Inf Supply: Idle Speculation
By
Another_Fan,
Posted on: 2012-04-11 13:04 in The Market and Inventions
Quote:
Well, let's qualify this a bit. It's manipulation FOR PROFIT that is difficult. If you just want to manipulate the market to screw with people, and you have lots of inf, it's easy to do so. I don't think there's much malicious manipulation going on, but there could be some.
|
Originally Posted by Miladys_Knight
We've done experiments along this line. Except in the cases of items that have too little availability, manipulation is difficult, if not impossible to sustain.
|
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
Quote:
I like this one.|
Originally Posted by Nethergoat
For some reason now obscure, I went on a respec rampage before my hiatus, creating a substantial population of characters with BUPKIS for enhancements. This sucks when you log in wanting to run a few quick missions, only to faceplant as a result of your own laziness.
|
Apparently, at some point in the past, I temporarily went insane and gimped a large number of toons. What I was thinking, I may never know.....
Paragon City Search And Rescue
The Mentor Project
Having read through the thread...and wow, THAT was a chore....I find it hard to comprehend why people put up so much fuss over play money. Not like you can buy anything in the real world with inf.
There were some that had used some rather complex math to figure out rates and "total amount of inf in the game"......but...it's just that. A game!
Granted, it's their dime and they're doing what is "fun" to them...and all I'm saying is...I just don't get it. -I- personally can't "play" that way. Too much like work.
Quote:
Cheaters.|
Originally Posted by FourSpeed
The other side of that question would also be trying to find plausible reasons to explain why there'd be different segments. In other words, what *are* these nebulous "parameters" you refer to and how do they cause any differences?
|
At various points in the game history it has been possible to dup stuff. I recall hearing about some PvPers being banned for duping stuff by disconnecting. I think Beefcake got the Bug Hunter badge by finding a base bug that allowed duping. Someone else got Bug Hunter for finding a gleemail duping problem, but that may have been before it went live. So duping has been possible. I wouldn't be surprised if it is still possible. Which means there may be a small population that can print money far faster than the regular population.
A single character can hold 2B Inf, 10 Enhancements, and 30+ Recipes before even taking into account increased storage that you can buy in the Paragon Market. That can be upwards of 15B even after Enhancement Converters drove down the price on ultra-rare items. A base crashing bug could likely dup all of that in a few minutes. Granted other methods of duping would likely be slower or limited to specific classes of items. This is around a thousand times faster than a good farmer.
There have been a number of AE exploits that let people REALLY rake in the Inf. Monkey farming was silly, but I hear level 50 MM pets versus level 1 AVs was even sillier. There are similar exploits outside of AE, like the old snake egg farm, or the AFK Death Shaman farm. Does anyone have any info on the Inf earning rate of any of those?
Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
I've moved on to Diablo 3, TopDoc-1304
Quote:
Excellent point!|
Originally Posted by Ironblade
Well, let's qualify this a bit. It's manipulation FOR PROFIT that is difficult.
|
For example, back before my hiatus I was having fun "spiking" the price of a chronically over-supplied Uncommon...I think it was Alchemical Gold. I might have had some point to make, I don't remember...but anyway, ever so often I'd go through and buy up ALL the Alchemical Gold below a certain price point, then sit back and watch the carnage.
Driving the price up was child's play, but I didn't make any money off it- the volume was simply too great. Buying up the cheap junk meant destroying nearly all of it since I had nowhere to stash it.
And, of course, the price spikes never lasted very long- the suddenly "outrageous" price inspired everyone with some Alchemical Gold lying around to go get it and dump it on the market for big profits.
I did once, many moons ago, 'manipulate' Ancient Bones redside for a good bit, which was possible mainly due to the wretchedly low supply on the segregated villain market. Even so, it was a tedious, low profit operation that mainly proved villains were happy to list large numbers of Ancient Bones as long as someone was paying a decent price.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone
Quote:
The way you portrayed that statement, it sounds like you're saying you didn't participate in those exploits ???|
Cheaters. There have been a number of AE exploits that let people REALLY rake in the Inf. Monkey farming was silly, but I hear level 50 MM pets versus level 1 AVs was even sillier. There are similar exploits outside of AE, like the old snake egg farm, or the AFK Death Shaman farm. Does anyone have any info on the Inf earning rate of any of those? |
Also, aren't you forgetting the DE exploit ?
