Tips and Tricks from a newby: A market blog.
By
AllYourBase,
Posted on: 2010-08-13 16:13 in The Market and Inventions
You know, all this talk about preparing for Marketgeddon makes me feel almost bad for sitting on my duff and not worrying about it 
So, Marketgeddon happened. The Price War to end all Price Wars. The Sellpocalypse. Ragnavendor.
Everyone's stuff was unlisted, all listing fees returned, and all markets are now one market. There is only The Market, for all sides, for all servers, it is all-reaching and all-touching.
And I... went right back to selling the same IOs at the same prices like it never happened. WTF?!
Alright, so the price points are a little higher. Not any higher than I've seen before, though. I did pick up a couple M from rolling all my AE tickets when I hit 20, and have a bunch of other Really Useful Things at that level sitting in the "Selling" pane. We'll see if they sell. It's time to wade through my PMs and find something else tasty to sell. There's three of you who've sent me advice on what good crafting profit IOs at higher price points are. 50M to the person who can guess which 3 forum-goers sent me the free advice before tomorrow 9pm.
I'll be making a new character tomorrow for an RP SG. I'll post market results from both characters daily, and keep track of the combined daily Inf. First post updated with current total and a plea for build help. Oh, and please leave your opinions on your favorite Support type character. I'm considering Kinetics or Force Fields on a Defender with Psychic Blast right now.
Had a nice turn around today after yesterday's apathy. Going to try to push some for more before bed, if I can tear myself away from my Praetorian long enough.
Grand total of 562M inf after I collected it. It feels weird to have half a billion inf, a quarter the inf cap, when my highest level character is 20. I keep thinking I'd be able to greatly increase my Inf intake if I had a character high enough to do some farming. Then I wonder if it's true.
Speaking of Praetorians, I made a Kinetics / Dual Pistols Defender. I'll start working his market slots when he hits 10 or so and it's worth bothering.
I seem to be plateauing at 75M to 100M profit a day. Not that I'm complaining, but I know better is possible. I just need to figure out what I'm doing wrong. Most likely, I just need to do what I've been avoiding, and apply nose to grindstone to research something with the profit potential to get me above this point.
Argh. Never drink and market. Just typo'd away 80M. Has a sad now >.<
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It's not. I keep seeing all these posts from people who want to farm and I just roll my eyes. Is farming adequate? Sure, it's a faster way of generating influence than regular missions and probably faster than trying to collect merits. Not sure if it's faster than collectin A-merits, but time will tell on that one. It's not faster than marketing on it's own. Marketing + farming on your off time and farming for AE ticket is probably the fastest method since you're using both synergistically. |
Originally Posted by heffroncm
Grand total of 562M inf after I collected it. It feels weird to have half a billion inf, a quarter the inf cap, when my highest level character is 20. I keep thinking I'd be able to greatly increase my Inf intake if I had a character high enough to do some farming. Then I wonder if it's true.
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However, if a) you don't have a farming capable character, b) are mostly a casual player and don't have a lot of time to play c) don't enjoy soloing (since the most optimal farming takes place for a single character at +2/x8/no bosses settings), farming is suboptimal.
There are some people who enjoy farming and that's fine; however, killing the same mobs over and over again loses its lustre after the 1000th time you've done. I've farmed every farmable instance in the game...all the way from the early Dreck missions (where you get hundreds of Freaks in a single dumpster) to Shadowhunter wolves to demons, Battle Maiden and Liberate. I've done it with a variety of different characters too: Fire/Kin, SS/Fire brute, shield scrappers, shield brutes, fire tanks, etc. The only thing I haven't done it with is a Fire/Psi pre psy shockwave nerf.
Even with all that, none of that compares with just playing the market, especially on a influence generated per time spent basis. I think the best way to generate influence is to farm in bursts, to get the tickets you need and then use that to craft your recipes. You then bid on anything else desirable and then farm for purples at +2/x8 on occasion. That's how I do it if I'm looking to cap a character's inf in a short amount of time.
BTW, 500M by level 20 is *impressive*.
