Ukase

That's really the purpose of this post. What impact will it have? The number of converters in the AH is almost double what it was 2 weeks ago. Someone with a ton of reward merits is liquidating for the anticipated sale, perhaps. It will increase the amount of converting, as the larger supply makes for more competition, driving the price down a bit. This increases the number of IOs for sale that are in demand. It drives those prices down as players compete with market pvp. More Winter IOs will hit the market, and the competition is going to be steep. A number will buy the packs and keep the winter-Os. A number will keep them for several months, maybe 6 months waiting for the price to creep upward. Buy a pack for 10M, get one Winter-O, and sell it "cheap" for 11M. a month later, or for 22M six months later. Inf spent here is likely going to not be spent on other items. So it will be interesting to see how it plays out. We don't know how many people make LotG 7.5% and put them on the market. Suppose some of them stop and focus on winter-Os, where the profit on one would be larger than the entire cost of an LotG? The demand on LotG isn't going to go down. So, supplies decrease, prices of them go up. All manner of things like this "could" happen.

I think the quicksilver end/run speed +5 is a better bargain, lol. Always take the merits at hami! There are some useful ones, but there are some real turds that make the risk too high for me.

On one hand, the idea of time sink really rubs me the wrong way. There's only so many hours in a day. But, in practice, let's consider the test server: Instant 50. Everything's free. The only downside is the likely wipe of your characters - which you can rebuild in a few minutes if you've made a copy of the build in mids. And yet...5% of the player base will visit it? And those, most are to actually test the upcoming patch. A few to maybe check how a character may pan out at 50, but that's a very small number of people. Things are easy here on HC. (relatively) Some may frown upon marketing or farming, but both are easy - even if you find them tedious or dull. You can get all the IO goodness you want, if you are familiar with the ways to accumulate inf. Even if you're not - you keep playing, you'll get there. But what keeps us playing? Sure, it's fun (a truly subjective word) to smash level 9's in Perez Park when you're level 50. As much as we may like our characters, and this game - one thing is true - there's not much that is new. Yes, a couple of arcs have been added, and a couple more are to follow. (as well as the Market Crash TF) So, in order to keep people playing there needs to be a reason to do so. As "fun" as a given tf is, there's going to be a limit to how many times someone will think that tf is fun. Most folks may enjoy the content, but they do it for merits. And they want those merits for various reasons. Some want to make more inf for their alts. Some want converters. Uses will vary. If everything is handed to us, then what's the motivation to sit in ouroboros doing nothing for 20 minutes until a league is formed? What's the motivation to have a character that's level 50+3, t-4'd? Sure it might be fun...but what do you actually do if you no longer require anything from the rewards offered? For some, the joy is in teaming and cracking jokes with in-game friends. For others, it's a sense of accomplishment. (or both) But if you take away the obstacles to certain in game privileges, then there's nothing to move towards. You're stagnant. Most will get bored. And log off. And stay off.

Interesting. My experience is I can abandon it whenever. I never even notice the timer, but I guess time gets added by simply running around. (escaping PPD/resisting arrest) And I'll share one more tidbit about this method: Atlas, Kings Row, Skyway, Founders - if they're not at the sub closest to Schwienzer, abandon and retry. No sense running about if you can get them closer. IP & PI - use the base macro to exit Founders - then use base portal back to Port Oakes - the chopper/mission entrance is right around the corner. Bricks is always way out of the way - use a TT or mission TP. Steel - I can't recall, but if it's not where you want it, you can try and get it at the same location as the first 4 or IP/PI, if not, you can use your remaining TT/mission tp.

I completely agree with you. Have you made a suggestion yet? Ya gotta figure Jimmy would give it some thought.

I get that it's the going price. But I'm one of those that happens to think that the posi set is pretty good. It should sell for more, but the market disagrees. It would gum up my marketing, but I'd be quite alright with pre-seeded prices of 2M for all rare IOs, and 1M for uncommons, and do away with recipes altogether. Now isn't that just insane thinking? Of course it is!

