The Flipper: Hero of the Markets
Yay merits!
Ignoring anyone is a mistake. You might miss something viral to your cause.
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If the assumptions behind this were true, then some of the stuff that followed from it would be true.
But for what reason do you sell stuff? To make a buck. Just like pretty much everyone else.
Flippers make stuff worth selling. If I know a common salvage has 0 bidding and 1k for sale, I'll just delete it while doing missions to make space for more valuable salvage. If, however, I know that its price range is 50k (what the flipper and patient people pay) to 100k (what everyone else pays), I'll keep it and post it for sale. And increase supply. They raise the lowest amount of inf people will get from selling the item and decrease the highest, all while ensuring that there'll be a steady supply. I call this a win, because I'd rather pay a slightly elevated price if I know I can get the item whenever I want, rather than sometimes pay a low price, sometimes an outrageous price (say, 500k-1mil for a common) and sometimes not get one at all. |
A) people sell to get badges as well as to make a fast buck, this is one of the reasons stuff sells at below vendor prices on a regular basis. I know a lot of people who will sell their common salvage/low level common recipes rather than vendor them to get sales badges and to list them really low to ensure a quick sale.
B) But if that steady supply is at a price that is more than I'm prepared/able to pay, meaning the item is now completely unavailable to me, whereas before it simply took time but I would eventually get one, how has this improved my market experience ?
There are pluses and minuses to flipping, mainly pluses but saying it's wonderful for everybody is just wrong.
Can probably be summed up by if you buy it nao or nearly nao, flippers are a great boon, the amount flippers suck is in proportion to the patience of the buyer.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
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Gedankenexperiment: We have no inf, just a giant swap meet. If you want thing X, you have to either beat it out of a critter or find someone willing to swap you for it. if that steady supply is at a price that is more than I'm prepared/able to pay, meaning the item is now completely unavailable to me, whereas before it simply took time but I would eventually get one, how has this improved my market experience ? |
If you beat a "thing X" out of a critter once in the past, you either swapped it for something, or you kept it . If you swapped it for something you can swap it back IF THE PRICE IS FAIRLY CONSTANT. If you have a sword and one day you can swap it for a bar of gold, and the next day you can swap it for a single gold coin, there's not much guarantee you can swap a sword and get it back.
Sword Flippers make the price of swords fairly constant.
(If you never had a thing X, there is no guarantee that you'll be able to get one. Normally that's an argument I use on purples. )
I would also say there's a considerable difference between the price you're PREPARED to pay and the price you're ABLE to pay. Lamborghini performance doesn't often come for Honda prices; in this case I'd say that Honda performance doesn't often come for Yugo prices, but the principle is the same.
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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Since I tend to sell it now and buy it now, flippers are my buyers and my sellers.
The flipper PAID more than anyone else was willing to for the flippable item.
The flipper then LISTED it for less than anyone else was willing to. These indisputable facts undermine all character assassinations aimed at the kindly, helpful flipper. The flipper provides a twofold good- paying sellers the highest price going and listing for the lowest price available. Truly, the Flipper is a Hero of the Markets. |
How can anyone be mad at those cute dolphins? Or are they porpoises?
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Well then those bidders were bidding too low, weren't they?
No, it's not a valuable service to ALL. It's a valuable service to many, but the person it negatively impacts is the person who placed very low bids and was willing to wait a month for them to fill. There were plenty of people who used to list even some decent recipes for little inf to get an instant sale for their sales badges. A long while ago, but not in the real early days of the market, I IOd out a reasonably high end Kat/SR for 6M. I was bidding on most of the recipes across several toons from when that toon started. Even allowing for inflation, the equivalent would be much more difficult to do nowadays because of flippers.
Flippers also do not list for less than anybody is prepared to list for, they list for less than most people are willing to list for, if 6 a day sell at a given price, they're not too worried if a couple of non flippers sell another one or two in the meantime because they put them up for less. |
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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That's why I said "pretty much everyone else". I believe people who want to sell items for influence outnumber those who sell items for badges by far.
If the assumptions behind this were true, then some of the stuff that followed from it would be true.
