ever more currency chases a small pool of goods, you get inflation.
I'm not sure that is inaccurate. ("When some recipes/io's start costing 500 million or more, imo, that's an indicator that it's too damn rare.") Rarity is a big factor. The biggest factor it seems to me. You don't have to pay much at all for spirit thorns. Is that because the currency amount lessens when you buy spirit thorns?

I'm looking at the Gaussian's Fire-Control set right now. You could have gotten 5 of the 6 for 1 million or under recently (way under for some). One recipe however is different. (recharge/end redux) 400+ bidding....0 for sale. The last 5 went for 40 million or more. So what's the main factor here?

I wonder if there is a bug on that one recipe? I've been trying to get it all week. The price keeps outrunning my bids. I got the others in one day for cheap but that one has had 0 available every time I look.

 

Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by JeetKuneDo View Post
I'm looking at the Gaussian's Fire-Control set right now. You could have gotten 5 of the 6 for 1 million or under recently (way under for some). One recipe however is different. (recharge/end redux) 400+ bidding....0 for sale. The last 5 went for 40 million or more. So what's the main factor here?
The Gaussian's rech/end redux is in the Random Rare Rolls pool (old pool C/D), while the rest of the set drop in Pool A or B.

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Posted

Quote:
Originally Posted by JeetKuneDo View Post
I'm not sure that is inaccurate. ("When some recipes/io's start costing 500 million or more, imo, that's an indicator that it's too damn rare.") Rarity is a big factor. The biggest factor it seems to me. You don't have to pay much at all for spirit thorns. Is that because the currency amount lessens when you buy spirit thorns?
Of course scarcity is what is responsible for prices of 500M or more. The point I was trying to make was that the quote was trying to set up a tautology, i.e. price of more than 500M is an automatic signal that something is too rare and should be made more plentiful. What I was pointing out was that while it is a signal of rarity it is not necessarily more rare than the devs intended and because of the ever increasing amount of currency in the game economy, it's not surprising to see ever higher prices on rare goods.

Freedom: Blazing Larb, Fiery Fulcrum, Sardan Reborn, Arctic-Frenzy, Wasabi Sam, Mr Smashtastic.

 

Posted

Similar to what someone else suggested..

How about a secondary market? Maybe lower the bid caps on the existing one,and raise or remove the caps on the other, but place the other in, say, Cimerora, where mostly only high level alts will be selling. That would mean one market may be a better sellers' market for low level items, and one a better sellers' market for high level drop types.

Of course, some people would shuttle back and forth between the two, but without a Base TP beacon to Cimerora that would still be somewhat prohibitive.

I'll admit up front that I'm not sure this is a good idea, just throwing out an idea. It would allow some choice, and some market competition.

You could even decide to have 2 markets in Cimerora, one for villains and one for heroes, or link them there, but not elsewhere.

Just thinking out loud, and I'd to hear the feedback on this.

 

Posted

The biggest problem with the current system is the cap on how many recipes that you can hold on your character and how many you can put up for sale. I regularly delete set IO recipes and salvage because I have no room to store then and I'm not going to have them take up a market slot.

Another change that could be made to the market is to allow me to enter a level range when putting in a bid rather than having to select the specific level for a bid. If I'd be happy with an IO between 35-40, I have to put in 6 bids and it's very possible that I'll end up with more recipes than I need.

IMO, the entire system needs a second look. Also, there is probably a better thread for this discussion...

@Griffyn

"40 characters is my limit... okay, 50... 50 is my limit... okay, 60... 60 is my limit... okay, 70..."