So...the winter event will soon be upon us! Adam Smith, economist now long dead, suggested rational self-interest in a free-market economy leads to economic well-being. While I don't pretend that the AH is a free-market, given the seeding the devs do, nor am I proposing all players act in rational self-interest (crazy badgers), I do think part of this premise will have an impact in the coming months. With the assumption that the sale repeats itself, many of us are going to do our best to act in our best self-interest in an effort to enjoy the meta-game of the AH market. Some of us are going to buy anywhere from 1 to maybe even 10000 or more winter packs when(if?) they go on sale for 10M. So what impact will this have on: Catalysts Converters Boosters Ability to team for weekly tfs Unslotters Rare Salvage (due to brain storm ideas) and of course, Winter-Os. I have no idea what many of you will do. I'm still mulling it over in my head what I will do. I can say that from what I got last year, without selling too many of the Winter-Os and using a fair number of them in my alts, I still came out ahead. Plenty of reward merits allowed me to only team up for tfs when I wanted a notice of the well, as I no longer have a need for reward merits, having so many in my email from them. My farmers give me all the catalysts I need, so the ones I get from the pack may get sold, or used on winter-os if it's easier than having the farmer trade them off to my alt. Boosters will probably drop a bit in price, too. Unslotters...sheesh, I still have over 4000 of these. Guess I should just flood the market with them. Rare salvage...thanks (or not) to the seeding, I think no matter what happens prices will never go up over 500k for very long. But the big value in the winter packs has always been the winter-Os. They currently range - non-catalyzed - from about 18-23M, depending on when you catch the sale. The superiors are still going for 25-30M, sometimes as high as 35M or as low as 5k. (that I've seen) But this sale will be different from last year, I think, in that more players have more inf. I know I do. More players will also know about the sale, too. So how will they approach this and what impact will it have on Winter-O prices? I think for the most part, prices on Winter-O's will drop a bit, as demand will seem to drop as people wait for the sale. Then when the sale hits - most folks will dump their winter-os on the market, trying to recoup investment. Others will stash the O's planning on using them, or waiting for the market to pick back up and make more profit. Last year, prices picked back up, I think it was in May. This year, I expect them to stay lower, longer, but I could be wrong. Others will certainly bid low on these in anticipation of playing a mid-run game and reposting them at a higher price. How low will they go?! 7M? 10M? I think they sell for what they sell for now, due to the price of the pack. So, I suspect Entombed will drop to about the same as a kheldian ATO. Blistering Cold will be about the same as a brute ATO. So, 6-10M is my guess...until folks buy them up too fast, then the price creeps up to about 12-15 and it'll stay there, due to uncertainty about how much inventory is stashed in emails out there. Nobody wants to be the guy who has to pull the item of the market because it's not selling, so there's going to be uncertainty for sure. I just wish I could remember how it played out last year. I confess, I'm mainly buying them for the Experienced, the Amplifiers and the reward merits. The cats and converters, boosters I can use or sell, doesn't matter. I'll never use a fraction of the tailor tokens, nor the respecs. The windfalls have proven to be glitched in some way as far as 25% more inf goes. When making a character, I'm often torn between the very rare for the recharge, or the superior winter-o for the defense. I wonder how many are equally as torn. It's tough to predict what others will do when you have no idea if they think like you. So, I can really take or leave the Winter-Os on all but my farmers. And since farmers bring me purples, and not Winter-Os, it's an easier choice. Ultimately, I suspect afk-farming will be addressed in some fashion, in some way - without impacting active farming, so the demand for these may drop at some time in the future. But for now, farming is fairly popular, still lucrative and likely to continue. So what are your guesses? Use this opportunity to share your insights with us mere mortals who aren't yet in the trillion inf club. Or mis-direct us! Or speak of nerfing regen!

I expect more than a few players to have good success on this strategy - but you'll have to be really, really fast. I think that there are a number of players who had deep pockets and did bids like this - but have stopped playing for whatever reason. And their bids will remain in place forever - until filled or the game crashes to a close. How many? No idea. Some of you will be lucky, (or just smart and quick) for sure.

The angry farmer in me says "that's what you get for only trying to bid 1 million for a rare in the first place." They should ALL be worth 2 million, but that's just my narrow minded thinking. Could have been much, much worse. I once paid 400 million for 4 Micros. (1.6 Billion! for the math-challenged folks)

Like most folks, in the low levels, I grab Sands of Mu from p2w to get some kind of attack chain while I'm waiting for my two powers to recharge. But Sands of Mu...so annoying when it misses...and as much as I'd like it to be auto-hit, I know that's not a real solution. But, since the CoH we all knew is now dead, and there's this new flavor of CoH by you HC folks - could we implement some kind of mechanic where when you use Sands, or Flurry that if the rng says you miss, you don't miss all the punches? Is it at all realistic to fight someone, and they dodge 8 punches in a row? I mean, I know they're telegraphed with poor form with the head down and swingin' away like a 6 year old who got his candy stolen, but all of them miss? Argh! How about just the first three? Then the streak breaker can clean things up, let you hit at least one shot in there.

I am in the habit of verifying/validating the manifest when, for whatever reason, my mouse cursor - when it turns into a hand to grab a piece of salvage or an enhancement doesn't turn into a fist. Never am quite sure for a moment if it's user error or mouse glitch - but when I verify, it goes away. In any event - using HC launcher, I click on those 3 very tiny little dots and scroll down to verify, and it says, "verifying", but after 5 minutes...there is no progress. This seems odd to me, as typically with Tequila, validating files take about 30 seconds. After 10 minutes, still nothing.

The big irritant I have with the chance from Stun to Power Crash is the reduction in recharge time, and the change from single target to cone. While it's probably going to be a plus...I have Touch of Death %Neg Energy, and Glad Strike's % Smashing, Mako's % Lethal and Perfect Zinger's % psionic. (The plan is to unslot the Mako's and toss in the -res Fury of Glad., take out the Glad Strike % Smashing and throw in the Eradication % energy....but I'm thinking the change from melee to cone will throw off the odds.) And I get to keep them in there...if I don't ever respec the character, if I understand the patch notes correctly. Seems like a strange thing.

If I only count the time the AH window is open, I make about 500M every 5 minutes. The problem is - I only have the window open 2-3 times a day. And the inf made isn't made the first time I open the window, but the next time I open it. And sometimes it's 300M, others close to 700m. On average, about 500m, and while the window's closed, no telling what inf is being earned because I'm playing the game and not using metrics to track it. People have varying interests - but I don't understand why more folks aren't marketing AND afk-farming. The two go hand in hand quite nicely.

So a badge specifically for ATs with pets? How's that going to go over for the badge hounds that don't have pets?

At this time, no. Not to my knowledge.

In Kings Row, Entering the Royal Refinery neighborhood: [08:05] [NPC] Gravedigger Slicer: That sweet sterio is as good as mine. Granted, I don't expect proper spelling from a Gravedigger Slicer, but since he's saying it, and not spelling it...

There is one that seems to work in AE. Recipe rejections. Inf earned - no. Damage taken/dealt - no.

Hmm...my 1439 "Personal Record" came at the hands of my ice/cold corruptor with the three Targeted AoEs, with burnout and heatloss to mitigate any end crash (hardly necessary in the msr) But bonfire...that's interesting.

Number Six out of RWZ. This arc should either be solo'd, or if you're going to team, do so with some friends that are not inclined to speed through. I say this because of the number of easter eggs in the missions - you find them all, you get a badge. And I am fairly confident only the avid badge hunters will have taken the time to find the items. It's also an arc that is just different in the way it's presented or something. I can't put my finger on it, but it's one of the better ones in my opinion.

It is true - your trailing numbers do indicate the order in which your sg was registered. Mine primary base is 233 on Excelsior. On Torch, it's 1019. The base I made a month ago for a challenge group was 14123, That's a lot of supergroup bases!

My personal best for V merits in a ship raid was 1439 Vg merits. At 30 to 1....if you're getting 100+ merits, you're raking in over 3000 vg merits a run...how? I've got a ice/cold corruptor with sleet, ice storm, blizzard, burnout and judgement...I can't fathom much more AoE goodness than that.

Ran SSA 1, blue side (skyway) 20 reward merits (character's first run) Ran it a second time, because for whatever reason, the first run is a bonus, so you can run it twice. I'm sad to report - the red side does NOT award 20 merits. So, I am sorry to have led folks astray. Getting older, I guess. I thought it would - but it could have been the first time I'd run the map and didn't run it a second time, as I only learned about the "free first run" after I did the red side run months ago. So, kindly disregard my suggestion.

Well, in about 10-20 minutes, I'll put it to the test. And will post the results.

If memory serves, you can run an SSA the first time on a character for 20 merits, then run it again for 20 more, then wait a week, run one for 20 merits once a week thereafter. However, many are not thinking that redside has their own version of the SSA...the first one is almost the same mission, and you don't even have to fight the CoT boss, but agree to work with him. (but you will have more than just Echinae to deal with in the last mission) Why not run both? An easy matter to see Null and switch. But for me, the best bang is Apex/Tin Mage. 80 merits in 20-25 minutes. 30 if your team isn't quite up for speedy runs. 40 if they are a bit sluggish, but still competent. Second is the hami raids. 3 runs for 160 merits, in less than an hour - discounting the horrible wait for leagues to assemble.