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My point is, with 20 being my highest level character, I don't have access to that source of income. Marketing is the only thing I can rely on at all. I think I could get my daily profits up if I were able to spend an hour a day nabbing AE tickets and rolling for recipes that people want. The guy is EM/WP, he should be able to farm fairly well.|
Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
Even with all that, none of that compares with just playing the market, especially on a influence generated per time spent basis. I think the best way to generate influence is to farm in bursts, to get the tickets you need and then use that to craft your recipes. You then bid on anything else desirable and then farm for purples at +2/x8 on occasion. That's how I do it if I'm looking to cap a character's inf in a short amount of time.
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Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
BTW, 500M by level 20 is *impressive*.
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So, I got sick of the time I was spending every time I did a bunch of purchasing. Adding up the cost of the recipe, all the salvage, crafting price, and then calculating the "break even" and "profit" points was just a pain. I put it all together in a spreadsheet, and now I'm sharing that with you folks.
Check it out here:
Google Documents Link
You'll need to download it by going to "File -> Download As". If anyone has a better way to share a spreadsheet, please tell me.
Column titles should be self explanatory. You can use it for flipping by entering the total cost under the "recipe" heading. It has really sped up my crafting process and gives me the confidence to attempt flipping for profit.
Thanks for the blog and the spreadsheet document. I've been back playing COH for a few months now, but it seems like my "rich" characters when I left (~150 million influence/infamy) are poor again, my poor characters (Spines/DA scrapper - leveled before Wentworth's existed had about 1 million influence to his name at level 38) are destitute. Between your blog and Fury Flechette's guides, I'm convinced I can get enough cash to do what I want with my characters- it's just a matter of time. Very impressive making it up to 500 million influence with the limited time and resources you had.
I am probably the laziest marketeer in the world. If I can make a quarter billion in 11 days from nothing, anyone can.
I just realized that someone is finding this thread useful. Yay! Mission accomplished! *puts on cowboy hat and takes 4 month vacation*
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Quoted for extreme emphasis.|
Originally Posted by Fury Flechette
BTW, 500M by level 20 is *impressive*.
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Originally Posted by heffroncm
I just realized that someone is finding this thread useful. Yay! Mission accomplished! *puts on cowboy hat and takes 4 month vacation*
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Good on ya. =)
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
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*looks at EarthWyrms regdate*|
Originally Posted by EarthWyrm
I think that a lot of folks assume that the people with the early reg dates have some sort of mystical mojo that lets them/us make inf hand over fist.
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*looks at own regdate*
Let's pick a different definition of "new"
I do agree, though. I find a lot of people seem to think the market is some scary, arcane mumbo-jumbo that they'll never understand.I do think I might have lost my shirt today, though. We'll see what the evening brings.
You haven't lost your shirt until after the weekend. (spoken like a man with 800M invested in something that has shown a notorious reluctance to go up in price.)
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
See, that makes me feel better. Even if it tanks and I get 1/4 back what I put in, I'm only out 150M. It's all relative. 150M seems like a lot when it's 25% of your total capital.
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Not while I yet live!
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Originally Posted by heffroncm
I am probably the laziest marketeer in the world.
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The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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I'd say you need to give it a couple weeks if it is over level 20.
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Originally Posted by Fulmens
You haven't lost your shirt until after the weekend. (spoken like a man with 800M invested in something that has shown a notorious reluctance to go up in price.)
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total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
OP:
Nice work - your tips list is good solid advice and along with the screenies
you've posted (and those from other folks - ie. Fury), anyone who wants
to buy a marketing clue should be able to get it at a nice discount price
by simply reading here...
A few other tips I'll toss in as well:
1> Type Fast BUT click SLOW! (The inf you save will be your own) I've lost
count of how many major/expensive typos this has saved me from...
2> ALWAYS start with a ludicrously low bid on anything you're buying - it
works more often than common sense or logic would predict. Ramp up to
normal bids if it doesn't fill immediately, but the 5 seconds it takes to try
it first can save millions.
3> With our "new/improved" market UI, work from the bottom up when
listing items (that helps prevent you listing the wrong item for the wrong
price when the UI "helpfully" shifts items around in the list for you)
Regarding Discount Coupons, personally, I always keep a full set of 10 on
my marketeers. They're not (generally) useful - except for crafting L50 IOs.
More often than not, those savings cover the salvage costs, and, heck,
150K more profit is ... Moar Profit!
They're free to get for simply logging off in the right spot, so why ignore a
free million or so (I craft my L50s ... 10 at a time for just that reason)
Anyway, Good Post, and best of luck with your marketing - Now, more
than ever we need more Ebil Marketeers to squash the casual Praetorian
masses...
