Yomo Kimyata

There's still going to be a very liquid market for converters. It's currently (apparently) the best way to monetize your merits, with 100 merits getting you 25-30mm pre-vig. It's also a great value multiplier for crafters/converters (I estimate that each converter adds 3-10x its value.) But I'd say that there are better sellers than buyers. I generally get my bids filled in the 85k-95k range depending on how quickly I want them. And I think I could probably buy all I wanted NAO at 100k. And I want a LOT. So if you wiped out the bidders, I'd be right back in there, but probably at a little lower level and I'd see if I got filled. So my prediction would be that the market would remain large and liquid but maybe at slightly lower prices.

I fully support your ambition.

I cannot reiterate this enough. You have (usually) at least 10k of seed capital fresh out of Outbreak. Use that to: 1. Buy unwanted recipes from the AH and sell them to vendors. Buy them at lvl 50 since vendors pay based on level. 2. Buy unwanted enhancements, especially SOs and sell them to vendors. A lot of people would rather put them on the AH for essentially free. 3. Trade common salvage. I do this with all new alts and generally have my first million in less than 10 minutes while running missions. That’s not even touching the crafting and converting strategies covered in the Market sub forum.

When I was a teenager, I went on a class trip to Trance. One day in Paris, we were running behind schedule. “Welcome to the Louvre,” our guide said. “The world’s largest museum. Over a million works of art.” He checked his watch. “Meet me back here in 15 minutes. I ran and in 15 minutes saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory and Venus de Milo. Then we have to leave. A few years ago, we went back to Paris and spend six hours in the Louvre. I can imagine going to the Louvre so many times that I would want to break my 15 minute speed run, but I’m pretty sure that by that point I’d probably just stop going to the museum. Anyway, play how you want. If it’s not adversely affecting others, have at it.

I think that the person who had 500mm-1bn in liquid inf would consider themselves wealthy -- I think that's enough to outfit one or two high end 50s at buy-it-now prices, and I'm going to guess that level of wealth is around the median of the Homecoming population. And I think most people spend it as it comes. I think that 5-10bn puts you in the top 1%. I think that "a lot" of wealth would be 50+bn, partly because I think it is feasible that someone has been able to amass that much. I've cleared over a billion in profit in a day before, and I think it is repeatable, but things really need to work out (i.e., buyers need to come out in droves). But it would be a lot of tiresome micromanagement to keep up that pace and stay ahead of the other sellers. I usually keep about 100-250mm on each alt for posting fees and working capital, on about 35 alts. Everything else is tied up in bids. I'm really not sure what the total would be if I took down all my bids.

I'm not going to claim I'm any sort of altruist, but I think for the most part the market mechanism keeps my behavior in line with norms. I tend to keep to three basic rules: 1. Have fun 2. Make inf 3. Don't cause any harm I craft shovels and picks for the spines/fire farmers. I make inf, they get their tools, we all have fun. I make markets, and am often the highest outstanding bidder and the lowest outstanding offer. I provide liquidity, people can buy it now or sell it now, I make inf, we all have fun. What I do not do is manipulate markets or "paint the tape" in order to influence others. First, it's kind of a dick move, and second, it's not easy to make inf that way. What I do NOT do is pay a fair price for everything I bid for. I get happiest when I realize that I can throw a bunch of lowball bids out there because someone is wrongfully assuming that the highest outstanding bid is a good one. I actually view that as providing a valuable lesson: NEVER OFFER AT A PRICE LESS THAN YOU ARE WILLING TO SELL AT. You can have 1,000 alts per server, and each alt has 100+ market slots. Market slots are cheap (unlike Live) so use them to offer your goods at an acceptable level. How quickly they sell is up to you and the vagaries of the market. If you offer at 1 inf, be prepared to sell at 1 inf. Oh yeah, I also always post Crushing Impacts and Thunderstrikes for sale, even if I would make more inf by rerolling them. I figure they are useful to someone.

As time goes by, I think we will see more of these shenanigans. If you have a lot a LOT of inf and have purpled out your mains, what are you gonna spend your influence on? I’ve often wondered if I could earn enough inf to buy out the cap in the common salvage market just to see what would happen. The devs would probably add another 20mm, but it would be fun to try!

Keep in mind there are some very profitable uncommons. Steadfast Protection I’m looking right at you.

It'll never last. Too easy to generate more from other LoTG and other defense IOs. Now, it would be REALLY diabolical if s/he bought up every defense IO recipe and enhancement and reposted at 5mm inf higher.

I distinctly remember street sweeping with my ice/fire tank in Live for alchemical silver. Along with luck charms, that was a manipulated market, and I seem to recall having made a lot of inf just hitting the bid. Haven't been to the new one yet, but I'm looking forward to it!

It hurts me to not see Crowd Control in there. I would respec out of Pulverize for it.

