The Paragon Market - A Quick Update

Originally Posted by Zwillinger

P.S. iPhone's are teh win. Working from the doctors office without my laptop. And the nurse is just shaking her head at me.

Originally Posted by EarthWyrm

Lisa, I like your posts, but I find this one baffling. The reason Fire Farms got whacked with the nerf bat wasn't because the story-focused AE users complained, it was because the rewards they offered were out of line with the effort involved in them.

If you really want to draw a parallel to this, I guess you could, but it's again a case of minimal effort (plonk down some $$) giving a better reward than you get from playing the game as designed, and I don't know that you want to make the case that less effort ought to lead to better rewards. IMO, that doesn't create a sustainable game.


I think there were overriding game balance reasons for the changes made, which may have made the authors happy but which were, at best, incidental to the happiness of that portion of the playerbase.


I'm curious why you seem to want to insult broad groups of players. That doesn't seem like you.

As far as it goes, I don't know that I have a particular problem with the selling of crafted IOs on the market, provided the price-point remains high enough that it won't obviate the in-game market. Like Adeon, though, I'm bothered by the precedent of selling strictly better versions of these sets. People keep saying, "Well, as long as there are no purples, I'm fine with it..."

Thing is, the types of bonuses offered by the purple sets are very limited. The ginormous +recharge bonus is nice, but purples don't generally grant non-psi defense bonuses (the exception being the 6th slot in the confuse set). Being able to keep your +def set bonuses down to 27 or 22 (respectively) means that these sets grant something purple sets cannot. They are better than the standard versions of these sets, and in terms of set bonuses granted, arguably better than the purple sets people seem fine with painting as "off-limits".

Originally Posted by Draeth Darkstar

Personally, I really don't mind IOs - any of them - going for sale on the Paragon Market.

Sure, they may reduce the demand in the auction house a bit, but... whatever. I'd rather see real money in Paragon's pockets than fake money in my characters' (as I stand to gain a lot more from the developers getting more funding than I do by having another billion influence chilling out on my account).

Also, as a note, I'd probably be willing to pay $5 apiece for the PVP uniques, like the Gladiator's +3%. That's relatively competitive with the RMT spammers' rates, too, I think, and might do some good in putting them out of business (and believe me... nothing would make me happier in this game than seeing the death of the RMT spammer market).

Originally Posted by UberGuy

I don't know why folks are disagreeing with what I said, and then repeating it slightly differently.

I'm going to assume perhaps people are getting hung up on the word "claim"? "Claim" is being used very specifically here: after you buy it from the Paragon Market, you can claim that purchase exactly once: I was trying to make clear that you can't buy them and have some sort of per-character font of Touch of Death enhancements. You can buy a set and claim it from the Market with one character, and then it's claimed and you have enhancements.

Once you claim them, you can mail them to other characters on the same account. That includes the examples of unslotting them and moving them to someone else later. I'm not sure what I said in my original response that made folks think I was excluding that possibility.

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

Well, if you've followed my post history at all what I am about to say should come as no surprise: I do NOT like this. In all honesty I'm not sure this is worth posting, I made my views on the matter clear in Beta and was told at the time that things weren't going to change. I consoled myself at the time with the knowledge that it was only uncommon sets but now, lo and behold we are getting rare sets as well (I'm not surprised since frankly I doubt the uncommon sets sold particularly well but I am disappointed).

You are billing this as an issue of convenience versus time but the fact of the matter is it isn't. It's selling power. Touch of Death and Mako's Bite are both very solid sets that any melee character building positional defense will want to use. That in and of itself doesn't bother me neither does the fact that they scale up as you level. What does bother me is that unlike normal Set IOs they scale down with you when you exemplar. That gives characters using them a huge advantage over regular set IOs.

Now the "solution" suggested by the devs was to make two builds one using level 50 IOs and one with level 30'ish. As I said at the time I don't consider this a valid solution for a few reasons. One is that the store bought IOs are still better between level 31 and level 46. The other is that level 30 rare IOs are frustrating to acquire due to low supply.

Considering the upcoming release of Titan Weapons this really seems to me like a naked money grab. Given that I will reiterate my request to do something to make regular set IOs competitive. Personally I'd like to see all IOs adopt the same level-less structure as store bought IOs. Baring that I'd like to see the ability to use the level slider to make random ticket/merit rolls at a particular level in order to help loosen up the supply of mid-level IOs.

Originally Posted by BrandX

Speaking as another VIP, I really don't see a problem with any of this as long as they keep the PvP and Purple IOs off the market and even then, I'm almsot thinking so what.

These items can be obtained in game. And it sounds like if you were going for true min/max you'd going to want to obtain the IOs in game, and then pay to boost them (which you can also do free by spending Paragon Reward points on the Boosters instead of actual money).

Originally Posted by UberGuy

Honestly, unless they're dirt cheap, or you're rolling in money, I don't think it makes much sense to buy them.