Regards,
4
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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Okay, okay - so I made an assumption based on context. Regdates aren't available in the "Reply" screen, at least in the version of Firefox I'm running. :P|
Originally Posted by heffroncm
*looks at EarthWyrms regdate*
*looks at own regdate* |
And if you do lose your shirt, don't sweat it. I've spent (on purpose and otherwise) myself down to under 10m on my main before. You clearly have the knowledge to make it all back.
My postings to this forum are not to be used as data in any research study without my express written consent.
Sorry for the late post, I'm juggling format now that I'm tracking 2 characters. Also, when it came time to put this up, I was drunk.
Would 3 columns be better? It'd certainly fit my monitor, but can't be sure about everyone.
Grand total: 683M liquid inf.
LOTS of Mako's Bite. Too much. New rule: never invest more than 10 at a time into any one set. Ended up selling a bunch at-cost and others at a lost, both from a typo while buying salvage (15M is not just like 1.5M) and from plain overkill.
Still managed to profit by about 100M, and still have a few more enhancements to sell.
Here's the 3 column version.
Which do you prefer?
Grand total of about 764M, so made about 100M? Well, I've got... tons sitting in the consignment house. I should liquidate sometime and see how much I'm really worth. Quickly approaching my first billion.
Wow, you look like you're having way too much fun. 
I haven't marketeered any at all since GR came out. I should probably get back to my characters and just see all the stuff that's just sitting in auction house storage. Grats on reaching 700+M plateau. There are many players in this game that have never had that much on their entire account.
*ahem*
That is all.
Well, not really, but it was funnier that way. In my mind anyway :-P
So, I think this might set a new market benchmark. From ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to my first billion in exactly 2 weeks. That is, no starting influence, no characters on the account, no badges, no accolades, no veteran awards that effect the market, nothing at all that gives me any advantage over someone that bought the game on the same day I restarted my account. I didn't even start trying to make money in earnest for a day or two, I was too busy trolling forums to catch up on the game and I had no market slots to speak of.
So, that's my two-week story. Bit of a self-congratulatory post here, but it's been a great day and I feel pretty good about what I've accomplished with the market. I'll post a proper update with everything I sold in the past 24 later this evening, and this thread is far from over.
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Nice work! Before too long, being poor will be a distant memory. And you'll be too busy oppressing the casual meek downtrodden of this game to think about that memory. |
Originally Posted by heffroncm
*ahem*
That is all. Well, not really, but it was funnier that way. In my mind anyway :-P So, I think this might set a new market benchmark. From ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to my first billion in exactly 2 weeks. That is, no starting influence, no characters on the account, no badges, no accolades, no veteran awards that effect the market, nothing at all that gives me any advantage over someone that bought the game on the same day I restarted my account. I didn't even start trying to make money in earnest for a day or two, I was too busy trolling forums to catch up on the game and I had no market slots to speak of. So, that's my two-week story. Bit of a self-congratulatory post here, but it's been a great day and I feel pretty good about what I've accomplished with the market. I'll post a proper update with everything I sold in the past 24 later this evening, and this thread is far from over. |
"And I swear to effing god, that community is .01% nethergoat-level smart and 99.99% completely fascinating varieties of turd-licking idiots" -Talen Lee
*sabers open a bottle of champagne of a brand that poor people don't even know the NAME of*
Cheers!
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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HAH! I don't even know where to BEGIN spending Inf. All the help I've asked for in the Scrapper and Defender forums has fallen on deaf ears. The best idea on spending Inf right now is "buy the Red sets."|
Originally Posted by maggotface
Before too long, being poor will be a distant memory.
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You know, I just realized, I think I'm officially that guy that eryqs is always talking about. You know, the one that just plays the market, never the real game, and cackles madly over his money? I've amassed a giant pile of Inf for no purpose other than to have a pile of Inf. I have nothing, really, to spend it on. I'm pretty happy with the performance of my EM/WP scrapper with common IOs at 20.
Maybe I'll buy 2 million prestige for my new RP SG to get the base started.
My long-term strategy of hoarding salable stuff for the Marketgeddon seems to be an outlier, as people have been shoveling the 'good' stuff onto the market at sometimes fire sale prices. Not sure why, the merger and the population influx from GR guarantee a buying frenzy the likes of which we've never seen.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone