Question about making INF

I pretty much read all the guides on making INF. I have about 30k in tickets to work with atm and about 400 million liquid. I have about 4 or 5 defense cap toons to use for various things.

Let me try to get across my issues. Hopefully they make some sense and then hopefully someone can sort of steer me in the right direction.

With i19 I have been trying to build up my Alpha slots of several of my toons. I have done some AE tickets purchasing that worked well for creation and selling purposes.

I think my problem might be that I am trying to respec toons to make them better with i19 out and I am not selling as much as I should or what not.

So what I am trying to understand is when your trying to make your billion(s) is that all your doing ? Are you hunkering down and being as cheap as possible basically trying to hoard all the money you can or are you doing regular game play and still making this kind of money.

It could be that I don't have a system down persay in the sense that I am not saying okay tuesday is crafting and selling day and that is all I do that day. Or good part of the time I am on.

I get the whole look at what is selling high and how long it takes to sell and such. But I read some of this stuff and I get the impression guys and gals are doing this in a week or 2. And I am not getting any big hits. I will says some stuff I did sell for 20 million and such.

I think another part is since I have so many toons I get caught up with the whole wait I can use this for this toon and if I sell it now for 10 million I know 3 weeks from now I will be buying it back for 30 million.

Perfect example last night I used hero/villian rewards to buy LOTG +Recharge. Now I could have sold 3 of them for about 150 million each easy. But instead I placed them on a toon.

I know someone might say dude wtf are you complaining about.. You have a bunch of IO toons, 400 million and tons of other stuff.

I think I am at the point where I am maxing myself out with non purple IO builds and I am now looking to go to the next step and kick up the builds even higher.

The impression I get from reading is players are just working the market for 10 to 15 minutes a night and logging out and I feel like it is taking me hours to look around at the market to see what is selling and what I have to make.

I know I'm a bit all over the place with all of this, but just trying to get out my thoughts on confusion I'm having. I'm pretty much hoping someone says I remember when I was like that and this is what I did...

The trick is spending some money now so you can make lots of money later. If you want instant gratification, playing the market is very difficult, though possible if you merely flip rare salvage.

You say you have ~400m put 200m aside. buy things at low prices to resell/craft. in a week if you do it right that 200m will have become 400 or more.

In regards to the 10-15 minutes a night marketeers, these people know the prices. If I asked Nethergoat how much a nevermelting Ice sold for a week ago he could probably tell me. Now you, you don't have this pre-knowledge so you'll have to search through and find niches. This takes a lot of time.

A few thoughts I'll toss out.

First, while it's definitely doable, the folks pulling down 1B or more a week are
doing at least one of a few things.

A. They're dealing in the real high end stuff - Purples and PvP IOs, and
they probably have a toon specifically for that.

B. Farming - PvPIOs, (pre I19's bug), or A-Merits, to obtain high end items
which they simply sell for big bucks. With A-merits, there are quite a
number of lucrative items you can convert them into.

C. A lot of hard work - niches come and go, and folks in this category are
very attentive to what's selling and what's not, and they're actively updating
their big picture frequently. Again, in this case, they probably have a
dedicated toon doing this, and it's pretty time intensive at that level.


It sounds to me, like you're doing pretty well already, and the key piece in
that is patience... You might not hit the inf cap in a week or two, but you're
steadily getting richer in a more sustainable way.

Unless you really enjoy marketeering for the mini-game's sake, option C
starts to feel a little (or a lot) bit like work, and after the first few billion,
why bust your butt? Option B can also be a lot of work, and Option A can
be much riskier if you don't read the pricing trends well.

What you're currently doing is Option C Lite, which is an easier and
sustainable approach, but if you're looking for more, your best bet is to
ramp that up some.

That said, one main thing I'd suggest: Diversify (in all senses of the word).

In the case of the toons you're levelling, focus on one - split his slots 1/2
for marketeering for his use, and 1/2 for getting the goodies you want.

On the others you want to improve, make them into marketeers while you're
focusing on the one guy... Once he's done, make him a marketeer, and pick
another toon to focus on.

In other words, diversify the focus and effort on your key toons.

Next, diversify the niches you work. Once you start getting a bunch of marketeers,
it gets harder to keep track of what they're doing. Some folks keep spreadsheets.

On the other hand, I just make each one get their own niche, and work it
until it stops being profitable. So, for instance, I have a toon that was
working Regen Tissues, I have a toon that was working Perf Shifters, I
have a toon that was crafting commons when prices on those were up,
and I have a couple toons that collect r-merits and a-merits.

I've found that approach works well for me.

I hope the info helps you going forward.


Regards,
4

Lately I'll spend an hour or two, once a week, maybe on a Friday night or Saturday morning to log in all of my marketing toons, collect sales, collect stuff I've bid on, craft, and list stuff for sale. Other than that, I play normally. If I happen to log in one of my market toons to play, I'll check on the market at that time too.

I put in bids for 10 recipes at a time (lowball bids) and for the salvage... come back next time, craft 10, list 10.... come back next time, collect my sales. Sometimes bids don't come in, sometimes stuff doesn't sell right away... but overall I think I pull in at least a billion every 2 weeks just doing that.

My market toons are mostly my level 50s, they don't need the market slots for anything else. On some of them I've placed bids for IOs that I plan to use that may not fill for a very very long time... thinks like level 15 stealth IOs, level 30 Oblits or Kinetic Combats, etc.

If you want to buy anything, see how profitable it is, and buy 10 or 20 to craft and flip.

Ultimate technique for the lazy marketeer.

I'm a casual marketeer, but pretty much every character I have is doing something at the Market. The characters that I am actively playing (missions, TFs, etc), I keep to activities that won't clog up my Market slots since I'll need to dump crap salvage, etc. However, the characters that I am not actively playing can do all the long shot plays, ie placing really low "fishing" bids or setting higher than average selling prices. They have more time for the gambles to play out.

An example, earlier this year, on a whim, I had one of my retired characters place lowball bids on all the crafted pieces of the 2 high level Taunt Sets. I don't have many characters that have Taunt, but I've looked at them before and their set bonuses seemed pretty good. I was bidding just 56K Inf each on stacks of ten. Every day, I would snag 1-3 of them which I'd then put right back on sale for 2-5M Inf (depending on what it was).

I've tried doing using this technique with other crafted Sets, but not all were so easy. With Miracles, I might snag a fish once a month. With Detonations, I got so many that I almost couldn't get rid of them. With Rectified Recticle:+preceptions, I also got buckets of them, but I thought they had more potential so I stored them in my Bases' bins. Which turned out to be a good thing since their going rate had improved with Issue 19 for some reason.

Speaking of which, I find having a personal Base for safe storage is really helpful so I can keep my characters' inventories free. If I'm unsure about whether I want to use an item I've crafted, I toss it into a bin for reconsideration later. And for occasions like when Going Rogue launched and earlier this month when all the rare salvage were going cheap, I stocked up for future use.

Sounds like you aren't sure how you want to make your money, and you're doing a lot of things looking for the thing that will flip often, make you 50 million each time, and stay stable.

The bad news: there isn't one.

The good news: you only need three or four different things that are good, regular sellers. "Find something that makes 10 or 20 million each time, then find three more", he said casually. Then you just need to keep track of four things, and once a week or so go look for another one. Niches collapse, and they only sometimes come back.

Point 1: You may be thinking, "Why, if I only make 20 million per item and I want a billion, I have to craft and sell FIFTY THINGS!" This is true. Fifty things isn't that many, though. Ten runs to the crafting table, if you build 5 things each time. Three or four complete sell-outs of your slots. A hundred things isn't that many either, really. You've got time.

Point 2: How do you do that? Well... if you've read "all the guides" you know there are about fifty different ways to make money in this market. [Someone got rich on wing recipes once, like a year after the drop rate went up. That still blows my mind. Someone else has made hundreds of millions on large inspirations. ] What I do is set the market interface to look by level (and not to look at 51-53s), pick a melee/ranged/defense/resist/heal/AOE/whatever set, and look at only the top level- crafted, and recipe. If the recipe is selling for 100K and the crafted is selling for 10 million, and it only uses yellow salvage, you're going to make 8 million, plus, on each one of those. If the recipe is selling for 11 million and the crafted is selling for 30 million, you're going to make a little under 14 million on each of those. If the recipe is selling for 40 million and the crafted is selling for 50 million, stay the hell away.

Point 3: There are other things you can do for inf, which involve actual play and potentially, even, fun. A-merits (and R-merits that you turn into A-merits) are a great example of how to make a couple hundred million in four days. Statesman's TF: nobody's making synthetic Hami-Os right now, I'm pretty sure. Kind of a crapshoot, because last I looked only a few were going for hundreds of millions, but it's a fun TF anyway.

One last thing: If you're marketing on 20 characters, you may drive yourself crazy and spend all your time on it. I market on 4 characters, and two of them are new and bootstrapping themselves to a couple hundred million. Takes like 10-15 min most times I log in. And I may make a hundred million a day that way. Maybe less lately, it's been exam time.

I'll give you a hint : most resistance IOs at the level cap for their set tend to be good sellers.

If you have alts you aren't playing

1st give them some inf
2nd put out lowball bids for expensive items
3rd wait a week
4th come back and check if your lowball bids filled.
5 A If they filled relist higher
5 B. If they didn't, either raise your bid on the item or change the item you are bidding on
6. Come up with odd and convoluted logic how this process is good for the buyer and seller and is a tremendous sacrifice on your part.

Note Bene many people start with 6.

Welcome to the market forums, do note that a usual troll has made his requisite appearance along with obligatory troll statements.

Please feel free to continue to prove him wrong at your own leisure. Oh and do try the resistance IOs they are like printing influence.

Lots of insight.. Thanks tons

I think many hit it on the head. Trying to do too many things at once.. Too many toons.. Too many shiny things.. Currently I run 2 solo bases, one on each side. The villain side base is full. The hero side is getting there.

I usually do not buy from the market as I run solo at 0/8 missions so I end up with tons of stuff. So for the most part all the IOs and Salvage are free. which I think makes me sound more retarded since I have free stuff and still not making tons of cash.

I need to learn the numbers as Fulmens was explaining.. I don't have the system down yet to what it cost to make something or what the profit will be just by looking at the IO type and Salvage type.

Fourspeed did hit it home for me with the work comment. I get bent out of shape when I feel it starts to become work.

But I think I need not to be scattered all over the place and organize my stuff as well. Salvage is all over in the base. I run around to 7 or 8 different bins trying to find 2 Demon blood samples, when I know even if I went color coding I could at least know to look in the Orange, Yellow or White bins.

I partially blame Nethergoat as he posted a AR Dev build which got me Jealous. But started me thinking about reworking my AR Traps Defender in the same route.

Again thanks for steadying the boat. I think I felt overwhelmed with all this stuff on all these toons. I'm gonna do some house cleaning and reorganizing.

I am the laziest marketeer ever. About 6 months ago I actually worked towards hitting 2b on one of my characters. Once I did that I gave 1b to a Hero alt (this was before GR came out) and basically sat on the money. This was on two characters who made their riches back in the days of severe AE exploiting (Boss farms/etc.). I'm not proud of it, but it was fun so meh. Anyway, they were both kitted out /Shield characters. One a SS/Shield Brute and one a Fire/Shield Scrapper. Defense capped, decent recharge, all the fixings.

Since then I just played the game normally. I usually do high-end TFs and have gotten lucky with a couple of purple drops, some merit rolls, and some good AE rolls. Thanks to that, across multiple characters I accrued about a billion, maybe a bit more, of assets/liquid outside of the 2b I was already sitting on.

Now since I have no desire to simply make loads of INF for no reason, I only marketeer when I'm working on a build I need to fund. When I need to do that, I work on a basic formula that has -never- let me down.

I find an in-demand (as Fulmens described above) recipe that sells for significantly less than the crafted variant

Buy the recipe for about the average "last 5"

Get -ALL- salvage from AE. Trust me, this will save you lots of money. Actually, it'll earn you money because you're getting inf for defeats. In one run of a standard City Map 02 style farm you'll have enough to buy 2 rares and any of the uncommons you need. Spend the rest of bronze/silver rolls and hope for something good.

Craft your recipe, sell the crafted enhancement for double/triple/whatever.

Just as an example, last week I bought a Gravitational Anchor Immob/Recharge for 65m, crafted and sold it for 120m.

The big warning I will give you is not to go overboard on crafting the same thing too often. Mix up your recipes now and then so you don't kill your own niche.

Oh! And don't buy on the weekends. If you want to make a killing, hold on to your big items till Thursday night or Friday and post them up for a bit more than the average. You can also use AE to fill your inventory with rare salvage then post them all up on a weekend night and make a killing.

As you can see, my strategy usually involves getting as much as possible from AE. It may not be the fastest way, but I actually enjoy it because I get to play my toons and marketeer at the same time. Keeps it from getting boring.

Crafting purples is big-time stuff, but when you have the money to invest, the payoff is quite large.

I have an alt problem. So back before the markets merged, i found 2 sets that rolled decent enough profits, and put bids in for recipes/salvage and listed the enhancement, both H and V side, (that way i can always keep track of whats im selling) Since said market merge, i still do the exact same thing, and it takes about 10 - 20 mins to do both characters a day. I pull anywhere from 25 million to 100 million per time i check, and sometimes i can check 3 - 4 times a day (i get bored, and check markets, make money, and then relist)

On my other alts, i control how often i play them based on 2 factors:

1) Patrol XP. I usually only play alts with max patrol XP. And i always run story arcs for merits. This allows me to be able to make a fair amount of money and get to higher levels so that the inf comes in fasters, and i get better chances are higher end stuff (max level IOs always sell for more then the lower levels)

2) Market slots. As i craft every single recipes i get on any character i get it on, once i fill up the market slots i log off said character and roll onto another.

As i limit myself to max patrol XP on my alts, i have to wait atlest 10 days until i play the alt again, and in that time there are always free market slots to be able to play with. Makes me a decent buck, and i get to play my alts at the same time.