A) people sell to get badges as well as to make a fast buck, this is one of the reasons stuff sells at below vendor prices on a regular basis. I know a lot of people who will sell their common salvage/low level common recipes rather than vendor them to get sales badges and to list them really low to ensure a quick sale. |
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B) But if that steady supply is at a price that is more than I'm prepared/able to pay, meaning the item is now completely unavailable to me, whereas before it simply took time but I would eventually get one, how has this improved my market experience ? |
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There are pluses and minuses to flipping, mainly pluses but saying it's wonderful for everybody is just wrong. |
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Can probably be summed up by if you buy it nao or nearly nao, flippers are a great boon, the amount flippers suck is in proportion to the patience of the buyer. |
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
The only reason I don't pay more for those things in real life is that is real money. In game money is play money.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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I do this all the time. All you have to be willing to do is look for recipes at less than max level, where flippers don't operate because the turnover is too low. There are still plenty of ridculous bargains to be found.
A long while ago, but not in the real early days of the market, I IOd out a reasonably high end Kat/SR for 6M. I was bidding on most of the recipes across several toons from when that toon started. Even allowing for inflation, the equivalent would be much more difficult to do nowadays because of flippers.
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Arc#314490: Zombie Ninja Pirates!
Defiant @Grouchybeast
Death is part of my attack chain.
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Different items to some extent, no flipper is going to touch temporal analysers because they commonly sell below vendor price and there's no money to be made, the supply of those comes from people selling for badges. It blurs at the edges, a level 34 run of the mill "boring but useful" non top end uncommon set recipe you used to be able to pick up for next to nothing as people just got rid of them. Now even quite a few of those are not being flipped, but are being crafted and resold for a 7 figure amount. I consider this the same as flipping (it converts stacks of other peoples' recipes into somebody else's IO for my profit, much the same as flipping the recipe does) although I know some others don't.
That's why I said "pretty much everyone else". I believe people who want to sell items for influence outnumber those who sell items for badges by far.
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Also if I had the choice of buying (say, example not intended to be accurate but the sentiment is right) an unquenchable flame for 2000 any time I wanted one except the 1 time in 20 when there weren't any (when the bid would fill overnight), or having to pay 15000+ most of the time, I think I'd take the former. The benefits of flipping are overstated.
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The only stuff that is actually worth flipping is stuff that has enough supply that its price won't really go that high. A couple of million for something isn't out of any level 50's budget. |
Suffice it to say that as somebody who very rarely farms, and tends to play in large teams at levels below 50 when he can, thus minimising his income to some extent, and is used to being very patient with bids, the benefits of flippers are dubious at best for me. I counter by crafting recipes and reselling the IOs in the buy at 3-6M sell at 10-20M type range.
It's true. This game is NOT rocket surgery. - BillZBubba
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I don't bother flipping those, but I do pick them up cheap and craft 'em for giant profits.
I All you have to be willing to do is look for recipes at less than max level, where flippers don't operate because the turnover is too low.
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=D
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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This fries my brain personally. Why do people pay such a premium on buying things pre-crafted?
I don't bother flipping those, but I do pick them up cheap and craft 'em for giant profits.
=D |
I'm a lazy swine who likes to Frankenslot rather than worry about sets, yet even I take the time to get the individual bits and craft myself. It's trivial to do, especially with the new "Find Salvage" button (previously it was fiddly)
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They're (we're) even lazier than you are.
This fries my brain personally. Why do people pay such a premium on buying things pre-crafted?
I'm a lazy swine who likes to Frankenslot rather than worry about sets, yet even I take the time to get the individual bits and craft myself. It's trivial to do, especially with the new "Find Salvage" button (previously it was fiddly) |
I have billions of inf that only is useful to amuse me in the game. What do I care if I could save a million or 10 million inf?
Now when you're talking about purples I am not that rich yet but someday I will be in the same mindset on those. Currently anything under 10 million is close enough to 0 for me.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
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Nice try, but you still don't understand how the market works.
Now let me give you the piece you don't get or don't want to get.
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Most of my flips are to people that don't bid creep. |
But.
Unless your price is the lowest price anyone is offering, you will not get a sale.
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They are putting in their bid at what they think is fair, or what the last 5 looks like. |
And unless your price is the lowest price, you don't get a sale -- someone listing for less does.
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The people I buy from are listing low to get a sale and they are hoping for a fair price. |
So if you weren't bidding the price you were bidding, they would have gotten even less for their item. Or it wouldn't have sold at all for a while.
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I urinate on their hope, and do my best to make certain that the smart shopper who comes by cant get too much from smart shopping it because I was there first. |
Not worth buying, just worth selling.
