2 billion per enhancer

Also note that the market isn't a store. It's a way for players to trade with each other. You aren't buying from the game, you are buying from another player. Why should the devs care about what other players charge?

Like Enya said, the devs have put the alignment reward system in place to make these rare recipes available. If you don't want to pay what the other player wants, then just earn it yourself. Cuz I can tell you right now, nobody who worked hard to acquire the rare will trade it to you for the paltry sum that you want to pay.

You call (most of) us that and whine about players insulting you? We (the marketeers) are the players using the market to make influence, so don't even bother saying you didn't mean us.

Now what was that story about a pot and a kettle...


P.S. Isn't there a forum rule that forbids calling other players griefers/trolls?

They wouldn't have to nerf Patience if you hadn't found that exploit that comes from slotting it with the uber-rare purple set: Common Sense.

If you use Common Sense with Patience, you get all kinds of nifty side effects like the Save INF aura, the Minimal First Aid power (defense against high blood pressure, headaches and ulcers), and of course, it significantly raises your defense against Make Ragepost.

You haven't seen me?

An excellent question. The Devs should, and I believe do, care what happens in the market, and what prices things sell for. They have set up an entire invention system that makes players interdependent on each other for collecting sets of things. The Devs are fully invested in this working. Keep in mind the title of the post. I am okay with high prices. I am even okay with really high prices. It is once prices go stupid that I feel it is necessary to comment. I believe that the Devs should be motivated to ensure that someone does not corner the market n a particular item, driving the price up into a stupid territory. What do I believe would motivate the Devs to be concerned? It takes away from the fun of the game. Having the game be fun motivates people to keep ceating/running characters. If you make something too hard then people do something else. If people do something else, they stop paying the company paying the Devs. They stop telling their friends to sign up. Discouragement is a very bad thing in video games. Never discourage your player base from trying to accomplish something in the game. Make it difficult, sure. Build in a trick you need to learn, sure. Make it so that it takes 7 years to do. Wow, no. Not good. Do not look at a videogamer and tell them it is a 7 year task. And then do not look at them and say, "you do not need it anyways to play" Not a good strategy. For a beginning player to afford a fully pimped out toon with purples and PvPs, Procs, Globals, etc. using purely the A merit system would take many years. Without doing the math exactly I would say 7 plus. Therefore they are dependent on the market to shorten this number to a reasonable period. Say, a year. By playing this one character in normal play, missions, task forces, etc, they will earn treasure, sell that, buy "needed" pieces of their dream toon. (Even if the dream is flawed, as many have pointed out that mine is) Still, we must dream. However, if someone corners the market on an item and drives the price up to 2 billion (or more) then we have a problem. A market griefer can make the entire game frustrating. I am merely suggesting to the Devs that a system should be in place to convert one form of treasure to another in a fair exchange rate is made available so that market griefers do not alienate the Devs customer base.

Also, Rodion, thanks for jumping in. Sorry you got pasted. Yes, I was talking about Enron's manipulation of the energy market. No, I did not specifically say that before. Just because I am the OP on a thread about market manipulation, and mentioned Enron as an example, I thought was enough. Will I catch flack about this, yes. Do i care, no. At this point I am merely running through 90% of the posts looking for people who are posting something besides "Nyah Nyah big poopy head market good you dumb Nyah Nyah." I am greatly pleased at the number of you that have posted constructive criticism and given thoughtful responses in this environment. It is sort of like being in 2 philosophy classes at the same time, one group discussing the topic at hand in a learning and progressive manner, and the other filled with convicts and stoners who believe that hurling insults is the most productive way to communicate.

In reverse order.

Very little is 2 billion on the market. No one can corner those items on the market with an inf cap of 2 billion per character. To believe that is to ignore reality.

The devs HAVE created the a-merits as an alternative to the market. You can BWM till the end of time about the handful of PvP recipes going for 2 billion on the market and more off the market all you want that does not change how little those few items are needed by so few players nor that the devs already SET a price with a-merits.

You have repeatedly created this strawman argument of getting things one way or another and then you use it to make this ridiculous 7 years to get fully outfitted nonsense.