If you're going to exemplar a lot and/or just cannot stand to try and get low-level IOs in game (and I will concede they're not convenient to get on the market), and you've got the cash to spend on them? Go nuts. It's money that supports the game.

I min max a fair bit, and I've got a significant disposable income. I wouldn't buy these on the market unless they were like a buck a set or something like that. Even that seems high to me for as many as I'd want. I've got all the ToDs and the like I need at the moment, and would never dream of replacing them for real money, even for the exemplar benefit. Of course, I also mostly play at 50, but even when I exemplar, I simply don't worry about what happens to most of my sets. My characters are still overpowered unless I'm forced below level 20 or so. It's only special IOs with "set-bonus-like" effects like LotGs and the like that I bother to buy at minimum level. (And I'm not interested in store-bought LotGs, either, were they even available. The % enhancement difference in a L25 LotG and a level 50 one is very small, and even five them them sprinkled around a build is only likely to affect your overall performance if you were within a few percent of a softcap.)

So overall, I can't see people rushing out and buying these by the cartload unless PS sets the price very low, or unless someone is loaded. Setting the price very low would probably be dumb. And if someone loaded wants to throw money at the game I like to play, more power to them, literally.

Originally Posted by McCharraigin

I am a big believer in Crushing Impact.

I do use Ouroboris a lot to catch up on things I missed in normal leveling, and I even revisit fav story arcs....so, I bought a lot of these new fangled Crushings and I am happy with my purchases.

Originally Posted by Myrmydon

Having those in the store (along with Kinetic Combat and a few others) would mean one thing: Where do I send the check?

Originally Posted by Myrmydon

You can use Enhancement Boosters on in-game IOs, which allows for a very great deal of slotting options without using a single SBE. While I would be perfectly happy with lifting the level restriction on in-game IOs, they've already told us no on that, as I'm sure you remember.

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

1. Make myself less powerful at 50 by using level 30 IOs (which are frustrating to accquire)

Originally Posted by Grouchybeast

I don't think there would be any need to seed WW, if it were possible to set the level of recipes for random rolls as well as direct purchases. If level 50 characters could make their Merit and ticket rolls at mid levels, then demand would direct supply to the most popular levels, and everyone would benefit.

I have stacks of merits on characters that I frankly can't be bothered to roll, because I have no interest in level 50 recipes. I'd rather let them stack up and use them to buy the occasional low-level stealth recipe. If I could choose to roll them at mid levels, all those merits would be used up and supplying the market.

Originally Posted by EvilRyu

Calling Shenanigans on the Paragon Market. Why do you guys keep saying these are account bound enhancements when they are not. WE HAVE NO WAY OF TRANSFERRING THESE TO ALTS. So stop with the account bound wording when you know its not true. Many of us have been asking for account based storage since day 1, it would be nice to finally get this on characters so we would not be stuck having to slowly email non-bound stuff to alts.

Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan

So? If it grinds your gears that much, do the same as they are and buy the things. No one is stopping you.

Originally Posted by Myrmydon

You can use Ehancement Boosters to make level 30 percentages function just like level 50 percentages (or so close that the difference doesn't matter), so the ability does exist in-game and can be obtained for free with Paragon Points and Paragon Rewards for VIPs.

Originally Posted by Myrmydon

You can use Enhancement Boosters on in-game IOs, which allows for a very great deal of slotting options without using a single SBE.

Originally Posted by Myrmydon

While I would be perfectly happy with lifting the level restriction on in-game IOs, they've already told us no on that, as I'm sure you remember.

Originally Posted by Robotech_Master

What part of "I don't have the kind of money it would take" don't you understand?

Originally Posted by TwoHeadedBoy

Way to perpetuate the idea that things other players have earned should be purchasable. Following this idea, what is the point in playing the game at all? I've said this before, and I'll say it again: I have no gripes whatsoever with the game having things like new costumes, powersets (granted, they should remain balanced) or things like the rocket board and whatnot for sale for cash, but when it comes to things that actually alter character performance it is crossing the line.

If you're going to sell the most sought after enhancements for cash, why not sell incarnate powers or salvage too? Why not sell influence? Why not just sell 30 day access to the "I Win" button? Wanna buy every badge in the game? Sure, just send 40 bucks over! No one will ever have to actually play the game again!

Originally Posted by FloatingFatMan

Conversely, what part of "it has ZERO affect on how you play the game" don't YOU understand, hmm?

Originally Posted by Talen Lee

The purples discussion aside, who exactly can possibly be so poor that buying SBE thunderstrikes represents a large advantage over someone who buys them for himself every 5 levels?

Originally Posted by Myrmydon

I figure they'll leave PvP/Purples out of the store as a compromise.

Originally Posted by Adeon Hawkwood

And when both players exemplar back down to run Citadel Task Force, what then? Should the "buy every 5 levels player" go to the market and buy another set of level 30 Thunderstrikes to use on that Task Force?