If there's not much traffic in an item, and there's no outstanding bids, a lot of people will vendor it. If the flipper consistently offers more than vendor price, people will start selling that item because they'll get a better deal listing it than they would vendoring it.
No.
Only, in general, he hasn't. In fact, he's by definition caused average prices to be lower by increasing the amount of inf destroyed and thus not available to raise prices.
Again. If you buy his, it's because his was the lowest-priced one on the market.
If there's not much traffic in an item, and there's no outstanding bids, a lot of people will vendor it. If the flipper consistently offers more than vendor price, people will start selling that item because they'll get a better deal listing it than they would vendoring it.
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So, the flipper hurts people like me then, right? |
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Because all he has really done is raise the price of that item that i wanted... |
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(if i buy his and someone who had listed it cheaper) |
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It is by definition not "flipping".
Different items to some extent, no flipper is going to touch temporal analysers because they commonly sell below vendor price and there's no money to be made, the supply of those comes from people selling for badges. It blurs at the edges, a level 34 run of the mill "boring but useful" non top end uncommon set recipe you used to be able to pick up for next to nothing as people just got rid of them. Now even quite a few of those are not being flipped, but are being crafted and resold for a 7 figure amount. I consider this the same as flipping (it converts stacks of other peoples' recipes into somebody else's IO for my profit, much the same as flipping the recipe does) although I know some others don't.
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Flipping is buying something to resell it. Buying raw materials in order to do work on them isn't flipping.
You just called Leonardo da Vinci a "flipper" because he bought paint and sold the Mona Lisa. THINK!
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Also if I had the choice of buying (say, example not intended to be accurate but the sentiment is right) an unquenchable flame for 2000 any time I wanted one except the 1 time in 20 when there weren't any (when the bid would fill overnight), or having to pay 15000+ most of the time, I think I'd take the former. The benefits of flipping are overstated. |
If you're going to just make up numbers which don't reflect reality, you can make anything sound better. I mean, I prefer dealing with flippers, and getting everything I want for 150 inf, to not having flippers and having to pay three million for a clockwork winder.
Since my numbers are precisely as evidence-based as yours, you should consider this argument persuasive...?
Would you care to say exactly what part of it I am not understanding ? Because it seems from your follow up you have a bit of a comprehension gap.
If we have an item that has 50 for sale people are bidding 2 million inf for and I come in and leave up a stack of bids at 800k, relisting at 1.799 million because I have determined that 1.8 mil is where the lowest of the 50 listed are. All I have done is either taken 1.2 million inf from the low lister who might have gotten the next sale if I hadn't been there, or I have gouged a bargain shopper who didn't have the slots to leave up an endless number of bids for anything they might want.
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That is quite possibly true. But. Unless your price is the lowest price anyone is offering, you will not get a sale. |
If we have an item that has 50 for sale people are bidding 2 million inf for and I come in and leave up a stack of bids at 800k, relisting at 1.799 million because I have determined that 1.8 mil is where the lowest of the 50 listed are. All I have done is either taken 1.2 million inf from the low lister who might have gotten the next sale if I hadn't been there, or I have gouged a bargain shopper who didn't have the slots to leave up an endless number of bids for anything they might want.
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I have no idea, but I love them for it. =D
This fries my brain personally. Why do people pay such a premium on buying things pre-crafted?
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The recipe I'm working right now is available for 2-3 million + some patience and sells quite briskly for ~20 million.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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And I can state for a far that no flipper is buying these high demand recipes in bulk. At least not in the bulk that you believe is driving up prices.
Different items to some extent, no flipper is going to touch temporal analysers because they commonly sell below vendor price and there's no money to be made, the supply of those comes from people selling for badges. It blurs at the edges, a level 34 run of the mill "boring but useful" non top end uncommon set recipe you used to be able to pick up for next to nothing as people just got rid of them. Now even quite a few of those are not being flipped, but are being crafted and resold for a 7 figure amount. I consider this the same as flipping (it converts stacks of other peoples' recipes into somebody else's IO for my profit, much the same as flipping the recipe does) although I know some others don't.