I lurk a lot
Quote:
I understand there are people who don't find it fun to try and figure out the total amount of inf in the game. I just don't get it.
|
Originally Posted by mercykilling
Having read through the thread...and wow, THAT was a chore....I find it hard to comprehend why people put up so much fuss over play money. Not like you can buy anything in the real world with inf.
There were some that had used some rather complex math to figure out rates and "total amount of inf in the game"......but...it's just that. A game! Granted, it's their dime and they're doing what is "fun" to them...and all I'm saying is...I just don't get it. -I- personally can't "play" that way. Too much like work. |
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Topdoc: I was told that the AE pet trick was "zero to inf cap in an afternoon." I didn't do it because I am here to get RID of the inf.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
... and getting the hat trick on answering myself:
Wikipedia has a very non-Pareto characteristic when measured one way but a very Pareto characteristic when measured another.
0.7% of the users made 50% of the edits. 2% made 74% of the edits.
But it turns out, BY NUMBER OF LETTERS TYPED, that totally breaks down.
That might explain our non-Pareto system here:
If 2% of the users are involved in 74% of the transactions, or similar, we might get a hideously skewed inf distribution.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Quote:
Well yeah, but I was thinking more along the lines of the fact that if as previously discussed some players use the markets by attempting to leverage them to at least some degree, but others simply use them as a store with no regard to attempting to leverage their player-to-player properties, those two segments of the player population would likely be discontinuous. The notion that everyone has the same "opportunities" to make influence isn't really relevant to the case where many people opt out of most of them or don't even know they exist.
|
Originally Posted by TopDoc
Cheaters.
|
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
Quote:
Another related area where there appears to be discontinuous populations is prestige. I get the sense from the numbers that the highest prestige SGs form a separate population from the rest for the very obvious reason they are generating prestige by dumping influence. If most SGs only convert inf rarely, and mostly for utilitarian reasons, then most SGs' primary means of generating prestige is through gameplay, and that might exhibit a pareto-like power distribution. But at the top where influence conversion dominates and there's literally no use for the prestige besides ranking the prestige curve can, and apparently does follow a completely different curve.|
Originally Posted by Fulmens
... and getting the hat trick on answering myself:
Wikipedia has a very non-Pareto characteristic when measured one way but a very Pareto characteristic when measured another. 0.7% of the users made 50% of the edits. 2% made 74% of the edits. But it turns out, BY NUMBER OF LETTERS TYPED, that totally breaks down. That might explain our non-Pareto system here: If 2% of the users are involved in 74% of the transactions, or similar, we might get a hideously skewed inf distribution. |
Its entirely reasonable to suggest that the highest influence earners form a similar discontinuous population of players earning influence for no purpose other than to amass influence. That would suggest to me that there could be three nearly discontinuous populations of the highest earners, the conventional market participants, and the mass of players that ignore the markets compeletely or use them only as a pseudo-store. For the last group, the markets might actually be a strong influence sink, and not an influence generator at all. For the middle group, the market might be an influence earning opportunity that can form a pareto-like population. For the highest earners, a separate population of earning for the sake of earning players may possess gigantic sums of influence without implying anything about the rest of the player population's worth.
[Guide to Defense] [Scrapper Secondaries Comparison] [Archetype Popularity Analysis]
In one little corner of the universe, there's nothing more irritating than a misfile...
(Please support the best webcomic about a cosmic universal realignment by impaired angelic interference resulting in identity crisis angst. Or I release the pigmy water thieves.)
The AFK Death Shaman farm was about experience, not influence. Back then on a really top grade farm, it was about 20 hours to go from level 1 to level 50 and at the end, you'd have enough money to buy your SOs. There were no IOs or auction house, so not a huge amount of cash.
I believe the main tanker used had had almost 2 billion influence. I think he was the first one to break 1 billion, but that was farming for literally MONTHS.
Quote:
While I've little doubt that there have been exploits and folks that abused them,|
Originally Posted by TopDoc
Cheaters.
At various points in the game history it has been possible to dup stuff. I recall hearing about some PvPers being banned for duping stuff by disconnecting. I think Beefcake got the Bug Hunter badge by finding a base bug that allowed duping. Someone else got Bug Hunter for finding a gleemail duping problem, but that may have been before it went live. So duping has been possible. I wouldn't be surprised if it is still possible. Which means there may be a small population that can print money far faster than the regular population. |
I would expect two things:
1> If it's truly widespread, I'd expect MOAR moneh in the system - who cheats
to make less influence???