Your claim that 1 year is a "dream" is a baldfaced lie. I did it casually in a year on one character. I went nuts and fully IOed my grav/rad controller in 3 days with 2 billion inf just the week before Going Rogue launched. I did not get him any PvP IOs because he didn't need them. I got him a lot of purple and expensive IOs in those 3 days all without a-merits to offset costs. Granted I spent a year making that 2 billion inf to do it through normal play and market selling.

Frankly I am no longer interested in your nonsense because you are sticking your fingers in your ears and closing your eyes chanting "uh uh" to reality. I hope you enjoy the ulcers you get from your misguided market angst because the devs have addressed the market prices with reward merits and a-merits and all your flailing about won't change a thing but provide amusement to the many people who know what they are doing.

In celebration of your ignorant ranting I think I will purple out another character this weekend or perhaps just buy up a bunch of purples to drive up the prices.

1) Want to give a definition of griefer, or just throw that like a rock?

2) I am not sure what world you live in. This one is rigged (Primal Earth, not the game). Those with money ensure teir children get better education, better degrees, better looks, socialize with better people, and make better money. Politicians routinely gut the education system, bloat the defense budget, and send the half educated populace off to war, to die. Can a natural genius frm the ghetto with a penchant for studying rise above, yes, but the system is rigged against it. How many well educated people in america are jobless over the last couple years because of market manipulation?

3) I love how you throw out that I do not know the rules of the game. In fairness, the City of Franchise has many convoluted areas that are difficult to understand, and sometimes it takes me a while to grok the knowledge. However, I am a regular layer, have been for quite a while, and have tread many areas of the game quite deeply. But my refutation of your statement is long winded and convoluted. It lacks that instantaneous bit of "Nyah Nyah big poopy head market good you dumb". Still, it brings up an excellent point. The world (City of this time) should be set up so that an average player with average time over a period of a year and a half can build a really nice character.

1. You tossed out the term first and DSorrow is challenging your silly view of it. But who are the griefers? The ones who buy the 2 billion PvP recipes or the ones who list them?

2. That is irrelevant to the game market in City of Heroes and completely irrelevant.

3. You seem to have difficulty grasping a simple concept. The market is a mini-game. It is that game he is pointing out you don't know how to play. The first rule is you don't get to have the best stuff unless you offer as much or more as everyone else who wants it is willing to pay. Until you grasp that basic concept you will always lose in the market.

Again you are clinging to this idea that someone is cornering the market on ultra rare items. Show me some evidence that this is happening or else drop it. The people who have made billions on the market are telling you it's not realistic, they are making their money differently. Proof or this is just another paranoid delusion.

The Devs will probably agree that runaway inf is causing massive inflation, but price capping is definitely not the way to fix it. Also, many of the devs may not be aware of the issues at hand regarding how much inflation there is.

The biggest problem with fixing things is that there has been zero suggestions that have been reasonable in reducing inflation, even in this limited game context. If you have a viable way of changing that you should put down the keyboard because you are likely to get a call from the Nobel committee for your prize in economics. Most of the experienced people here have already heard your suggestions before from other people. You repeating yourself and then accusing them of having ulterior motives simply puts you on the wrong side of things.

You are complaining because you feel you are discouraged because it would take you 7 years to build a top tier toon using one method to get there. Let me put it this way, a new player doesn't have the same prejudices regarding the market as you. If you were to put a new player on the map and ask, "are you motivated to get a top loot toon?", the ones that said yes would use any and all means to get there.

That would include AE, the market, reward merits and alignment merits. I would guess that it would take a person 1 year to do that from scratch. Any person who's been here for longer could do it in 6 months from scratch.

You are only angry because it would take YOU 7 years to do it. The Devs probably thought you'd be happy having a way to do it outside of the market, because it was a lot harder before alignment merits were introduced. Just goes to show that good deeds never go unpunished.

1) 7 years is a reasonable figure using A merits and casual drops only. 40 days (with no breaks) per Purp. 25-30 purps, depending on whether you 5 or 6 set them. that is 1,200 days for the 5 sets of purps alone. Then a couple PvP sets? Yeah.

2) So, with market prices above 2 bill for some enhancers (as you stated) , you admit that it would take over one year to afford one enhancer.

3) The ulcer thing is just nice. Shows class.

4) So, earlier you said it took you a year to get all the stuff you needed to pimp one character, without purps. But now you are going do fully purp a character in one weekend. Hmmm, someone is contadicting their own statements.

