Empty auctionhouse

[molten_dragon]

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.

 

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'm trying my best to be polite here, so if I say something that comes off rude or dismissive, know that it isn't meant that way.  But I haven't experienced the problems that you're experiencing, and I really have to sort of agree that some of your problems are of your own making.

 

Now granted, I've got nowhere near ten thousand characters, but I've got plenty of alts, and I've never had any issue with outfitting them exactly as I wanted to.  I've only been playing about 3 months and I've got 3 50s completely outfitted with high-priced builds (superior IOs, superior winter-Os, purple sets, etc.), and a number of lower-level characters who are partially outfitted with some set pieces, some generic, IOs, and handful of useful ATOs.  I have run into the situation where there weren't recipes available for something I wanted, but in every single case, there were already crafted IOs available instead.  Sure, it cost more, but that's not the same thing as not being available at all.  You only mention two things in your post, buying recipes off the AH and buying them with merits.  There are definitely other options available for you.  You could simply buy the pre-crafted IOs off the AH.  Or if those aren't available, buy whatever cheap IOs you can find and use converters until you get what you want.  I'm wondering why you don't consider those viable options.

[macskull]

4 hours ago, TheLastEmirate said:

snip

I'm a little confused, I guess. Your proposed solution (seeding the market with drops) solves a nonexistent problem - multiple people in this thread have stated they've had no real issues getting the stuff they wanted off the AH. Now, if you're referring to the AH's sale history listings sometimes showing "no price history," then I completely understand that, but that's a different and completely unrelated issue.

[DougGraves]

The problem I have with the AH is getting no results or incredibly varied results.  For high transaction items I can see what is being paid.  For low transaction items I get no results or 1,000 and 50,000 as the two results.  I imagine others are like me and just do not put up those recipes for auction - so while they are being found they are not being put on the market.

[thunderforce]

On 11/20/2019 at 1:41 AM, Razor Cure said:

I am sure I mentioned this is another thread too. I am all for seeing recipes in the AH.

I'm all for seeing _stuff_ in the AH; I practically never vendor recipes. But you still won't see my recipes in the AH, because I know that nearly everyone is buying crafted IOs and that's where the action is. I craft the lot; I don't even think it's worth the time to work out which few it would be better to sell the recipe on (because that time is time I could spend playing the game and incidentally getting more stuff to sell; because the lower volume in recipes means it will tie up the slot for longer; and because when I did look, it was only a small proportion anyway.)

 

As such, the odd thing about the OP is why they keep trying to buy recipes even though by now it must be clear that's not the route to go down when you can buy the crafted IO attuned or ready for boosting at 50... and why they can manage a lengthy reply without addressing that.

7 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.

It's not my experience that it comes up every few days in chat, and I read Help when I'm logged in. But if it was, I would advise the players in question to buy crafted IOs, not recipes, so it would be a problem like "do I pick Freedom or Going Rogue" which is annoying but has an easily explained solution.

 

So, why not take that advice?

 

(Let me try and anticipate a reply. "I am trying to buy crafted IOs". OK - should have said so, but can you name a specific problematic IO, and would it be practical to get it with converter roulette?)

Edited November 21, 2019 by thunderforce

[FDR's Think Tank]

16 hours ago, biostem said:

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

As Destroyovich once told Captain Liberty- "You aren't NEEDY... You are WANTY."

Edited November 21, 2019 by FDR's Think Tank
grammar

[Flashtoo]

If you really must have that recipe RIGHT THE HELL NOW and nobody's selling, you can buy any recipe with reward merits.

[Piyerus]

I'm actually all for seeding the market with recipes. Sometimes they can be annoying to find if I'm being lazy and just want to /ah my build from the AE building. However, it's important to have the price set properly. Some people actually do enjoy the act of buying and selling stuff on the auction house, and we wouldn't want to get in the way of any other players' enjoyment. We can't set the prices TOO low. Seeding the market also means we can completely ignore players asking for inf sinks or ways to curtail inflation, since they'll be a non-factor if there's a ceiling on how high you can sell stuff for.

 

Finding the right price to have the seeded recipes at is fairly simple. We can just use the prices from the merit vendor, and go from that.

1 merit = 1,000,000 inf

Common recipes = 5 merits (5,000,000 inf)

Uncommon recipes = 20 merits (20,000,000 inf)

Rare Recipes = 50 merits (50,000,000 inf)

Very Rare and PvP Recipes = 100 merits (100,000,000 inf)

 

Seed the market using those amounts. We'll always have plenty of recipes to buy, and the prices won't go above those amounts.

 

Problem solved, everyone is happy.