Also if I had the choice of buying (say, example not intended to be accurate but the sentiment is right) an unquenchable flame for 2000 any time I wanted one except the 1 time in 20 when there weren't any (when the bid would fill overnight), or having to pay 15000+ most of the time, I think I'd take the former. The benefits of flipping are overstated. I was talking more about recipes/IOs than salvage, where stuff goes for a LOT more than 2M. I can live with the salvage prices to ensure supply. What I struggle with is things like top level reactive armors selling at 5-10M a recipe when I used to buy them at 10K, and steadfast protection res/defs, for which I never paid more than 500K for a long time. Suffice it to say that as somebody who very rarely farms, and tends to play in large teams at levels below 50 when he can, thus minimising his income to some extent, and is used to being very patient with bids, the benefits of flippers are dubious at best for me. I counter by crafting recipes and reselling the IOs in the buy at 3-6M sell at 10-20M type range. |
Here's what happens "if" you try and do that (from personal, recent experience):
I find a niche. The niche looks good, so I bid on 2-3 recipes and make the enhancements. I sell the enhancements for a profit. I decide this is great, then bid on 10 of those recipes for the same price. They move, which i'm counting on, but people seeing that the last 5 sold are no longer 5 mil but 3 mil... start bidding 3 mil. The people listing for under 3 mil see that they sell fairly quickly at that level and jack the price to 4 mil (i wants mah money!). Eventually, the recipe goes up to say 7 mil.
Meanwhile, due to all of this activity on the recipe, the enhancement that *was* selling for 15 mil now drops to 12 - someone decided to make a buck and undercut my 13mil listings. Enough sell at 12 that it becomes the new "price" for this enhancement. I have a bunch of these things now - and I pull them and re-list for 8 to get them to sell.
A few start selling for 10 mil and the recipes are now up to 7 mil - mostly from people looking to list their items slightly above what the last 5 sold for. We have now reached a point where a previously under-valued recipe has come up to 7 mil and a "flipper" (most people here will prefer you call them crafters) need to list their enhancements at cost to get them to sell. Indeed, that's all they are worth now.
Crafters being in that market brought up the price of the recipe and brought down the price of the enhancement. If you're angry because you can no longer buy a recipe for less than vendored pricing, I suggest grief counseling or something else for your tragic loss.
Simple convenience, which is partially derived from the stigma of the market in general.
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.
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Funny, this describes my playing quite accurately.
Suffice it to say that as somebody who very rarely farms, and tends to play in large teams at levels below 50 when he can, thus minimising his income to some extent, and is used to being very patient with bids, the benefits of flippers are dubious at best for me. I counter by crafting recipes and reselling the IOs in the buy at 3-6M sell at 10-20M type range.
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Anyways, while I agree that the benefits of flipping may be overstated I think the disadvantages are, too. One of my friends who had never spent more than 50mil on a IO build started marketing two months ago. Since then he has completely IO'd at least one character with rares and has over two billion influence. It really is hard not to come by piles of inf if you're willing to give a try so the slightly elevated prices really aren't a problem.
When you encounter a problem you can either do nothing about it and start complaining or solve it. I offer no sympathy for those who choose the former.
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein
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You seem not to be understanding the logical implications of a multi-seller market under the rules the consignment house uses. Specifically, you seem to think people can drive prices up by listing things at really high prices -- but they can't, because other people can always list for lower.
Would you care to say exactly what part of it I am not understanding?
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Because it seems from your follow up you have a bit of a comprehension gap. |
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If we have an item that has 50 for sale people are bidding 2 million inf for and I come in and leave up a stack of bids at 800k, relisting at 1.799 million because I have determined that 1.8 mil is where the lowest of the 50 listed are. |
If there are any bidding 2 million, then the lowest listed price will be, by definition, at least 2,000,001. Otherwise all the ones at 1.8 would have sold. Your scenario is already self-contradictory.
Or let's just say that, typically, new people coming in bid 2 million. Okay. So every time they come in, they place a bid which will always win over yours.
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All I have done is either taken 1.2 million inf from the low lister who might have gotten the next sale if I hadn't been there, |
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or I have gouged a bargain shopper who didn't have the slots to leave up an endless number of bids for anything they might want. |
If he pays anything under than 2M, he's guilty of stealing from the low lister, according to your logic above. But if he pays anything more than 800k, the low lister has gouged him, according to your logic here.
You're getting tunnel vision. At each point, when you look at a transaction, you're seeing only one side of it -- you're not taking the other side into account, or taking the other participants in the market into account.