Keep in mind that I was the one person advocating a high number (400T+ @100K accts) for in-game influence, but we're simply not
seeing it in the dev number or the market bids. Those latter points are the key
drivers of my revised, current 150T/75K/90-10 estimate.
2> If #1 is false, then we're talking about a very small segment of the overall
population. I would not expect, in that case, that they would skew Pareto much.
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
Quote:
Good thing we're not analyzing chat channels... |
Originally Posted by Fulmens
... and getting the hat trick on answering myself:
Wikipedia has a very non-Pareto characteristic when measured one way but a very Pareto characteristic when measured another. 0.7% of the users made 50% of the edits. 2% made 74% of the edits. But it turns out, BY NUMBER OF LETTERS TYPED, that totally breaks down. That might explain our non-Pareto system here: If 2% of the users are involved in 74% of the transactions, or similar, we might get a hideously skewed inf distribution. |
As for Pareto in this game, 90/10 can still BE following Pareto. It's a different
ratio than typcial, but it's not completely ludicrous.
It could also be that Pareto may not apply - but we have zero way to prove it.
In order to prove it, you have to plot a LOT of sample data and actually show
that you can fit it to a power curve (or not, if Pareto doesn't apply).
Zero chance of us being able to do that.
Regards,
4
I've been rich, and I've been poor. Rich is definitely better.
Light is faster than sound - that's why some people look smart until they speak.
For every seller who leaves the market dirty stinkin' rich,
there's a buyer who leaves the market dirty stinkin' IOed. - Obitus.
Quote:
Truth is truth. I remember seeing said someones toons topping the kiosks for weeks and months on end with 300k-500k kills a week to millions of kills per month, lol. And that was on multiple toons on the same account, not just a main farmer. Just let that sink in, the scale is wtf mind boggling, lol. Of course that was back when the kiosks still displayed data, and we could generally track each other and know what other players were up to based on the numbers.|
Originally Posted by LaDiva
The way you portrayed that statement, it sounds like you're saying you didn't participate in those exploits ???
Also, aren't you forgetting the DE exploit ? |
This during a time when the most hardcore of mission re-setters (standard clear farms) would generally max out at 10-18k'ish kills a day depending on efficiency, doing about 10 or more full complete hours of grinding (not including downtime between resets).
I like Dark Dark Defenders and Invulnerability Scrappers
Though since I started playing my invulnerability scrapper I play him just as much as my dark dark now.
Quote:
I wonder how much of THAT influence is on accounts that are no longer active and may not be counted in the totals.
|
Originally Posted by DarkestNight
Truth is truth. I remember seeing said someones toons topping the kiosks for weeks and months on end with 300k-500k kills a week to millions of kills per month, lol. And that was on multiple toons on the same account, not just a main farmer. Just let that sink in, the scale is wtf mind boggling, lol. Of course that was back when the kiosks still displayed data, and we could generally track each other and know what other players were up to based on the numbers.
This during a time when the most hardcore of mission re-setters (standard clear farms) would generally max out at 10-18k'ish kills a day depending on efficiency, doing about 10 or more full complete hours of grinding (not including downtime between resets). |
-Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. - Albert Einstein.
-I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
-When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty. - Thomas Jefferson
Quote:
Ha ha ! I remember those days ! I would drool at the numbers being posted. I asked everyone I knew, begged, and tried to deal, to find out what was going on. However the folks in the know kept it secret and I didnt learn how it was done until after the nerf when folks started talking and bragging.|
Originally Posted by DarkestNight
Truth is truth. I remember seeing said someones toons topping the kiosks for weeks and months on end with 300k-500k kills a week to millions of kills per month, lol. And that was on multiple toons on the same account, not just a main farmer. Just let that sink in, the scale is wtf mind boggling, lol. Of course that was back when the kiosks still displayed data, and we could generally track each other and know what other players were up to based on the numbers.
This during a time when the most hardcore of mission re-setters (standard clear farms) would generally max out at 10-18k'ish kills a day depending on efficiency, doing about 10 or more full complete hours of grinding (not including downtime between resets). |
I miss the Kiosks !!! Are they ever going to bring them back ? *Sniff* So much could be learned.
In relation to this thread they might also help to work in to calculating influence in the game.
Quote:
| I wonder how much of THAT influence is on accounts that are no longer active and may not be counted in the totals. |
Over the hills and through the woods.
