Empty auctionhouse

[TheLastEmirate]

Hello there, I don't know if I'm allowed to post in this forum or not, but I didn't see anything forbidding me from doing it and don't know where else I should ask this.  I make a lot of toons and have always been deeply in love with this game (I wasn't one of the 'special few' permitted to play while it was in exile, but I actually still built characters in mids for YEARS) and have around ten thousand toons I have been itching for the shot to bring to life.  I can level them all, and set up their builds, but I am always stopped by the same problem.  There are no recipes for sale in the auctionhouse.  I can't actually build a toon without the necessary recipes to make enhancements out of and slot it.  

 

I've seen this topic come up a few times always met with an almost bizarre hostility and even brought it up a few times myself.  While I get cursed at a lot and shouted at, no one has actually come up with a reason that we're not seeding the auctionhouse with the recipes we need in order to progress in the game.  While if you only have one or two characters, the few recipes that become available over a longer span of time (I tested this with Unbreakable Guard and Obliteration, took about a week total for one recipe to slot into one power) is perfectly serviceable.  But if you make more than one toon, and there are no recipes available, your only recourse is to run around 400 TF's in order to get the merits you'd need to slot a single character? Is that intended?  The point of the 'grind' was to keep people logged in doing chores in order to keep the company alive and getting paid.  Are we still playing to pay company salaries?

 

The auctionhouse in the original game existed for a very different reason, and in the end was a way for third party scam artist SG's to make money by manipulating the market.  While I don't see anything like that happening here, I'm curious about the purpose of keeping it in it's current form if there are never enough recipes on it to fulfill it's function.  Is it possible to seed the auctionhouse with necessary recipes the same way the salvage is seeded?  It doesn't even need to be the entire set, just enough to get a start and getting a character built and slotted.  For example, maybe one or two of the set can only be acquired with merits the way the all are now, and the rest seeded?  I don't know.  Just looking for a solution.  It feels a lot like character advancement and progress are effectively held hostage behind random number generators and farmers and how many choose to put their recipes on the market instead of slot them themselves.  That's a pretty good option in some cases, but really it comes down to 'do chores and spend your playing time farming or go cry' as it is.  Is that intended?

[Zepp]

The market is seeded by activity. While there are many people out there farming and selling recipes, certain recipes may not have made it to the market yet. This is further complicated by the reality that most recipes are worth more post-crafting. As such, people generally put few recipes on the auction block. regular IO recipes are currently selling for less than you would get them for from a vendor. As demand and supply increases the market will become more robust, but it will just take time.

[biostem]

7 minutes ago, TheLastEmirate said:

I can't actually build a toon without the necessary recipes to make enhancements out of and slot it.

This seems to be more a hangup of yours, than of the game/AH itself.  You absolutely *can* create any character you like.  Try playing your characters with regular IOs and run missions for recipes, craft them, and use the enhancement converters as needed.

 

 

[macskull]

It is worth noting that recipes are sometimes harder to come by on the market because people tend to craft and convert things these days instead of just dumping recipes on the market. If you can't find the supply for a recipe you'll either need to buy the crafted enhancement or use converters to get what you want. Then again, across all the builds I've made since coming back, I think I can count on one hand the number of times a piece I wanted had zero supply (and then I just bought a different piece of the same set and used converters to get what I wanted).

 

Also, if you're trying to slot an entire build by only using reward merits to buy recipes, you're doing it wrong.

[Fan Mail]

Can't speak for other players but I don't usually put any recipes on the market that aren't in demand unless there's a few or none available.  For me, it comes down to how much inf can I get?  Would I get more just selling a recipe to contact?  If it's not a rare and it's worth more selling to my contact, it gets sold to the contact. 

 

On the flip side, if you're talking about the recipes everyone else is after, you're going to have to pay a premium for them (like everyone else). 

 

Edit: This was an interesting conundrum I had to get through because I never considered myself a farmer regarding my 'pay a premium' comment.  Now I would say I am.