Let's say you have a TON of money, and a TON of auction slots open, and you just fill the consignment house with bids at 800k, listings at 1.799M. Thus, any bid of 1.8M is guaranteed to fill, and any listing at or under 800k is guaranteed to fill.
What happens?
1. People who notice this pattern will probably bid a bit over 800k in hopes of getting one for less than the "always-available" going rate.
2. No one will list for over 1.8M, but people may list for less to try to get a sale.
So after you've been doing this for a while, there will be a pool of bids at, say, 850k, and a pool of listings at, say, 1.75M.
See what's happening? Now, for you to continue getting successful flips, you have to raise your bid to 900k and reduce your listing to 1.7M. And guess what the market does? It reacts.
And after a while, we end up with everything pretty close to, say, 1.2M. And now all the purchasers are getting a .8M discount from what you were saying people used to "bid". And there's a regular supply, so you can always buy for that price, whether you're in a hurry or not. And there's a stable market for listing, so you can sell quickly and get a decent price, rather than waiting an unknown amount of time to get 2M, or risking getting 50k instead.
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Indeed.
To be honest, that's their own damn fault. If you list an item at 1 inf you should be prepared to see it sell for 1 inf and not complain.
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Sellers have no-one to blame but themselves for the price they choose to list at. The exception would be a typo listing like Fulmens putting up that PvP IO for a million and change instead of a billion and change. =P
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No, it's not a valuable service to ALL. It's a valuable service to many, but the person it negatively impacts is the person who placed very low bids and was willing to wait a month for them to fill.
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Price is a useful gauge of how badly someone wants something.
If you don't really want it (i/e, you make an unrealistically low bid), why should you get it ahead of people who DO want it (i/e, who make realistic bids)?
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There were plenty of people who used to list even some decent recipes for little inf to get an instant sale for their sales badges. A long while ago, but not in the real early days of the market, I IOd out a reasonably high end Kat/SR for 6M. I was bidding on most of the recipes across several toons from when that toon started. Even allowing for inflation, the equivalent would be much more difficult to do nowadays because of flippers. |
Huh.
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Flippers also do not list for less than anybody is prepared to list for, they list for less than most people are willing to list for.... |
The reality is if you don't have the lowest price currently on offer, you don't sell anything.
Worth selling?
Well, lets say there's a store that buys Widget X for less than it costs to make
That's not a good deal, so very few people would sell them Widget X.
If that same store raised their offer so people could turn a profit selling them Widget X, more people would sell them Widget X and so the supply of Widget X at the store would increase.
To avoid confusion, 'Widget X' = SALVAGE and 'the store' = THE MARKET.
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The ONLY reason i buy stuff is for the IO's that i want. It has NOTHING to do with making a buck. So, the flipper hurts people like me then, right? |
So, no.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
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The way things are set up in this game at the moment, there is absolutely 0 problem with the supply of anything with the possible exception of PvP IOs and purples. There isn't a recipe you can't have at the exact level you want within 2 days of wanting it, there isn't a purple you can't afford within 6 days of wanting it.
When you encounter a problem you can either do nothing about it and start complaining or solve it. I offer no sympathy for those who choose the former. |
The supply of recipes and salvage is almost as large as the supply of marketeers rationalizations for why people should enjoy being PvPed by them.
Edit: Just to be clear that is showing that if you don't like the market you can almost completely bypass it.
'Goat, your sig image while entertaining is bugging me!
I'll have to get it re-done in real Russian or I may go Rasputin.
total kick to the gut
This is like having Ra's Al Ghul show up at your birthday party.
Flippers make stuff worth selling. If I know a common salvage has 0 bidding and 1k for sale, I'll just delete it while doing missions to make space for more valuable salvage. If, however, I know that its price range is 50k (what the flipper and patient people pay) to 100k (what everyone else pays), I'll keep it and post it for sale. And increase supply.
They raise the lowest amount of inf people will get from selling the item and decrease the highest, all while ensuring that there'll be a steady supply. I call this a win, because I'd rather pay a slightly elevated price if I know I can get the item whenever I want, rather than sometimes pay a low price, sometimes an outrageous price (say, 500k-1mil for a common) and sometimes not get one at all.
- @DSorrow - alts on Union and Freedom mostly -
Currently playing as Castigation on Freedom
My Katana/Inv Guide
Anyone who doesn't take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either. -Einstein