Simple inf making guide for newer players.

[EDIT]
To avoid this post being completely nonconstructive: You can get all eight Exploration Badges in any of the main zones for an accolade that gives 5 reward merits per zone. Also,
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Villain_Merit_Rewards
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Hero_Merit_Rewards
[/EDIT]
I'm sorry that you're incapable of the basics of financial self-defense in this game.

But if you're going to blame me because you're stupid, shallow and greedy: I reject your reality and substitute my own.

Yes. You're greedy. You want the good stuff. You see other kids selling each other the good stuff. You want the other kids to sell you the good stuff AND YOU WANT TO PAY LESS.

You've built some sort of dream world where evil people like me set the prices. I actually HAD a couple of Luck of the Gamblers at level 35 about a month ago- I do my tips, I get my reward merits- and I looked at the going rate, 150 million, and said "I think I can list for 155 million and get more than 150 million." You want to know what happened? My amazing mind control powers worked? NO. I pulled em, relisted at 141 million and they sold at 150 million in ONE DAY. Cost of lesson: 15 million inf in fees.

Now I have one more data point than you do. I declare victory and leave.

It's greedy to want decent sets? Then I guess most are greedy by your definition....and those who use purples (I have none) must be total monsters to you! And I assume then you don't use io's?

It's greedy to sell 80 percent of my stuff for a buck at the market?

And most of what else you said barely seems to apply to this thread.....so I am going to claim victory here!

P.S. Calling people stupid in the forums in against the rules! (don't worry, i won't report you tho...cause i admire your passion!) Careful....learn to insult without calling people names! Alot of people, myself included, are good at that.....read some threads and you'll get the hang of it!

Peace!

Btw.....read the whole thread before you attack. That is always a good idea!

You said I want the good stuff and I want to pay less? (you even put that in caps).....if you read the whole thread, you would have learned that i am one of the "iwantitnao" people and usually pay top dollar for my stuff......so you are quite wrong there.

Also, yes....sellers do set the prices, don't blame the buyers. Just cause people ARE willing to pay the big bucks, doesn't mean the seller has to ask big bucks. You can always sell anything, even pvp and purple io's for a buck....and voilà....the prices all drop for everything.

Amazing! Lol

You can post a thread about anything in these forums, even one that says mammals need oxygen to live, and a fight will break out! I find that both sad and hilariously entertaining! Lol


I knew it was a bad idea to post in the market section of the forum, since I am not a markteer myself!

Bye!

@Hyperstrike: LoL

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lascher Also, yes....sellers do set the prices, don't blame the buyers. Just cause people ARE willing to pay the big bucks, doesn't mean the seller has to ask big bucks. You can always sell anything, even pvp and purple io's for a buck....and voilà....the prices all drop for everything.

This is blatantly wrong. Sorry, but facts are facts.

Attempt to sell a TO on the market for 100M -- won't happen (unless you
buy it yourself as we used to before gleemail - to transfer inf)

Sellers list at (or below typically) what buyers have shown they'll consistently pay.

For LotG's, that may be 100-200M, for Silver, it may be 1-10K.

Pricing above the "normal" ceiling price for an item will typically sit in your
market slot for a long time waiting for inflation to catch up to your price,
or more frequently, until you pull it and re-list it more sensibly.


Somewhere up-thread, someone also mentioned needing inf for a character.

Having just done a bunch of math on this, I can quantify it somewhat.

If you're going to slot with just SO's, you'll need ~18M inf over the
duration of your toon's career.

Depending on how you approach it, you'll need somewhere between 6.5 -
15M for a roughly comparable performance build using Common IOs.

If you want to Frankenslot, or go for full set IOs, it's quite a bit higher,
and, of course, for premium and purples, it's astronomically higher.

I agree with Lascher on his point that you're not going to pick up those
amounts of inf consistently, by simply selling your drops. Sure, you may
get a lucky drop along the way, but for the most part, some sort of inf
building plan is needed if a player wants the process to be consistent
and painless for each character they make and play.


Regards,
4

I think part of the problem is the really wide range of enjoyment levels when it comes to working the market. I have more than once told my wife I was logging in "for just 10 minutes" and spent an hour crafting and looking for deals. If I do that a lot the game feels more like shopping at a flea-market than it does like being a superhero. I happen to like shopping and making stuff, but I understand the people who don't.

That's another reason why farming a-merits is nice. I'm actually DOING MISSIONS instead of just sitting in Steel Canyon figuring out crafting profit margins.

Your scenario is true. There are a couple howevers that also apply to it.

One, the design of the market interface hides that window of opportunity you describe between 20k-80k. A fully transparent market, like the one we (should) have by law in real life, would not hide that information. Everyone should be able to easily see and capitalize on opportunities. In this game we can't simply due to the interface. Hide is too strong a term I suppose. Obscure maybe is better?

Two, the fact that we have a game and not a life in Paragon City leads to strange behavior. People don't pay attention to things. They may have an hour or less and they go out and punch bad guys rather than min/max the market. This just makes point One larger. It gives greater opportunity to people that do take the time to pay attention. Is it appropriate the larger population pay for their choice In A Game? Sure, to a point, I think many people would agree to pay for convenience. Are they paying enough right now? Opinions differ. Are they paying too much right now? Opinions differ.

Three, do we really have the critical mass in population for real market self correction methods to work in a timely manner? In your example how many people in CoH are availible to jump on that 60k price disparity? There is a lag. How long does the lag go on? How many people are paying too much on how many items because there are not enough people looking to fill the holes? I think we skirt a real economy because our size also contributes to the inequalities that pop up. Again number Two inflates this. Market forces are slow to move because there are too few people available or willing to put them to action. (Say it twice and maybe they will understand the badly worded idea??)

I would rather that the market players have fewer opportunities for profit and those opportunities are smaller margins **IF** that gives the larger population more opportunities to quickly and cheaply get 'stuff' that allows them to enhance their enjoyment of the the larger game. Lets really stress that last part. Enhance their enjoyment. It is a game. We are all here to have fun. Unfun things should be kept to a minimum. Fun things should be maximized where possible. That outcome is desirable and is the opening lecture in Game Design 101.

So I do not agree with people that yell, "Cheater!" or exploiter or whatever. I do think that the Market is so important to the larger game that it's design should support that larger game with ease of use rather than slow things down. Right now it is my opinion that it slows things down for too many of us.

I also know it will not get any real changes soon. If ever.

The hard part, I think, would be finding a way to make that information genuinely available to people in a way that wouldn't overwhelm them.

I mean, you could make all sorts of stuff available, but if people can't figure out what to make of it, it doesn't help them. It was a long time before I realized that it often mattered more how many days the "last 5" covered than what the numbers in them were...

I do think it'd help if there were better information, but I think it would help the marketeers more than everyone else, because the marketeers are the ones who pay attention. Still... Might be nice.

I think most of the inefficiencies in the market are, at least in some degree, intentional. For better or worse, they wanted the market to be more than a simple trade tool. They added the notion that it was its own mini-game (the "market mini-game" of frequent forum reference.) During I9 beta and some later Mod feedback here in this forum, it was made fairly clear that this aspect of the market was intentional.

How that works out for each player depends very strongly on where one stands with respect to that. Sometimes I wish it was more transparent. Sometimes I have fun because it isn't. I don't focus on the market mini-game, because I prefer the combat macro-game, but I don't dislike the mini-game, and I don't mind playing it some of the time.

As you point out, though, it's probably not likely to change, but no small part of that is probably because its inefficiencies are it basically working as intended.