PvP IO and Purple drop

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Let's summarize, since I can't be bothered to read through so much that reeks of personal attacks and grudge fights:

1) PvP IOs and Purples are rare. They're supposed to be. I think someone above said 1:1500 on Purples? Sounds about right to me... but again, randomization. 1:1500 means you might get 1 from every 1500 kills... you could get 10 from 15k kills... you probably will get 100 from 150k kills... you likely will get 1k from 1.5m kills... and so on. The closer you approach infinity, the closer the odds come to truth. (Basic statistical probability, ladies and gents, same as any MMO.)

2) It is physically possible to go all the way to 50, do endgame, and so forth without ever crafting a single enhancement. We did it all the time before IOs were ever introduced; we did it without purples and PvP IOs before they were introduced. (To date, I still haven't seen a PvP IO, crafted or otherwise, personally. Probably because I hate PvP, and that's no one's fault but mine.)

2b) By the same token, people who are that obsessive can virtually become IO-dependent at level 7 and never look back. (This works in some, but by no means all, cases.)

2c) For all that, it's possible (if a bit uncomfortable, unless you like eating inspirations like they were candy) to play without any enhancements of /any/ tier. Ouroboros proved that, since I'm sure a lot of people have gotten their "no enhancements" badges. (Not recommended for someone who wants to do challenging fights/TFs, unless they like the added challenge of running back from the hospital a lot.)

3) I admit, I'm not a casual player. I have a life, yes, but I still manage at least an hour of two of the game each day. (That's on top of work, school, and a long-term relationship. Hel, he even plays the game with me sometimes.) I do some occasional farming, and have a good build on my main, as well as around 1b inf on my account. This isn't farming nonstop like some would say; this is casual farming and a lot of altitis. Do I have fun? Loads of it. Would I like to see purples be more common? Perhaps, but it's not a huge concern, because I make enough inf to pay for what I want. Am I a middle-of-the-line player? Perhaps, but that depends on more information than I have access to.

4) As stated above, there's a large difference between being a dev yes-man and accepting the status quo for what it is: the way things were, are, and will be. Will the drop rate eventually change? It's possible, but somehow I feel it unlikely.

4a) The above being said, new things occur each day that make things more accessible for the casual player. However, if you want the loot, you still have to do something for it; the devs aren't likely to create a day job that allows you to get a random purple for mission completion if you log less than 5 hours a week of gametime. Why? Because then the hardcore players will revolt. It's a balancing act between the casual and the hardcore.

4b) For those who think MMOs with hardcore-exclusive content die easily, let us look at that most evil of MMOs (which shall not be named here). Every expac of /that/ game kicks the most hardcore of the players in the teeth and tells them that they're worthless... and yet, they keep coming back for more. They create obstacles that require tons of in-game time to get to... being a casual player over there is impossible, once you hit a certain "Hardcore only" threshold. At least City casuals don't have to worry about such evils as gearchecks and being built a specific way. (Unless you're a MM without pets. I've seen one of those... in mid-levels, no less. Painful to watch.)

5) Complaining about the inf cap being too high does nothing beneficial for the game. As pointed out before: If the inf cap was lowered, it wouldn't force deflation on the markets; it would force items out of the markets and into the off-market trade. This hurts us all, and doesn't benefit anyone. Conversely, does that mean that the cap should be raised? It might force some of the off-market trade back into WW/BM, but it might also create further inflation, which makes some of the casual-access stuff to jump in price. (Especially since some people like to manipulate the markets for their own gain, which causes spikes of inflation to ripple across the market. But then, that's a pretty good analogy for the real world, isn't it?)

6) In the end, it's a game, right? If you're not having fun chasing your dream of having your 50 decked out in purples and PvP IOs galore... make an alt, run TFs, do something which /is/ fun for you and your character. In time, the purples (or, at least, the inf to buy them) will come.

[Disclaimer: Some of the opinions -- especially those about running around without enhancements -- are not necessarily recommended. Just because you can doesn't mean you should... unless you /really/ like that extra level of challenge. If so, put your enhancements in and visit an Analyst instead. ;P]

Tou'che mac lol, they need to have purple drops on AE mish's, that'd be nice, un-likely but nice whatsoever

To quote my old (old as in last semester) economics book: "Supply and demand is, at its most basic level, the concept that prices will vary depending on the quantity available and the quantity desired."

If there are 10k computer viruses available, with any real percentage of those at "reasonable" (ie. original market, 100-250) values, it is not feasible to sell those at 10k or higher per unit. However, if there are 10 computer viruses available, it is safe to assume (based on historical data) that most, if not all, of those are priced much higher, and people -- if desperate enough -- will pay that higher price.

Thus, supply and demand. If the supply is good, in order to remain competitive, new sellers will offer their items at lower prices (usually), thus enabling them to earn money. If the supply is poor, the prices are higher as a general rule, and while some will intend to "balance out" the market with their honest transactions, it's a drop in the bucket of the economy. (However, with enough drops, the item in question's price restabilizes, and life goes on. Unless it's luck charms... then you're in trouble, no matter what, for some reason.)

