Zero to Awesome (30 day project)

Also, these two tidbids from trials last night:

(Speed lambda, leader decides as we're clearing courtyard that we're such a kickass group that we should try for the "no nades" badge. Not everyone agrees, but leader says we'll still collect the grenades and acids, just not use the grenades unless it looks like we're running low on time. Also, we don't wait to acid the doors since we want as much time as possible to take the AV down, and it'll take so long to do that we'll get the extra reward in the end anyway.)

Leader: WE'RE GOING FOR THE BADGE SO DO NOT USE ANY GRENADES!
Leader: PASS ALL GRENADES TO ME!
Leader: Those with acids, close the doors right away then come back and buff up.
Leader: PLEASE DO NOT USE ANY GRENADES!
Leader: NO NADES! I REPEAT, NO NADES!
Player1: ready.
Player2: ready.
Leader: Go!
*Maurauder has been pacified*
Player3: Oh, you moron.

~~~~~

Then I joined a BAF:

Leader: BAF LFM.
Annoying Player: How can you be looking for more if you won't add anyone?
Leader: BAF LFM.
Annoying Player: How can you be looking for more if you won't add anyone?
Leader: BAF LFM.
Annoying Player: How can you be looking for more if you won't add anyone?
*Annoying Player has joined team*
*queue comes up*
Annoying Player: Add my friend.
Leader: We're full.
*Annoying Player quits*

/em sighs.

Day 29



Sold more stuff. Ran some trials. Did my five tip missions, got a villain merit for that, and another for converting 50 merits. I already had one from the day before, so I bought a KC triple and had 1 villain merit left over.

Because I sold so much stuff, I had little left for sale. I needed to buy more recipes.



I wanted to give a very clear picture of how I made money the last two days. That's why I waited a day to post this.

I placed bids Tuesday early evening for 10 Decimation acc/dam/rech at over 2 million inf each, and 10 Decimation acc/end/rech for 560,000 each. These actually sell at similar prices -- about 10 to 15 million crafted -- despite the fact that the second recipe is much cheaper to come by. But the second is also harder to sell, since there's always more available, so it's more of a squishy market I guess I'd say. You can get 10-12 million or so, but not necessarily as quickly.

Anyway the recipes purchase much faster, as you can see by late in the evening after I've run my trials and stuff, I already have 9 of the cheap triples, and only four of the more expensive ones. I've also bought all the salvage needed to craft the ten cheaper recipes (bought over several hours as I was running trials and tip missions).



I craft and listed all 9 of the Decimation dam/end/rech at 1 inf over 10 mil, which is being slightly optimistic. The KC triple I listed at 158 million. I listed the last one at this price, and it sold for 170 million, which is the price I was actually hoping for.

Day 30

Last day of my experiment!



I checked the market early in the morning before work. My 2nd KC triple also sold for 170 million, just as I'd hoped, and one of the Decimations had sold.



I'd also purchased the last 6 of the Decimation acc/dam/rech recipes, and the last of the acc/end/rech. Also I'd picked up the rare and uncommon salvage needed to craft the acc/dam/rech recipes.

I was able to pick up the common salvage pretty easily and craft everything.



When I got home, a lot of stuff had sold.

I converted 50 merits and bought a third KC triple, and crafted and listed it for sale, along with the rest of the Decimation acc/dam/rech IOs that I hadn't been able to list this morning.

I ran a BAF and joined a Moonfire TF (on Shinobu Eden -- hit 48 and almost to 49 now). I played a bit with my $1.99 3rd account CEBR claws/fire brute. That was my evening, really, wasn't able to join a Lambda or an ITF.



By the time I was done in the evening, several of my Decimations had sold and also my third KC triple, again for 170 million. Nice. (I'd also listed this for 158 million).

I had two more Decimation sales after this screenshot. At the moment I have the two Eradication damage IOs for sale, the Thunderstrike, and I think three of the Decimation acc/end/rech IOs still for sale. All of the acc/dam/rech sold already!



In the end I have T3 Destiny, Lore, and Judgment, but only T2 Interface and T1 Alpha. I ran too many trials the last week and not enough regular content, so very few shard drops.

Although I benefited from from the two purple drops to the tune of a bit over a billion infamy, I finished with over a billion infamy anyway. So I raised enough money even without the purples to pay for my build, although I might have had to wait a few more days to purchase those Enzymes. A large part of the money I made in the last few days came from the sale of three Kinetic Combat triples that I bought with a-merits, but I also made nearly as much in the same time span just buying recipes, crafting them, and selling the IOs.

I still have 83 merits on hand as well.



For comparison, the CEBR brute that I've been working on since Aug 17th is up to nearly 900 million infamy from AE recipe rolls that I craft and sell (mostly low level bronze rolls). This character doesn't have a nice build yet, but I wanted to show that making money from AE tickets is also a fast way to earn cash.

