Intrinsic

Happy Halloween! Last year we didn't have many trick-or-treaters show up, hoping turnout is a bit better this time.

I think the best thing that vets can do for new players is to teach them how to get the most value from their reward merits. A player who has completed some story arcs and TFs may be sitting on millions, or even tens of millions, worth of reward merits without realizing it or knowing how to convert them. Probably much better for player engagement too because we'd be teaching them how to fish, not just giving them the fish.

If you have been constantly making and leveling up new characters for the last six years, then on behalf of Homecoming marketeers I thank you for your service!

Enhancements are infinitely durable, so the demand for them depends on players being willing to continue to create new characters. It would be interesting see a histogram of the rate at which players have been creating new characters over a server's lifespan. That's a stat the Homecoming staff could probably track.

Enhancement converters were introduced as a band-aid to address the fact that many recipes were worthless. I'd like to see converters removed too, but it would need to go hand-in-hand with a major loot revamp which the original devs were unwilling to tackle.

What's with the obsession over how many level 50 characters someone has? Why is that important?

*Starts to raise his hand, then quickly puts it back down*

But there should be some friction at least, if not outright challenge, in gearing up a character. Especially for newer or less frequent players. Pretty sure I've said this before, it can be fun to climb the power curve in an MMO. I don't think we should take that away from everyone. I agree that players shouldn't be doing activities they hate just for the reward. However, loot is typically part of the gameplay loop in an MMO. One could definitely argue that the loot system in CoH has fundamental problems. Let's try to improve it, not get rid of it.

Emphasis mine. You continued to participate in the market, after you had already earned enough inf to equip your character(s), because you enjoyed it. Why would you want to remove that source of enjoyment?

Use the merits to buy special salvage like enhancement converters or boosters, or buy Winter-Os (can't remember their name on the reward vendor atm).

Influence was an important part of the game when I had none. The struggle to acquire resources and gear is part of playing an MMO. It's fun to climb the power curve. Dropping new players on top of the curve robs them of any satisfaction in getting there on their own. CoH is already an easy game in that regard, it doesn't need to be made easier IMO.

The last 5 typically doesn't convey the full price range for an item. That said, if you're getting good prices, sell 'em while you can.

Most or all of the supply of Javelin proc enhancements in the AH is coming from other PvP enhancements that have been converted into Javelin procs, not from Javelin proc recipes. The price of the recipes is not going to increase the price of the enhancements. It's the other way around, the price of the converted enhancements is depressing the price of the recipes. If enhancement converters didn't exist, those recipes would be selling at a much higher price.

The few times I've bought 100+ of anything at 'buy it now' prices those orders filled in seconds. Granted I've barely played in the last few months, but are players nowadays experiencing longer delays?

Modern marketeers aren't like the old-school folks. Most markeeters nowadays spend their time converting unwanted (and cheap) recipes into desirable enhancements, giving a massive boost to their supply compared to natural drops. Converting takes time and effort, and the increase in supply of said enhancements means their profits are reduced, but if it wasn't for them we'd probably be paying 100 million for a single LOTG. So yes, thanks to the marketeers who supply enhancements for the rest of to enjoy. (and don't thank me, I'm a retired old-school ebil one)