Firstly and most importantly, I think that it is great that we have different opinions on this, and yet, we both get so much out of this game. I had really mixed feelings when CoX re-emerged, but so far it really appeals to a wide variety of people for a wide variety of reasons. And that is really wonderful and inspiring. I have a very different play style than you. I'm limited for a number of reasons to the amount of continuous time I am able to log on, so I rarely am able to team for extended periods of time. I've been on one TF so far on Homecoming. I've got about 40 alts from lvls 5-45, and the only reason I don't currently have a 50 is that I turned off xp so that I could see what AVs I can solo when I come to them. I left Live around the time they were instituting the incarnate system, so I will be the first to admit that I don't really know what I'm talking about. But it seems to me that this game is easy. Really easy. Part of that is figuring out what tips and tricks you need to do in order to become better, but part of it just feels too simple. Sometimes you'll be on a steamroll mission and it's so easy it's like playing chess with a 5 y/o and every piece is a queen. I don't recall in Live ever failing on a TF, regardless of whatever team make-up was (although I admit I don't think I ever ran any Master of ... TFs). I get it that some people really like it that way. And that's cool. Personally, I like to test myself. To play sub-optimal or even foolish build combinations because it meets my character concept. And does that handicap me? Not really, because even if I face-plant a hundred times, that hundred-and-first time I'm probably going to pull it off. For me, part of that is building my character going forward organically. I wrestle with power selection and slot placement, and every single time that I ding, it's a mental challenge to do the best I can. So, not having any recent personal experience with having a fully incarnated toon put together, I can only imagine that it makes the game even easier. I seem to recall the iTrials are really hard and require those extra powers, but I can't imagine taking that 50+++ into Oro and going back and ganking Atta. To me, that seems like it would just be too easy. I also really, really like a lot of the content. Don't get me wrong, CoT and Oreganobana can suck a bag of #!@#, but every single time I bust the Freakshow arms deal and meet a Mysterious Soldier, I get goose bumps. Who can it be? Maybe I'll care less and less about that as I level 50 or 100 alts, but for the time being, this really works for me. Anyhoo, I'm really happy that we each enjoy this game in our own way!

I've been putting my money where my mouth is and have been winding down some of my more profitable crafting niches. If I'm wrong, then I have opportunities to look forward to in August!

Well time will tell but I think if we do see inflation it will be pretty slow. The thing to keep in mind is that the market itself is a pretty large inf sink so for every 1 million inf farmed you get a maximum of 10 million worth of market purchases. So in general the market will tend to stabilize at a point where the amount of inf it's sucking out of the economy is about equal to the amount coming in. Now over time we'll potentially get more people farming and becoming more efficient at farming so we might see some inflation from that but I think it will be relatively slow. If you think back to the market behavior on live, prices were in general reasonably stable, large jumps in prices tended to be associated with the devs making changes to the game (such as AE, introducing alignment merits, or fixing the Hamidon slotting bug) rather than a gradual inflation. +1 inf for showing proper knowledge of the multiplier effect. 1mm farmed means you can spend it in the market. The person you spent it on can spend 900,000 inf on someone else in the market, who can spend 810,000, etc., summing up to 10mm potentially added to the economy. The question remains, however, if inf aggregation will be faster, slower, or the same as item aggregation, i.e., drops. I dunno. Gaining 1mm inf on a 50 is trivial. Does that 50 also pick up 10mm worth of items in the same run? I'm starting to think that there is going to be so much inf around, but very little demand for anything but the very best items.

I always feel a little bad fighting the Researchers, Medics, and especially Radiologists. “How DARE you read my chest X-rays!” *Headsplitter*

Anything that helps out endurance-wise is good, as I think both of the sets you mention do. My WM/Willpower brute is easy-sauce, while my WM/DA scrapper and SD/WM tanker run a little hot at times.

Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that can drive you crazy...

War Mace is good. Very good. I’m currently running it on a brute, a scrapper, and a lowbie tank. When you get a full attack chain, things just melt. I actually think the AoE is some of the best around. The 1-2 of Crowd Control followed by Whirling Mace will keep everyone on their butts. Throw a Force Feedback proc in CC and you can keep chaining those two. Extremely satisfying. I don’t like staff as much. I think it would pair better with a more offensive secondary like fire. I like the animations, but things seem to take significantly longer to die than they do with WM.

I wholeheartedly support your endeavors. I expect to profit off your risk-taking! *polishes monocle*

The bad news is that I just bought a travel +stealth for 8,000,000. The good news is that I bought it from another one of my toons. So, yay?

Yup

This.

I'm not sure what the problem that you are trying to solve is. Is it that there are not enough crafted enhancements in the market? If so, put on your crafting shoes -- it's generally a good way to make influence!

I have a bad case of altitis -- don't even have a 50 yet. But I try to make each character self sufficient. Generally, I don't bother slotting until lvl 12, when I go to the University and kit out with lvl 15 generic IOs. Then I will add sets on the 2s and 7s. Example: at 17 on a targeted AoE I will buy an attuned set of Positron's Blast, then not worry about it for a while. I work off the attitude that if I want it, other people probably do as well. So my rule of thumb is that if I want one, I buy or make ten and try to make a profit off it. It's pretty much how I've gotten into most of my specific niches.

You can definitely sell between two characters on the same account. But generally I will bid at the low end for an attuned on the character who needs the item and offer at the high end with the character who has the non-attuned. Generally I’m able to cross the trade within an hour (overnight at the worst) at a decent-to-very-decent profit.