Edited November 20, 2019 by tafilr

[Razor Cure]

I am sure I mentioned this is another thread too. I am all for seeing recipes in the AH. If CoX was some economic fishbowl sim, where the idea was to make oodles of money and dive into it like Scrooge, then yeah, let people charge millions for stuff. As the OP said, the Live AH was a to let people get stuff, but with the greater population base, it was so much easier. More recipes listed, more found etc etc.

To me, if the entire thought process behind 'to list a recipe or not' boils down to how much VIRTUAL currency I can flog from people..that is pretty terrible.

Granted, some people love playing the market (but again, cox isnt an economic sandbox), same as some people farm constantly just to dance in their cash. That shouldn't mean the people who play less (or who dont want to farm) should have less opportunity to get recipes they want.

 

 

[macskull]

5 minutes ago, Razor Cure said:

I am sure I mentioned this is another thread too. I am all for seeing recipes in the AH. If CoX was some economic fishbowl sim, where the idea was to make oodles of money and dive into it like Scrooge, then yeah, let people charge millions for stuff. As the OP said, the Live AH was a to let people get stuff, but with the greater population base, it was so much easier. More recipes listed, more found etc etc.

To me, if the entire thought process behind 'to list a recipe or not' boils down to how much VIRTUAL currency I can flog from people..that is pretty terrible.

Granted, some people love playing the market (but again, cox isnt an economic sandbox), same as some people farm constantly just to dance in their cash. That shouldn't mean the people who play less (or who dont want to farm) should have less opportunity to get recipes they want.

 

 

Things on this market are dirt cheap and it's super easy to make inf.

[Mr. Vee]

Seems to be a widespread problem that people are so used to buying recipes and crafting from the old game that they don't even bother to look for the crafted IO, even when you can get the (usually) better attuned version for the same price if you go that route. I'm constantly baffled by recipes that are more expensive than their crafted version. For a while there I was making 8-10 million on LotG recipes while the crafteds were only 4-7. It's evened out a bit of late but it's still usually not worth crafting if you get a drop.

 

And as far as things not being for sale? That's hardly an issue with converters. You'll come up against 0 enhancements for sale here and there, usually in ATO or winter sets, sometimes in sets that are high demand but had their prices fall off so much that convert-and-sell folks went off of them and forgot to check back. But in those cases you either buy something else in the set and convert or convert from something cheaper. Worst case scenario you just use merits.

[EmmySky]

Everything I find, on any of my toons, with the exception of TOs, DOs and SOs (unless I am being lazy) I put on the market at 100.  Yeah I want to make cash to supply all my alts with what they need but I am not going to laser focus on it.  That is fun for some people, so more power to them.  It is just too convenient to /ah and post everything then keep doing missions or sweeping.  Hopefully, eventually, I will find the one someone is looking for and they'll get it.  Other than folks like me (lazy) you will probably have to skip the crafting of it and just buy the enhancement (they seem plentiful).  I do agree some minor seeding would help.  Good luck!

[boggo2300]

3 hours ago, EmmySky said:

Everything I find, on any of my toons, with the exception of TOs, DOs and SOs (unless I am being lazy) I put on the market at 100.  Yeah I want to make cash to supply all my alts with what they need but I am not going to laser focus on it.  That is fun for some people, so more power to them.  It is just too convenient to /ah and post everything then keep doing missions or sweeping.  Hopefully, eventually, I will find the one someone is looking for and they'll get it.  Other than folks like me (lazy) you will probably have to skip the crafting of it and just buy the enhancement (they seem plentiful).  I do agree some minor seeding would help.  Good luck!

this is what I do as well, and basically by the time you are level 20 you should have well over 10 million inf, by the time you hit 50, near on 500 million,  thats just running missions  YMMV

[Bionic_Flea]

Something no one has touched on yet is a frequent and recurring problem with the market interface.  When a player first looks up an item the numbers in the info box that lists the last five sales, the number of the item for sale, and the number of open bids is sometimes blank or is showing incorrect numbers, perhaps from a different item.  If you double click on that box the numbers will frequently populate.  If you place a bid on the item and then click on the item in your "Bidding" tab it will always refresh and populate.

 

While I can understand your frustration at not being able to buy what you want when you want it, the problem may rest with the interface and not with player supply and demand.  Even if it is a problem of supply and demand I would not want seeded items.  That just creates an artificial price set by the devs and that price may become the floor price for some items, the ceiling price for others, and perhaps the de facto price for some things.

 

For example, think about what would happen to the price of some highly desirable recipes like LotG +recharge as well as "throwaway" recipes like anything from the snipe set Exploit Weakness if the market was seeded at 1 million . . . or how about 10 million.

[Saiyajinzoningen]

I have over 25 fully specced lvl 50 characters and have never experienced the level of difficulty you seem to be facing however; certain low level recipes such as rectified reticle cannot be purchased via merits and therefore takes much much longer to acquire. that being said this is a rarity and most enhancements can easily be purchased with a little patience (about 24 hours) or a lot of Inf. Stay safe out there 

 

also id love to see your builds

[Mr. Vee]

18 minutes ago, Saiyajinzoningen said:

I have over 25 fully specced lvl 50 characters and have never experienced the level of difficulty you seem to be facing however; certain low level recipes such as rectified reticle cannot be purchased via merits and therefore takes much much longer to acquire.

Sure it can, it's 20 for the to-hit, 50 for the other two. you might just need to use your level slider?

[Saiyajinzoningen]

ill have to check after dropping off the kids to school, but if that's true consider me sufficiently schooled. 🙂

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

Hmm.  To OP, what sort of recipes are you looking for?  And are you putting bids on what you want, or are you wanting there to be supply waiting for you when you are ready to bid?  Finally, is there supply, but is it listed out of what you want to pay?

 

In general, most people know at this point what are good recipes and what are bad.  So if I get a LotG recharge recipe to drop, I’m going to see what sells for more, the recipe or the IO after I get salvage and craft it.  Usually it’s the enhancement that’s worth more.  So you really can’t complain if someone would rather sell a crafted enhancement rather than a recipe you want.

 

Are you familiar with enhancement converters?  They really are magic. If you want, for example, a lvl 50 unbreakable guard +7.5% hp, you can start with any unbreakable guard and convert in set until you get the one you want.  A more cost effective way is to start with a Titanium Coating, convert by res damage until you get unbreakable guard.  Also, I strongly recommend selling things you don’t want to buy things you do.  It’s generally more cost effective than just using converters

[TheLastEmirate]

17 hours ago, biostem said:

This seems to be more a hangup of yours, than of the game/AH itself.  You absolutely *can* create any character you like.  Try playing your characters with regular IOs and run missions for recipes, craft them, and use the enhancement converters as needed.

 

This again.  If it were a 'hangup' of mine alone and wasn't coming up every few days in chat, I would actually agree with you.  But what do the players know, right?  Our experience must happen in a vacuum and we make the trouble to relocate this account and post because we are desperate to cause problems.

 

In the real world, this comes up becomes it's an issue.  I'm not certain I'd characterize it as a 'problem', but it's something that we're going to have to deal with.  Or not, whatever suits you.  I was under the impression this was our game now, not NCSoft's or Paragon's, but I may be mistaken about that, as many of the original players seem particularly reticent to make beneficial alterations to it for no real reason aside from 'we've always done it this way'.  Or even consider trying the notion out for an observation period after which we can simply reset it or have it occur on a separate instance or server, and see what the population thought about it.  It's pretty easy to identify the folks that want to keep it as is because they're the folks manipulating the market more than likely.  That shouldn't matter anymore and shouldn't be a thing because it isn't necessary anymore, unless our goal is to start creating more 'gold farmer' offsites like those that took over the game at the end of it's span while it was live.

 

I've even had folks that GM in game tell me 'Pineapple was made for people like you, go play there'.  That would actually be a perfect solution for me if I wanted to play an empty dead game with support toons that have no team to support, but I don't, so it isn't.  At least none of you have tried to corral the conversation into 'well you just don't like the prices' again, like the last few times I've asked about it.

 

YMMV I suppose. 

 

I'm kind of reaching the point with this where I'm beginning to wonder what the point to talking to or suggesting anything to anyone is.  It's always the same 'well, we've always done it this way' and that seems good enough.  If that's good enough, I guess I'll shut up and not mention it anymore.  Evidently I occur in a vacuum and there are no issues and everything is perfect.

17 hours ago, biostem said:

 

 

[Mr. Vee]

1 hour ago, TheLastEmirate said:

I'm kind of reaching the point with this where I'm beginning to wonder what the point to talking to or suggesting anything to anyone is.  It's always the same 'well, we've always done it this way' and that seems good enough.  If that's good enough, I guess I'll shut up and not mention it anymore.  Evidently I occur in a vacuum and there are no issues and everything is perfect.

 

I don't think anyone's saying anything like that. In fact we couldn't really say that we've always done it this way because it's never been so easy. The issue you're having is more about the way you're going about things than the way the game works. If you're going to only bid on recipes and not consider buying crafted IOs, converting IOs or using merits, then yes, you'll run into problems. If you're willing to be flexible, you'll find that it's incredibly easy to get everything you want on HC for a fraction of the cost it would've been on live. 

[Lost Ninja]

1 hour ago, TheLastEmirate said:

 

This again.  If it were a 'hangup' of mine alone and wasn't coming up every few days in chat, I would actually agree with you.  But what do the players know, right?  Our experience must happen in a vacuum and we make the trouble to relocate this account and post because we are desperate to cause problems.

 

In the real world, this comes up becomes it's an issue.  I'm not certain I'd characterize it as a 'problem', but it's something that we're going to have to deal with.  Or not, whatever suits you.  I was under the impression this was our game now, not NCSoft's or Paragon's, but I may be mistaken about that, as many of the original players seem particularly reticent to make beneficial alterations to it for no real reason aside from 'we've always done it this way'.  Or even consider trying the notion out for an observation period after which we can simply reset it or have it occur on a separate instance or server, and see what the population thought about it.  It's pretty easy to identify the folks that want to keep it as is because they're the folks manipulating the market more than likely.  That shouldn't matter anymore and shouldn't be a thing because it isn't necessary anymore, unless our goal is to start creating more 'gold farmer' offsites like those that took over the game at the end of it's span while it was live.

 

I've even had folks that GM in game tell me 'Pineapple was made for people like you, go play there'.  That would actually be a perfect solution for me if I wanted to play an empty dead game with support toons that have no team to support, but I don't, so it isn't.  At least none of you have tried to corral the conversation into 'well you just don't like the prices' again, like the last few times I've asked about it.

 

YMMV I suppose. 

 

I'm kind of reaching the point with this where I'm beginning to wonder what the point to talking to or suggesting anything to anyone is.  It's always the same 'well, we've always done it this way' and that seems good enough.  If that's good enough, I guess I'll shut up and not mention it anymore.  Evidently I occur in a vacuum and there are no issues and everything is perfect.

 

I don't think that there is a problem with the AH, nor do I think recipes need seeding to make up for that.

I'm unsure what problem your suggestion fixes.

If there is a shortage of specific recipes, or recipes within specific ranges then perhaps a fix would be to increase the drop rate of those recipes.

As a multi-boxer (for fun, not profit) I frequently need to slot out three builds at once and I'm not seeing a shortage of recipes.

[Mr. Vee]

I should have mentioned above when talking about searching for crafted instead of recipes that a good trick is to set your level parameters in the AH for 1-1 before you search. that'll limit your results to attuned enhancements (just make sure you don't buy attuned purples).

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, TheLastEmirate said:

 

 

I've even had folks that GM in game tell me 'Pineapple was made for people like you, go play there'.  That would actually be a perfect solution for me if I wanted to play an empty dead game with support toons that have no team to support, but I don't, so it isn't.  At least none of you have tried to corral the conversation into 'well you just don't like the prices' again, like the last few times I've asked about it.

 

What's that line about engineering?  You can have it fast, or you can have it cheap, or you can have it of high quality.  Pick two!

 

I mean, at one extreme, you can always start your own server.  You can set it up so you are swimming in everything.  But then you only get to play with whoever else joins your server.  That doesn't sound like fun.