Edited November 21, 2019 by Piyerus

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 hours ago, Piyerus said:

I'm actually all for seeding the market with recipes. Sometimes they can be annoying to find if I'm being lazy and just want to /ah my build from the AE building. However, it's important to have the price set properly. Some people actually do enjoy the act of buying and selling stuff on the auction house, and we wouldn't want to get in the way of any other players' enjoyment. We can't set the prices TOO low. Seeding the market also means we can completely ignore players asking for inf sinks or ways to curtail inflation, since they'll be a non-factor if there's a ceiling on how high you can sell stuff for.

 

Finding the right price to have the seeded recipes at is fairly simple. We can just use the prices from the merit vendor, and go from that.

1 merit = 1,000,000 inf

Common recipes = 5 merits (5,000,000 inf)

Uncommon recipes = 20 merits (20,000,000 inf)

Rare Recipes = 50 merits (50,000,000 inf)

Very Rare and PvP Recipes = 100 merits (100,000,000 inf)

 

Seed the market using those amounts. We'll always have plenty of recipes to buy, and the prices won't go above those amounts.

 

Problem solved, everyone is happy.

Isn't that the system already in place?  I guess that they could simplify it to cut out the merit middleman.

 

In that case, I'd recommend expanding the "fixed price" section of the AH, and put all the recipes in there at the prices you quote.  I really don't like the current system they have with seeded salvage.  I mean, you KNOW that most of the 9.8mm rare salvage are listed at 1mm due to the price cap, but I'd much rather know there is 9mm offered as the cap and 0.8mm posted by players, for example.  I would rather they had put it in the "fixed price" section.

[boggo2300]

 

On 11/21/2019 at 12:55 PM, thunderforce said:

It's not my experience that it comes up every few days in chat, and I read Help when I'm logged in. But if it was, I would advise the players in question to buy crafted IOs, not recipes, so it would be a problem like "do I pick Freedom or Going Rogue" which is annoying but has an easily explained solution.

This!  I've never once seen it come up on Excelsior

Edited November 22, 2019 by boggo2300

[thunderforce]

13 hours ago, Piyerus said:

I'm actually all for seeding the market with recipes.

(proposal elided)

Problem solved, everyone is happy.

I think this would be a bad idea. As discussed above, most of the time on Homecoming you want to buy the crafted IO, not the recipe; but this is not made obvious to new players. Having the AH fat with recipes would only make it harder to discover this.

[roleki]

While I wouldn't want the dev team to seed recipes or IOs, I would not mind if they seeded converters (if they don't already).  Sometimes you get stuck playing ping-pong with the RNG and before you know it, you just burned through 2M.

[Yomo Kimyata]

20 minutes ago, roleki said:

While I wouldn't want the dev team to seed recipes or IOs, I would not mind if they seeded converters (if they don't already).  Sometimes you get stuck playing ping-pong with the RNG and before you know it, you just burned through 2M.

Hmm, in a way they do.  You can buy a reward merit for 1mm, which you can then exchange for three converters.  That effectively sets a cap on the price of converters at 333,333.

 

i wouldn’t object to the seeding of converters at that price.  They are a lot cheaper in the AH and you can almost always buy them in bulk, but I can see how seeding them at 333,333 could make life easier by cutting out the merit middleman.

[Dark Current]

To the OP's defense:

 

If salvage is seeded, why are recipes not?

 

The only thing salvage is used for is to craft.

[roleki]

20 minutes ago, Dark Current said:

To the OP's defense:

 

If salvage is seeded, why are recipes not?

 

The only thing salvage is used for is to craft.

I would imagine it's because, while there are options to shut off both salvage AND recipe drops, it is more likely that people will shut off salvage drops and end up starving the market?

 

Just a guess, I have no idea what metrics led them to make that decision, other than to kickstart the AH at startup?

[Doc_Scorpion]

4 hours ago, thunderforce said:

As discussed above, most of the time on Homecoming you want to buy the crafted IO, not the recipe; but this is not made obvious to new players

Quite the contrary, there has been zero discussion (or explanation) of why a player would want to buy a crafted IO rather than the recipe.  It's simply been stated as a fact.

[DrRocket]

Interesting problem you have.

 

The first thought that came into my mind, is how well populated is the server you play at. Also another consideration is how robust is the farmer population in such server.

 

My expereince at Evergreen is its highly populated and if you step into an AE building it's plumb full of fire/spine brutes, which means the farmer population is alive an well.

 

As many other responders have pointed out, many folks get the recipe, especially orange and purples and craft them to get maximum influence gain. You can't blame them for it, why sell a recipe for 50K when you can sell the crafted item for 5M instead, after spending 2.5M in materials?

