SOs vs generic IOs- more thoughts on Cas-uality

Oh yes.
And back in the day blowing a few hundred K on the wrong SO wasn't a trivial matter, it could be a meaningful chunk of your bankroll.

And it's actually simpler now than it used to be- remember when 'range' and 'cone range' (or whatever they called it) were two separate SOs?

shudder.

And weren't there two kinds of endurance modification as well, one for boosting end and another for draining?

My routine for a new toon is to put about 5 mill on it at creation and from there just buy a new set of enhancements from the store every 5 levels (12, 17, 22, etc...). For me they're just placeholders... baby teeth if you will, for a fun, but relatively brief period until 47-50 where I then respec into "permanent" enhancements in the form of IOs.

Why not IOs? I prefer having higher % enhancement values at low levels when it matters most as I have fewer powers and some will still be underslotted.

I think this question needs to be reframed because veteran and casual describe points on two completely different lines.

Time spent playing and knowing the shortcuts and all the ins and outs of the game mechanics/market:

New Player <---...... ---> Veteran

Degree that your playstyle emphasizes obtaining the best possible enhancements:

Casual <---......---> Non-Casual (insert your term of choice for this)

UGGGGGH.

I'd forgotten about that.

See, to me that sounds like Anti-Fun.
Before I can slot 25's I'll slot whatever drops- the only thing I pay for is Acc. The low level game is easy enough that I do just fine running around with a mish-mash of drops.

If I hated the old system with less vehemence I'd probably follow your lead. If enhancements were clearly named and sanely organized at the vendors, sure, why not drop some inf for 'max' performance.

But they aren't, and the time I'd waste sorting through lists is time I could be spending bashing Skulls or Snakes. =P

I use generics in the same way, except once I slot them they usually stay there until I get a permanent set IO solution.

I might try going the vendor enhancement route on my next alt, just to see if it makes any appreciable difference....or rather, if the difference is great enough to overcome my antipathy toward the wretched vendor interface.

My routine is for one of my AE focused characters to run some stories, roll the tickets into lowbie salvage, and create 10-20 level generic IOs, making high priority items (acc, dam, endredux, recharge) first. These are passed along to the levelling characters. I don't ever buy TOs, and DOs are only bought to fill in the holes that are left. Usually by the time the character is level 30 or so, they're slotted with generic IOs that are good enough to get to level 50 or until I decide what sets are most desirable. And in the meantime, their drops are being crafted and used as well. If salvage is missing to create drops, again my AE characters fill in what's needed.

It does take a little effort, but I took pains in the OP to minimize the time investment even though it would generate extreme savings.

Assuming you pay table prices for the recipes the only variable is the cost of salvage. Some of the components for generics are pricey, but some are basically free.

These kinds of annoyances are no different than the tedium of sorting through the confusing SO listings and then buying the wrong enhancement because the system is intentionally confusing.

You're right that generics are more "work", with the resource gathering and assemblage requirements.

But SOs aren't any kind of streamlined, simple alternative.
If they were clearly labeled and presented in an organized manner, then sure, they'd be the winner by a landslide- but they aren't.

Both types of enhancements were built as timesinks, they just impose different types of temporal penalties on the player.

I'm talking generics here- Mid's has no place at the table.

Using set IOs in any sort of efficient way I'd agree is beyond the purview of any 'casual' player. Once they set off on that path they leave 'casual' behind.

Again, SOs are also "work", just a different type. Instead of the temporal drag of buying salvage and shuffling over to the university or base, you have the temporal drag of sorting through disorganized lists of confusingly named SOs, and repeating that process every X number of levels as your enhancments weaken and die on you.

I haven't messed around with SOs at all since I9 so my sense of just how much time you'd spend kitting out with them is pretty blurry, but I don't think it's the vast improvement over IOs that folk assume it is.

I don't slot anything but drops until I can stick in 25's, at which point I have a large bankroll (if I've done nothing but sell drops) or a huge bankroll (if I've been bothering to marketeer along the way).

It'll never happen. When it come to the market there aren't enough plugged-in gamers to exhaust ANY outfitting strategy.

Example, way back when I 'outed' the LotG flipping niche.
There were never any for sale so I figured they were underpriced.
I started buying them up at the 'going rate' (around 40 million, IIRC) and selling them for 100 million.