 

The main reason I play on HC is because it does have the most population.  I also happen to like the market system.  They have designed the market system to be extremely user friendly, with caps and floors and all kinds of things that are specifically designed to keep casual players from having a hard time.  Personally, I'd like it to be more cutthroat, but I'm willing to put up with it in exchange for the population.

 

I'm not going to tell you to play on Pineapple or to start your own server.  I will, however, suggest you really explore what you want and how you want to get it.  It sounds like there are not enough recipes that you want at the prices you want them when you want them.  You can place bids ahead of time, you can bid higher, you can buy other things and change them into the things you want.  Those are three constructive pieces of advice.  I think that learning how to use converters would really help you out, but that's up to you.  If you need some seed money for converters, let me know.

[FDR's Think Tank]

On one hand, thank goodness this game isn't overrun with Chinese Gold Farmers. On the other hand... Why can't this game be overrun with Chinese Gold Farmers!?

 

Seriously though... The game just came back and is really rather stealth about it. Most people don't use Reddit and short of a random nostalgia search have no reason to suspect CoH is back in any way. The key to there being more stuff in auction is more people playing. It will be harder to get names then, but it will be easier to get recipes.

 

So invite your friends, your family, your coworkers. Badger them about it. Threaten them. Ruin relationships with your demands for them to join. This Community is so positive, they will quickly forget and forgive you, once they join.

 

With Thanksgiving coming up, it's a great way to derail discussions about Politics, which really don't matter. You just leave your Government to me... And I will rely on you to bring in oddles of more players! Everyone wins!

Edited November 20, 2019 by FDR's Think Tank
spelling clairty

[HelenCarnate]

I am curious as well which recipes the OP is having trouble with.  Without that info we can't give more than general advice. 

[biostem]

3 hours ago, TheLastEmirate said:

This again.  If it were a 'hangup' of mine alone and wasn't coming up every few days in chat, I would actually agree with you.  But what do the players know, right?  Our experience must happen in a vacuum and we make the trouble to relocate this account and post because we are desperate to cause problems.

You are misunderstanding - the "hangup" I mention is this notion you have that you "need" set IOs to play your character - That is patently false.

 

3 hours ago, TheLastEmirate said:

In the real world, this comes up becomes it's an issue.

But this is not "the real world" - it is a game world (Homecoming), and you are talking about in-game items that basically render any character they're used on "OP".

 

3 hours ago, TheLastEmirate said:

I was under the impression this was our game now, not NCSoft's or Paragon's, but I may be mistaken about that, as many of the original players seem particularly reticent to make beneficial alterations to it for no real reason aside from 'we've always done it this way'.

It is no more "our game" than any other F2P game is those players'.  Because of how drastically IOs elevate the performance of your characters, and with power creep already being an issue, some method of throttling it is very much called for.

 

3 hours ago, TheLastEmirate said:

It's pretty easy to identify the folks that want to keep it as is because they're the folks manipulating the market more than likely.

Since you seem so keen on identifying other people's motives without providing any evidence, I'm going to do in kind, and say that you just want everything "now" without having to work for it.  Why not just run missions, buy other recipes from the same set, and use the enhancement converters?

 

I don't play the market, and I have very few characters that have multiple full sets, much less completely IO'd out, so my only stake in the game, so to speak, is to simply be able to play and realize some of the character concepts/ideas I happen to have and/or find fun to play.

 

3 hours ago, TheLastEmirate said:

I've even had folks that GM in game tell me 'Pineapple was made for people like you, go play there'.

I'm only familiar with Homecoming and a teeny bit of Rebirth, but if "Pineapple" is a server where you can get any IO you want very easily or for free, then yes, it is probably the server for you.  The fact that it has a low population is a tradeoff you are going to have to consider, just like the rarity of those highly sought-after IOs are here...

[Hopestar]

8 minutes ago, biostem said:

You are misunderstanding - the "hangup" I mention is this notion you have that you "need" set IOs to play your character - That is patently false.

In the way that they want to play that character, it's true.

Pineapple is the test server's current name and is volatile.

[biostem]

Just now, Hopestar said:

In the way that they want to play that character, it's true.

That's not a "need" per se - it's a "want".  Very important distinction.