This is the first line of defense of any petty criminal, or market mastermind for that matter. "Prove it" part B of this is that they always want you to prove it with a simple one sentence statement, or show a picture of them sticking a knife in someone's back. If you dare to start discussing concepts, exploring ideas, or following threads of logic, the insults only get louder, and the indignant statements flow like water.

@ 4000 kils per purp, you're only killing 100 per play session.
How long does it take you to garner 100 kills? I am pretty sure I can get more than 10 kills a minute w/ most any lvl 47+ toon I have.

Additionally, you could also and at the same time get 20 AMerits in 40 days while still getting your chances at Purple drops.

And, to beat the dead horse that's obvious, many, many people have pimped out their toons in much less time than 7 years.
Saying it takes 7 years is not realistic.

Anyone can get a PvP IO in 24 days buy playing the game running tips and SFs. Or in 60 days if you leave out the SFs and just run tips.
Why should it should take someone one year to do what can be done in two months or less.

It has been demonstrated that you are unfamiliar with how the market works. Given your unfamiliarity, why is it that you think that the people who are familiar with the market are mistaken when it comes to the extreme difficulty if not impossibility to corner a market in this game? Why can't you accept that there are things about the market you don't know and are unfamiliar with? Why can't you accept that some other players understand the market better than you do?

No sir, you are making claims that have repeatedly been disproven. You have not verified that what you say is in any way actually happening; you make claims based on observations that are not repeatable or verifiable in any way.

If you want to be taken seriously, take the time to gather evidence of what you claim. The onus is on YOU to prove your claim. It is not on others to disprove a claim you are making. If you want to continue to believe something you cannot show proof for, that is your choice, but it is also the dictionary definition of 'irrational'.

You have continued to ignore several hundred replies trying to clarify what REALITY is, instead you insist on believing your limited perceptions.

You have come to the place in the argument where, unless you can prove what you say,

(because many others do not believe it to be the case, and I have seen very few [any??] posts that agree with your apparently irrational belief),

you are currently considered a non-serious person who does not have a valid point.

I hope you posted this while looking in the mirror.

In case you don't get it, you just did exactly what you're accusing everyone else of: making a claim while not only failing to defend it, including an attack on those on the other side of the argument. Don't think anyone missed the comparison between marketeers and petty criminals.

No one on an internet forum can prove they have any knowledge without posting it for others to see. You have no more validity than anyone on this forum with your claims, and you have done less than others in trying to post knowledge that indicates what you're claiming is true. A lot of what you've tried to post about how you think the market works mechanically, let alone as a complex system of interactions using those mechanisms, is factually in error.

Demand for the items on the market that sell for 2B inf is such that people routinely sell them off-market for more than that. The PvP +3% defense unique sells for at least 3B inf off-market. It's absolutely impossible that anyone is forcing people to pay 3B inf or more for something in a face-to-face trade when it can be bought on the market for 2B inf.

This is your evidence for what market price caps do. There is a long line of people offering to pay 2B inf for PvP +3%. I know, because I have been one of them. I have left bids for 2B inf that did not fill for five weeks, despite the fact that about one +3% def IO sold per day.

Do you know what I did? I eventually got tired of waiting and paid for it off-market.

Now try to imagine the length of the lines if the price was capped at 250M inf.

1) I'll give you a definition because it seems it needs to be posted here:

"griefer or grief player (ˈɡriːfə)

— n
an online game player who intentionally spoils the game for other players

grief player or grief player

— n "

I'll repeat it: griefers are those who intentionally spoil the game for other players. The aim of people who jack up the prices of their niches is to create a price spike (because it is pretty much impossible to maintain it) and make profit. No intention to harm other players.
The intention of those who pay higher prices than they have to? I'm not sure, but I often post things for 15mil and have them sell for 25. It's the buying end of the chain who mostly drives the prices up. Are they griefers?

2) This has no relevance whatsoever to CoH, though. The principle I first posted was meant to point out "if you don't learn, you won't excel", but I guess you missed it like you missed most of the other points made that are against your personal views. In CoX everyone has exactly the same chances to learn stuff unless they have a learning disability, which sadly is something that makes life unfair in pretty much every aspect. I believe you are a perfectly healthy gamer, so you have exactly the same chance to learn the game as I do regardless of your economical state.

3) It very much seems you do not know the rules of the "market game". A casual player using these rules to their advantage can very much make a really nice character in a short time. I'll give you an example: one of my RL friends was wondering how I was able to kit out all of my 50s with IOs and I told them about marketeering. After a week of getting familiar with the interface and testing different items, he started marketeering. In about two months of VERY casual playing he made it to the influence cap. We only played our duo (not level 50) about one hour every other day, and it was the only character he played.

In a year going with the same rate (assuming he doesn't get any better at it and doesn't have a wider range of bids and sales at any given moment), he'd make 12 billion in a year which is more than enough to get a very pimped out toon. A dream as you say it.

What matters is learning the stuff and putting in the effort, something you don't seem to be ready to do. I'll say it again: if you don't bother learning the rules of a game, don't cry when you don't win.

1) Assuming you don't make use of any of the other features (such hard to grasp things as, wait for it, influence and recipe drops) offered to you. If you don't want to use them or are too lazy to learn using them, you have only yourself to blame.

2) Maybe. If you aren't doing it effectively, of course it'll take longer. I routinely make a billion every month, and I'm playing maybe 5 hours a week. The definition of "normal play" is also a bit blurred here. Mission architect, farming, TFs, marketeering, I'd call them all "normal play", as in available to pretty much everyone. What I wouldn't call normal play is along the lines of soloing AVs, GMs and TFs.

If you want to cherry pick features that fit your idea of normal play and then use this definition to make an examination on the availability of influence (or any other thing), it is not objective. My definition of normal play isn't objective either, because I can only speak from my own experience. It is pretty much impossible to define "normal play" because there are so many variables. How many hours a week is normal play? At what level does normal play happen? Does normal play include TFs, and if it does, how many per unit of time?

I'd bet calling your gaming "normal play" when you have purples is way off the charts, though, no matter how they were formulated. I'd guess the average result for a CoX normal player is someone who never reaches level 50. Doesn't play for longer than a year. Is not interested in IOs. Doesn't do TFs often. These are the key differences: you want to reach 50 and get IOs, but you're unwilling to adapt your playstyle to it.

3) Calling marketeers "market griefers" also shows class. Insults have happened on both sides so don't pretend you're any better.

4) Reading comprehension ftw. It took him a year to amass (probably his first) two billion, but it only takes a weekend to blow away a lot of influence, while implying that nowadays he can make influence so easily it's no big deal to spend that much in a weekend. No contradictions outside than your outlandish theories.

Hmph.

In any proper discussion, the person who presents a statement as a fact has the burden of proof. You have presented us with "marketeers control the market, and drive prices up so that the casual player cannot afford anything", so it's up to you to prove it. If you don't do that, your claim has as much validity as me saying "Earth is a hundred years old".

It's just stupid (yes, stupid) to present an argument with no facts to back it up. I could claim just about anything to be true and it would have to be accepted because nobody knew anything to prove it otherwise (e.g. claiming a god does or does not exist). This is why it is a custom in any scientific examination that the person who presents a theory also proves it.

EDIT: Just to make sure you understand what I'm saying (hey, English isn't my first language), I'll add some definitions for burden of proof.

"burden of proof
 
–noun
1.
Chiefly Law . the obligation to offer evidence that the court or jury could reasonably believe, in support of a contention, failing which the case will be lost.
2.
the obligation to establish a contention as fact by evoking evidence of its probable truth."

And a better fitting one (with the most important bit bolded):

"When debating any issue, there is an implicit burden of proof on him or her making a claim. This burden does not demand a mathematical or strictly logical proof (although many strong arguments do rise to this level such as in logical syllogisms), but rather demands an amount of evidence that is established or accepted by convention or community standards."

And no, you feeling some way does not equal the community standards here. We want some hard evidence, data points, so to speak.


EDIT3: For ultimate clarity:

"The fallacy of argument from ignorance is a fallacy of asserting that a claim is true as long as it has not been refuted. In other words, X is not proven simply because "not X" cannot be proven. This is related to the burden of proof, because one is placing the burden on the refutation, rather than on the proof of the assertion."

EDIT2: P.S. If your intention was to get me mad and now you're chuckling "lol i gots him mad and made him waste his time with writing an essay", you're wrong. I'm not mad (actually I find this quite hilarious) and I'm not even wasting my time because practicing my English is never a bad thing. Especially because I haven't even finished school yet, so there are exams to come.

What makes a price "stupid" as opposed to "high"?

Serious question. Within the last month or so, I've spent well over $10 on a piece of plastic with a tiny, tiny, bit of aluminum in it, probably cost all of ten cents to make. I've been known to spend $50 on those. I've been known to pay as much as $50 for about five, maybe ten cents worth of wood, pulped until it wasn't even sturdy anymore. Heck, some guy just offered me nearly $2k for a collection of bits that will cost an immeasurably small fraction of a cent to deliver to him.

I propose the following hypothesis:

You will not find any meaningful definition of a "stupid" price that has the following two characteristics simultaneously:

1. It is possible to objectively apply it to an economic circumstance.
2. Economists who read it do not laugh at you.

• Life isn't fair, but happily, the game is. We all have equal access to the goods sold in CoH. Thus, high prices equal high revenue for anyone who bothers to sell his drops on the Market.
  
  
• Your build, from what I've heard of it, would likely be better if you applied a little more thought to it, and a little less bitterness-laced profligacy. People in this game are far too obsessed with the most extravagant items in the game; they usually don't add all that much (relatively speaking). You can generally build a character with non-purples that performs at ~90+% of an analogous multi-billion-inf build.
  
  Feel free to ask build questions here or elsewhere. There's no shortage of people willing to help.
  
  
• It's interesting you should bring up education, because you've demonstrated an unwillingness to be educated about the game's market. No one is oppressing you but yourself, in this instance.
  
  
• You're treading dangerously close to political rhetoric. Please keep your RL bitterness to yourself, or else you risk one of our friendly neighborhood mods coming in to close your thread -- and I'd hate to see you given an excuse to whine about how The Man censored you in the Market forum.

Originally Posted by Iggy_Kamakaze Nice build

And your accusation is the first line of every two bit UFO believing conspiracy theorist. Scientists and courts of law tend to demand evidence of things like the things you are spouting off, yet you've been going on and on about things like everything you've said is gospel. Too bad most of the things you've gone on about was factually wrong yet you keep clinging onto your paranoid fantasies. You remind of the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The simple fact of the matter is that there is literally Billions of influence being made every day in this game. Why don't you tell me what they do with that influence besides chasing the same small market for ultra rare goods? Do you even acknowledge the basic elasticity of a supply and demand equation?

Obviously you've seen more than everyone else in the market forums and you've decided what is 'really going on here'. Let me put it this way, if you are so smart why can't you devise a fool proof way of showing the market manipulation that is going on with these ultra rares? How about just a basic test?

All the poor fools here can do is make billions of influence by selling stuff and tell you that you're flat out wrong. I guess that proves that they are all 'in on it'.

They can. Heck, the average player with average time can build a really nice character in two months or less. The good player with average time can kit out an amazing character in that time, and the person willing to learn how to use the market can build a tiny god in that time. Sadly, you're a below-average player, because you're unwilling to learn to use the market to your advantage. Sucks to be you, I guess. Enjoy tilting at that windmill!

Or scientist. Or skeptic. Or person who's heard a lot of hucksters pushing snake oil.

Well, that part's not true of scientists, skeptics, people sick of snake oil, or the marketeers.

I would dearly love to see a thread of logic. Feel free to provide one at any time.

Concepts? Great.

But here's the thing. I pointed out a specific, measured, verified, economic fact. You came back with a snide remark about "Glen Beck". (I assume you meant "Glenn Beck".) You were then presented with a variety of real-world examples in fields from coffee to basic food staples that have occurred over a period of decades -- but you haven't acknowledged them, conceded the point, or in any other way reacted to a clear demonstration that a point you'd disputed by insulting someone was in fact valid and proven.

You're making a number of claims which you have not offered any evidence for at all, and many of which contradict a lot of research we've done. Heck, just last night I bid 33,333 on about 6 stacks of level 50 recharge reduction IO recipes. They sold out of order; I had 3 left on one stack, 6 on another, 4 on another... Meaning that we've just totally disproven your claim that order of bidding wins when all else is equal. Same character, same price, same item, selling out of order.

I've yet to see you show the ability to concede a point. I concede points on the forums, as anyone who watches me will point out.