Probably a balance of the three approaches would work best. Either way, it's not hard to make money in this game. ^_^

Just read the whole thread. Thanks for a solid lesson. I pretty much always get something out of your posts.

Two thoughts to add.

1) Some have called you to task for the auction house vet power. With the amount of inf moving around in this project anyone can have a partial substitute (not good for in between missions) for trivial amounts of inf. I refer to the 10,000 inf for a one time use Market Teleport powers. Just remember to buy a new one every time you use it before you leave whichever Market you are at. I find it saves me a lot of time when I market, and it is useful during certain missions too.

2) I have been exploring the world of farming Tanks and Brutes for a couple of months. With NO knockback protection in Fiery Aura deciding on how many IO's to use was big. I settled on 1 for level 4 protection. On toons with high defense (example - FA Tank with +def power pools and IO build) a lot of the KB attacks will miss, and most of the rest will be stopped by level 4. If you know you will be, or find in mission that you are, facing a more serious knockback challenge - then base empowerment stations can give you a buff for 1 hour of addition +10 for a total of Lvl 14. Empowerment buffs will persist for the full hour even if you are defeated. I use them a lot when leveling, esp. +recharge and +recovery. I was warned that mere level 4 KB would be really bad in I trials but I found it perfectly acceptable even without the empowerment buff.

On toons with out significant defense, and/or without hover to minimize the effect, you may want more.

Jak

I was going to try this, got to level 13 solo and on teams. Then got an invite to a farm for prestige and got to level 31. Well there goes that idea. But I did try your invention idea and see how it works out. If it doesn't of course I will blame you.

Been following your thread for the past month. I enjoy these reads! My only question is how now that you have hit the 30 day mark, what is the total amount of time you spent on that character?

I just wanted to post a sincere thank you, partly because I really appreciate the thread, and partly to spite the comments about 'you're not starting with nothing, you have years of experience and no new people will care!'

I just picked up the game on Aug 21 during the 2 dollar sale on a whim and the advice of a friend who said we should try it with Freedom around the corner - and now a little over two weeks later, with the information gleaned from the thread and others like it, I'm now within ~100m of my first billion influence.

Experience is invaluable, but without people like you sharing it, some things might be a lot more irritating than they are.

(Also I'd have nothing to make my friends go 'where the hell did you get all that cash what are you doing are you a wizard', which is also pretty invaluable.)

Going to second that, that's an impressive first post and game start. Two weeks after I first joined, I think I was still trying to navigate the Hollows and had maybe 100k inf to my name.

Yup, play 4 hours a day and you, too, can has awesome lootz.

Just a bit of necro-posting to say "thank you!" Two years I've been playing and I never really understood the secrets of getting rich of the market, but you definitely helped my latest character a LOT. Didn't get the two purples, but half a billion in two weeks is way better than anything I managed before - especially on my server.

So again, thanks for this very detailled, useful and entertaining read.

That's very cool. ^_^

As a sort of update, I started a Street Justice / Shield brute back in... when did that set come out? September? I designed the very most expensive build I could... four damage purple sets, a Panacea set, five LotG +7.5% rech, Glad Armor 3% Def, Miracle and Numina uniques, multiple billions required. I hit 50 on my character in early November, and as of this last week I managed to purchase the Panacea unqiue and finish off my build. ^_^ And I'm actually working on more modest builds for my just-hit-50-last-night claws/willpower brute, and also for a dark/dark brute who's currently level 44. I can always find ways to spend money, so I have to keep making more. ^_^

I've actually put together several very expensive builds like that in the last year -- nearly identical builds for my electric melee/shield scrapper in February and for a fire/shield scrapper in about June. The point is, I can still remember when the most popular rare IOs were out of my price range, let alone purples/pvp IOs/uniques. 100 million influence was a fortune to me then. ^_^ So I really think anyone can do this, if they want to.

As someone returned to CoH after 6 years, dabbling in the Invention system, and wondering how the world to make money, thank you for the guide.

I get a toon to 50, purp it out, get all its accolade powers and get all T4 incarnates in 30 days.