Quote:
Anything that earns massive amounts of XP also earns massive amounts of inf for the level 50 that (usually) acts as an anchor. Case in point was the Mastermind AE exploit that could get you to 50 in under an hour, it would also cap the MM's inf from zero in about two hours.
|
Originally Posted by Realm
The AFK Death Shaman farm was about experience, not influence. Back then on a really top grade farm, it was about 20 hours to go from level 1 to level 50 and at the end, you'd have enough money to buy your SOs. There were no IOs or auction house, so not a huge amount of cash.
|
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Quote:
Apparently not. I remember reading not too long ago that it was too much server load somehow, and was unlikely to come back in a post-Freedom world.
|
Originally Posted by MeanNVicious
I miss the Kiosks !!! Are they ever going to bring them back ? *Sniff* So much could be learned.
|
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
Lichen farming, those were the days. It wasn't easy, believe me, but we did it for the badges. Every run required a Longbow HVAS from Recluse's Victory, or later a Vanguard Heavy for most everyone in the team. That meant defeating the GMs in Recluses Victory or a Ship Raid every night, plus time to actually run the Eden Trial, plus setup. But after that, the Lichens died and died. I think there were originally 4 of us all dual-boxing, then we added some more after we got the 2B Inf badges. Shortly after that it was fixed. Two of the original 4 are gone, and I hardly ever see the remaining person. I haven't seen any of the added people, though not all were gfriends. All of that farming added up to probably under 20B total Inf. That was spread over around 12 accounts and a couple of months. So it seems like the rewards were on par with Death Shaman farming, and not likely to have a significant effect on the total Inf in the game. The MM pet AE farm however seems like it would have a significantly larger effect.
Goodbye and thanks for all the fish.
I've moved on to Diablo 3, TopDoc-1304
Quote:
It had a pretty dramatic effect on villain-side prices in the short term. I'm not sure what it did to the total of inf in existence, but if any single AE exploit bumped it noticeably above the rest, I would think it would be the one.|
Originally Posted by TopDoc
The MM pet AE farm however seems like it would have a significantly larger effect.
|
The original CoP exploit seemed pretty impressive, too, but I know a lot less about that one.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
There was a market sploit that I only ever saw used once (plus the time I discovered it) where you could buy 10 crafted enhancements even if you didn't have the inf to buy ONE. The inf would get delivered and not subtracted from your account. I found it live, tried it on Test and reported it to everyone I could think of. They fixed it the next workday.
I could have had 2 billion in every market slot on every character I owned in an afternoon.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
Ooh, that's a neat one.
Blue
American Steele: 50 BS/Inv
Nightfall: 50 DDD
Sable Slayer: 50 DM/Rgn
Fortune's Shadow: 50 Dark/Psi
WinterStrike: 47 Ice/Dev
Quantum Well: 43 Inv/EM
Twilit Destiny: 43 MA/DA
Red
Shadowslip: 50 DDC
Final Rest: 50 MA/Rgn
Abyssal Frost: 50 Ice/Dark
Golden Ember: 50 SM/FA
I would describe it as "terrifying", myself.
Mini-guides: Force Field Defenders, Blasters, Market Self-Defense, Frankenslotting.
So you think you're a hero, huh.
@Boltcutter in game.
In the process of 'checking in' on all my old characters over the past few months I've discovered three basic tiers of enhancement:
Tier One: Mid's UberBuild IO'ed to the Teeth
A couple of my level 50's- the Goat, Big Payback, my experimental ar/dev & Three Mile Isleman, my fire/rad controller.
Tier Two: No Enhancements At All
For some reason now obscure, I went on a respec rampage before my hiatus, creating a substantial population of characters with BUPKIS for enhancements. This sucks when you log in wanting to run a few quick missions, only to faceplant as a result of your own laziness.
Tier Three: Lots of Level 30-ish Generics & a couple of key IOs
I usually go out of my way to upgrade whatever random patchwork of enhancements a character has once they can slot level 30-35 generics. The ones I really enjoy playing get the Premium Package- an appropriate stealth IO, -kb IO, etc.
And that's pretty much how they stay, because that works just fine for the way I play the game with them. I have many characters in the range of 40-50 who're still happily getting by with the IO's I mostly bought them when they were level 27 or 32. Works great, no hassle.
Generic IOs pay for themselves in very short order.
Dropping even an 'exorbitant' amount on them is still an excellent investment.
The Nethergoat Archive: all my memories, all my characters, all my thoughts on CoH...eventually.
My City Was Gone