I did it for a while, long enough to convince myself it was entirely sustainable. Then I posted a thread about it in here.

You'd expect something that high profit to just go POOF! at that point. I mean, that was big money back then. But it did the same thing any other niche did- with more players the margins gradually shrank until it wasn't profitable any more.

I checked back a few weeks later, flipped a few to satisfy myself that it was working again, chuckled and wandered off.

On a smaller scale, I doubt there's been a more publicly vociferous advocate of buying ultra cheap crafted generics than myself, and yet EVERY TIME I throw up some lowball bids on a new character they fill.


I'll agree that if the entire playerbase was as engaged and informed as the average market forum regular things would work a lot differently- but they aren't, and they never will be.

It'd be like saying "if everyone graduated from medical school, doctors would be unemployable!"
Technically true, but irrelevant since a vanishingly small % of the population has any interest in medicine in the first place, let alone the wherewithal to plow through medical school.

Except that higher prices also reward our friend the Casual Player when he goes to sell his junk.

I'm not sure why so many people ignore this half of the equation.

I know this stuff seems to simple to you, but for a large number of people it's a total mystery. They think that they're "unlucky" and will never get good drops or won't get the best price when they post an item on the market. My guess is that an awful lot of decent recipes are just sold to vendors out of laziness and ignorance.

The problem is that there's so much detail. The "casual" player doesn't know what's important and what's not. Players with years of experience know how to work the system to their advantage, while players without that experience just miss the boat repeatedly, for any number of reasons.

There's nothing magic about this knowledge, but from reading all the complaints from players about the market, getting desired items, and all the rest, it's clear that there's a large segment of the playerbase that is completely baffled by this part of the game. As you can see from other posts in this thread, there are people who don't really care about the numbers at all; they just want to have fun. And these are players who bother to read the forums: the vast majority of players never visit these august pages.

I've been saying pretty much the same thing that you're saying in this thread since IOs came out: anyone can outfit their character with decent stuff if they just plan ahead. But it requires that you have patience and understand and adapt to the market, and not just treat it like a store.

And I think that's what frustrates people: they want what they want when they want it, and they want it to be the same every time. They want a set procedure that's easy and reliable. SOs are exactly that: you pays your money and you gets your SO. Markets are obstinate, unpredictable and cantankerous.

I think the real cookie-cutter road to outfitting your character with IOs runs through AE: with tickets you can get common IO recipes and salvage like clockwork, and never touch the market. With Bronze rolls you could pretty successfully Frankenslot a character without having to buy anything on the market.

It would be interesting to compare that character-building strategy to a market-based one. It's a completely different emotional dynamic: instead of being at the mercy of the frustrating and confusing market, you just keep working till you get what you need. But AE is in such disrepute it might be a tough sell.

This.

People are introduced to the invention system by recipe drops. Much can go wrong here. My first post-i9 encounter involved a pet damage Acc/Dam enhancement. It just so happened that I had the salvage to craft it, and could not figure out why it would not go in a power. Yes, ridiculous, but I had just gotten back into the game at that point. I figured, "accuracy and damage are good, I should make this."

You get a level 15 Accuracy recipe, and see what you need to make it .... then you look up the ingredients at WW/BM. The last 5 Luck Charms sold for prices that would fill several powers with DOs, and that's difficult enough to do with standard inf earned from mob drops. Therefore, the whole deal must be a manipulated scam.

Actually, IO Triples equal the value of SOs starting at level 17. and quads even sooner (though there are very few quads and triples that low I admit).

And, while people are bringing up the 100k cost of a luck charm, I will point out that crafted generic Accuracy IOs can be bought as cheap as 50k. Something to remember is most of us casuals, and nearly all newbs will look for the enhancement first and the recipe/ingredients second.

Honestly, it doesn't take any special savvy or know-how to dump your junk on the market for a couple of inf and rake in the profits.

There's no magic to it, it's just using the system that is explained to them in the tutorial.

Ding!
I was waiting for the word "Tutorial".

People sometimes assume that the Casual Player has no knowledge of how IOs are crafted, when the University contact runs them through the process and hands them a shiny new crafted IO on the way out the door.