1 Billion - Really Doesn't Mean Much Any More Does it?

Heh. I've been wondering about this myself -- I got a character to 1 billion this weekend, but didn't post anything, because I can't decide if it's the round number of one billion or the functional cap of two billion that "matters."

Of course it's a silly question; I probably can muster 2 billion across my entire account, and e-mailing influence will trivialize the classic monocle-and-teabag screenshot soon enough anyway.

But 100 billion? That'll require 50 characters just to hold, if you don't park it in WW slots or convert it to PVP IOs. How would you "prove" it, anyway? 50 screenshots will try any reader's patience, and how would we know it's not the same 2 billion being e-mailed around? It's almost too cumbersome to be interesting.

Edit: oh, and regarding what to do with that wealth...I bought two IO recipes last night. Level 30-ish melee damage triples for frankenslotting in a level 30 character. They set me back 55 Inf apiece.

Hi all!

I do think 1 Billion is still a nice amount of inf., but I really am doing fine building toons for below 200 Mio. (I'm using the planner and do never calculate with purples) and they really do well (softcapped defenses etc.). If I wanted I had a billion soon. I'd just grind it out with one of my 50s in a nice mission +0/8 and look for good drops...
But what I do instead is selling stuff for much less than market value... I mainly grind for salvage. I sell whites for 250, yellows for 1000 (always) and keep the oranges. I want to bring prices down again... but it's not easy to flood the market with salvage for ONE person... I just don't find the prices reasonable at the moment and I think it scares away people (referring to newbs) from the game... Redside I've seen some success already but as soon as I stop it goes away again... :-/ If we had the low prices again... think of how much your Billions would be worth again!
I'd also like it if we only had one market for blue AND redside, but that's a different discussion.

Have a nice day!

Cheers Schlu.

PS: Please help me flood the market with cheap stuff!

I had to stop storing influ in its place i store purples and pvp ios since i would be way over my 2 bill cap on every toon.

its just easier to store it as armageddons, and panacea and glad processes etc....

on one toon whats in my ww storage id be over 10 bill. forget about my purple bin in base that i cant even wrap my head around

i strongly urge a new cap about 100 bill per toon or in a personal bank account in the vault

This discussion has made me wonder what my main's current build is worth were I to sell all his enhancements on the market.

I'm still working on this one. I did have one of my ten toons get a rare purple and sell it for $400 Million in influence at the market which left them with over $500 Million. I then proceeded to spend influence like a drunken sailor and buy some nice enhancements.

With that being said, people mention this "cap" thing. What exactly is the cap? Is it a certain amount that each toon is allowed to have at one time,.e.g. $2 Billion for example? And if this is the case, why is there a cap and why is it set at a certain number? I really cannot see anything negative as to why the dev's wouldn't make the cap size larger or maybe even unlimited.

One billion is chump change.

Heh, my current SS/FA build would cost between 12 and 15b with current market prices. Since his first iteration, I've probably spent about 3-4b on him :3

A billion inf remains a significant amount of wealth, outside of purples and pvp IOs it retains much of the purchasing power it held back when the billionaire club was a true accomplishment. Its those outlier items where a billion starts to look like pocket change. If you're happy with non-purple builds for most alts (like I am) then that money will take you very far.

The ebil club needs to shift to at least 10bil to regain its former leetness, possibly 20bil. Makes for difficult screenie evidence tho (not like existing 1bil screenshots couldn't be easily faked and are taken on the "honor system"). I've 14.5bil across eight holder alts redside, guess I could make a monocle collage but its not worth the hassle.

Edited to add:

The 1b benchmark is what it is. Those today don't think of it as epic, but from ground zero it takes a while. Sure, flipping a purple a few times, or once, can get you a bil pretty quick. By someone with 43k can't do that yet.

[edited to change months to weeks, sheesh]

It took me around 3 weeks to go from having 10m total on all my toons to 1b each on two that I decided to try to do that. Ten million was tons to me. I freaked out when a farmer gave me 30m one day when he found out how little I had. I had never slotted anything but SOs and considered them expensive.

1b is a good amount to get a good, nearly capped, build going. I just did a Ma/Inv scrapper for 700m.

A billion proves you know marketing to some extent and spent time doing it. If a first grader comes up to you and shows you they made a 100 on a spelling test, do you say, "So? Geez, these words are nothing. I don't even know why they have first grade anymore."

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fulmens So who wants to start the Iron Man Screenshot club? Show a screenshot where you're burning a billion in market fees. Selling,buying, whatever.

Ooh, I like this.

I would find it Veeery impressive if I saw a screenshot of someone buying a salvage that sells for about 10 inf for 2b.

1. Why do people even list something that sells for 10 inf?
2. How would the person collect the money if they already had funds in hand?

Hmm - I personally think 1 billion is just "pocket" change, but it is still a significant amount in terms of overall usage. My characters build's require enhancements to make them fit my play style - I like maxed out toons, they must achieve what I want (reasonably) them to achieve and normally I'll come up with the inf to do it. Course it doesn't always take/worth it to put in the best of the best to get what I want for a particular toon.

the 'ebil' club amount can remain the same, but maybe formulate a new level of 'ebilness' -- cause obviously you can't buy everything that you could with a billion that you could a year ago or two years ago (pre-12)

As others mentioned, 1 Billion is a lot if you don't go for a top end IO build. I know of several friends and players who are completely uninterested in IO'ing their characters with the best of everything and they have way more influence than they can possibly spend. They would never spend 1 Billion since they do fine with just SOs or generics.