 

In my case when I do farm, not often, I find it boring, and I don't care to craft, I immediately sell the recipe in AH as I get them, but I am sure I am a rare situation.

 

A suggestion to you is to make friends with an umber of farmers or a farmer super group and make arrangements for the recipes you would like to have, so you get first right of refusal. This practice has indeed worked very well for me.

 

Good luck

[Yomo Kimyata]

17 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Quite the contrary, there has been zero discussion (or explanation) of why a player would want to buy a crafted IO rather than the recipe.  It's simply been stated as a fact.

Recipes:

- can not be stored in base storage

- can be bought and sold in the AH in stacks of 10

- can not be used directly/slotted

- are usually, but not always cheaper to buy in the AH than the corresponding crafted IO

- can usually be sold to vendors (not purples)

- can not be converted

 

IOs:

- can be stored in base storage

- can be bought in the AH in stacks of 10 but can only be sold one at a time

- can be slotted

- cannot be vendored

- can be converted

 

Converting a recipe to an IO requires a workbench, 3-5 pieces of salvage, and crafting cost (which is an influence sink and disappears).

 

Anything else?  I'm sure I'm missing a lot.

[Monsoon]

2 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

 

Anything else?  I'm sure I'm missing a lot.

I would say that another advantage to buying crafted IO's is that you can pick up the Attuned version and have it usable at a wider range of levels and not have to pay the extra cost of an Enhancement Catalyst to Attune it yourself.  This doesn't apply to purple IO's, but is good to know for others.

[Lost Ninja]

5 hours ago, thunderforce said:

I think this would be a bad idea. As discussed above, most of the time on Homecoming you want to buy the crafted IO, not the recipe; but this is not made obvious to new players. Having the AH fat with recipes would only make it harder to discover this.

If a player cannot discover that other things are available (and the prices that they are listed for) on the AH for themselves I worry that higher levels of play or more difficult TFs might be too hard for them too. This game has a huge amount of variation in what you can build and quite a lot in what you can do (content wise), but it is far from difficult to understand most of the in game systems. Adding recipes to the AH in case people can't work out how to buy crafted IOs does nobody any favours, just dumbs the game down further.

 

There is a help channel in game for a reason, these forums exist for a reason. If a player is incapable of finding out how to play without their hand being held I would suggest they find an easier game... Noughts & Crosses (Tic Tac Toe).

[Doc_Scorpion]

40 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Anything else?  I'm sure I'm missing a lot.

Truthfully, you're missing pretty much everything.  You mostly compared and contrasted the various features of recipes and IO's  (both have advantages and disadvantages).  But you gave no reason why a player would WANT to buy a crafted IO rather than a recipe.
 

43 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Converting a recipe to an IO requires a workbench, 3-5 pieces of salvage, and crafting cost (which is an influence sink and disappears).

Seriously?  Workbenches can be had for free (at a base or university), salvage can easily be obtained via the AH (influence sink), and if you can afford the IO at the AH (influence sink)...  How is the sink of the crafting cost a problem?

As far as reasons to WANT a crafted IO over a recipe, they're pretty weak.
 

42 minutes ago, Monsoon said:

I would say that another advantage to buying crafted IO's is that you can pick up the Attuned version and have it usable at a wider range of levels and not have to pay the extra cost of an Enhancement Catalyst to Attune it yourself.

Taking a quick look at the AH, some Attuned enhancements are much cheaper than a Catalyst + Crafted IO, others are much more expensive...  So, yeah, if you search you can find a bargain on less desirable crafted IO's.  It's not clear to me that it's a universal rule for all enhancements.  Plus, it's not like buying and using a Catalyst is difficult or a significant investment of time.

So far "a player should want a crafted IO over a recipe" sounds like an ungrounded assumption that everyone presumes is true, but nobody can provide actual reasons to support.  The only actual reason I've seen to justify that preference is the availability of crafted IO's over recipes - and that's rooted in HC's culture, not game mechanics.
 

[MunkiLord]

3 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Truthfully, you're missing pretty much everything.  You mostly compared and contrasted the various features of recipes and IO's  (both have advantages and disadvantages).  But you gave no reason why a player would WANT to buy a crafted IO rather than a recipe.
 

Seriously?  Workbenches can be had for free (at a base or university), salvage can easily be obtained via the AH (influence sink), and if you can afford the IO at the AH (influence sink)...  How is the sink of the crafting cost a problem?

As far as reasons to WANT a crafted IO over a recipe, they're pretty weak.
 