Supply and demand, remember, is chiefly based on the concept of necessities... so the model does have to be shifted slightly, since buying salvage (and recipes, and so on) from the markets is a luxury transaction... after all, for salvage, there's always:

*Getting it off enemies (Gathering)
*SG/VG storage racks (Hoarding)
*Trading salvage between players (Bartering)
*Redeeming tickets (Sorry, don't have a cute label for this one)

In fact, subtract the storage racks (and possibly add an alternate storage medium) and this works for anything of value in this game. For all that, one could probably abuse the email system and store droves of any imaginable item in self-directed global emails, thus allowing them to retrieve it on any character, at any time. (Only restriction against this is that emails expire in 60 days, but if you have something close to expiring, just pull it out and toss it back in, right?)

But yes, if the /only/ means of getting salvage was via the markets, and the /only/ way to play was to use IOs, then it could reasonably be assumed that a few masterminds (the term, not the AT) could control the entire market and charge whatever they wanted. However, in such a closed-loop system, there'd be no new inventory, and this delusional concept falls on its face as a result. Instead, salvage comes from every enemy worth XP (either directly or, in AE, as tickets redeemable for salvage), it can be gathered and stored, and regular players can toss their unneeded salvage into the markets at normalized rates, meaning no hostile takeover of the markets lasts forever.

I've said multiple times that I'll give someone 100 million of my inf to enable them to find an item, jack up the price, and keep it there. So far, no one's taken me up on that offer. Can't imagine why...

(A hint, for those less-educated: no one's taken me up on the offer because it can't be done while maintaining a profit.)

I manipulate the markets to make inf, I put out bids to buy stuff cheap, then craft or resell it higher than what I paid for the item.

This does not mean I have a license to set the price of an item as high as I want for as long as I want.

I buy several of the item, perhaps even all of the item available on the market, some item which has a stable price. Then I put them back on the market at a higher price.

What happens next.
In the short term, I can simply hope buyers show up and buy my relisted items before sellers show up and list their items for less than what mine are listed for. I have to have some inkling of what people will be willing to pay to quickly get my selling price established. This needs to give me a profit, at least after a certain number of sales.

I might be able to make a quick buck that way, esp if I seed my own selling price.

In the long term, the sellers will show up and list their items. These will compete with my items in the following ways.

If they are interested in making inf quickly, they will set their asking price slightly less than the history, which is hopefully my selling price. In this case, I won't make sales, and if I buy up their items to resell or delete, it becomes harder for me to turn a profit. Sales of the item also slow down, since the price is above what was previously the stable price, the price most people were willing to pay. This causes items for sale to back up.

If they want to try and 'stick it to the markeeters' they will list the item for 5 inf. I can just buy these items and vendor them or delete them without much affect on my bottomline.

If they want to make more inf, they will set their price slightly above mine and hope it sells. This is ideal, it helps me out, its more likely than not going to be low volume, however.

They may set their price the same as mine. If I do it as a one off, it helps me, it shrinks my profits if I continue to buy and resell items because of the order in which the market sells things.

So, if the other sellers are making sales around my price, it may stick. However, arguably the price was out of wack to begin with from a supply/demand pov. Otherwise, for sale items will back up, sellers coming to the market later will see that stuff isnt moving very quickly and there is a lot for sale, and will lower the price they sell at.

So, how do I make inf 'manipulating' the market?
Low(ish) volume purchase of items at a low price, over the course of a few days/weeks, followed by resale at some higher price I've seen, over the course of another few days or weeks. I'm exploiting the flux of prices, but I can't control it on a stable item, not by myself on a long term basis.

When the prices get jacked up on previously low priced, stable things like uncommon salvage for a long time, it is because instablity has been injected, such as suddenly everyone is doing AE content and not getting salvage drops, but people still need and want those items. If you asked 100k before that destablization, you could short term buy up a lot of supply and resell and get a few "gotta have it now" sales and make some money, but keeping the price up there in the face of that much supply would just keep raising the price you have to pay to make the 100k sales by buying up the incoming sales until you couldnt make a profit, and then the price would collapse.

Well, my point is that I do play with the market, all the time. When the market was new, I did spend time messing around with it, trying to influence prices, and while there was a fair bit of time between my experimenting and that post on the Market forum (the only one I remember that outlined proven market manipulation), its points about trial and error and ease of losing your shirt sure matched my experiences.

I really think, though, that my long-term experience as a both a buyer and seller of goods has taught me a lot more about the market's behavior than those early experiments. It's exposed me to both activities one needs to do in tandem in order to manipulate. What that experience tells me is not that manipulating the price of things is impossible, but that, in general, it's not at all easy, and not at all certain to succeed even when you find a good target item. It's also very time intensive while you're doing it.

In addition to the above downsides to actual market manipulation, the market has many other much less risky ventures that will still pour money on our heads. They likely don't pay out as well as fast as a successful run at manipulating something valuable, but they are much more likely to succeed in general. Hard-core marketeers tend to go for the sure thing, and move on when their scheme becomes too crowded or risky.

So market manipulation is a non-trivial activity, it might fail, and there are less risky activities available with still excellent returns. Despite all this, claims that people are manipulating the market are loud and common. More loud and common, I think, than makes sense for the challenge and risk involved in true manipulation. So is nothing on the market ever manipulated? I know better. Is manipulation ongoing and rampant? I don't believe it's likely at all.

If you're going to manipulate the market, having someone help you does make it easier to manage in terms of "labor" and theoretically doubles your investment capability. I don't think it fully doubles your odds of success, but there's no doubt it will have a better chance than one person acting alone. Adding still more people probably has some level of diminishing return, but will still enlarge the investment pool and continue to reduce the time each person spends having to managing (and creeping upwards) their purchases.