Taking a quick look at the AH, some Attuned enhancements are much cheaper than a Catalyst + Crafted IO, others are much more expensive...  So, yeah, if you search you can find a bargain on less desirable crafted IO's.  It's not clear to me that it's a universal rule for all enhancements.  Plus, it's not like buying and using a Catalyst is difficult or a significant investment of time.

So far "a player should want a crafted IO over a recipe" sounds like an ungrounded assumption that everyone presumes is true, but nobody can provide actual reasons to support.  The only actual reason I've seen to justify that preference is the availability of crafted IO's over recipes - and that's rooted in HC's culture, not game mechanics.
 

Plenty of reasons were given, you not agreeing doesn't make them not reasons. It's all based on preference and is completely subjective.

 

My reason is simply that is is less time consuming than buying recipes, salvage, and crafting. Depending on a person's amount of influence, it's just easier and faster. People that want to get the most bang for their buck likely do it different than me.

 

And enhancements are the same price regardless if they are attuned or not. So buying the crafted enhancement and catalyst is more expensive. Attuned and non attuned IOs come from the exact same pool. The only exceptions to this are Winter IOs and ATOs.

[Yomo Kimyata]

41 minutes ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Truthfully, you're missing pretty much everything.  You mostly compared and contrasted the various features of recipes and IO's  (both have advantages and disadvantages).  But you gave no reason why a player would WANT to buy a crafted IO rather than a recipe.
 

Seriously?  Workbenches can be had for free (at a base or university), salvage can easily be obtained via the AH (influence sink), and if you can afford the IO at the AH (influence sink)...  How is the sink of the crafting cost a problem?

As far as reasons to WANT a crafted IO over a recipe, they're pretty weak.
 

Taking a quick look at the AH, some Attuned enhancements are much cheaper than a Catalyst + Crafted IO, others are much more expensive...  So, yeah, if you search you can find a bargain on less desirable crafted IO's.  It's not clear to me that it's a universal rule for all enhancements.  Plus, it's not like buying and using a Catalyst is difficult or a significant investment of time.

So far "a player should want a crafted IO over a recipe" sounds like an ungrounded assumption that everyone presumes is true, but nobody can provide actual reasons to support.  The only actual reason I've seen to justify that preference is the availability of crafted IO's over recipes - and that's rooted in HC's culture, not game mechanics.
 

You seem to be attributing things to me that I'm not saying.  I am simply trying to address your desire for discussion.  I really don't have a horse in this race.

 

Why does a player want a crafted IO over a recipe?  Because you can only USE an IO.  A recipe in and of itself is of no use to a player unless it is crafted or sold.  

 

Why does a player want to buy a crafted IO rather than buy a recipe, necessary salvage, and take the small amount of time and influence to craft it?  That's a deeper question, and where I suspect your motives lie.  Maybe it's cheaper on the AH (sometimes it is, most of the time it is not).  Maybe it's easier or faster (most of the time it is, sometimes it is not).  Maybe people just want to control the whole process so recipes are the way they want to go.  Etc.  Is now where you tell me I'm missing everything again?  Edit:  duh.  A critical reason for buying IOs is that you can buy them pre attuned.

 

 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Yomo Kimyata

[Doc_Scorpion]

4 hours ago, MunkiLord said:

Plenty of reasons were given, you not agreeing doesn't make them not reasons. It's all based on preference and is completely subjective.

Precisely zero sensible reasons to pronounce it an absolute were given.  If I missed any, I invite you to quote them and point them out.  (In reality, you're absolutely correct - it's not absolute, it's subjective, and it's a preference.)

 

4 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I am simply trying to address your desire for discussion.

My desire isn't for discussion - my desire is to determine if the dogma being presented ("a player wants crafted IOs over recipes") has any basis in fact.

 

4 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

That's a deeper question, and where I suspect your motives lie.

It's not a deep question at all.  Either the dogma has sufficient factual basis to be treated as an absolute, or it does not.  Nor do I have any ulterior motives beyond checking the spread of bad advice and preventing opinion and preferences from being presented as unassailable and unquestionable fact.

Reviewing the discussion it appears that how this is creeping into being presented as fact is people are saying "crafted IO" when what they mean "is Attuned IO".  The two things are not equivalent.

[Burnt Toast]

On 11/20/2019 at 11:15 AM, 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.

 

Did you actually read the responses? Your post comes across as playing quite the victim and somewhat caustic for no reason. Recipes may not be available because MOST people craft them and place the actual enhancement up for sale. The ONLY recipe/enhancement I have had difficulty with the past 7 months were MAYBE 4-5 ATO ones. With those I simply used converters or used merits to buy them. So yes you are right - there are not a lot of recipes available for certain sets, BUT there are already crafted IOs and crafter attuned IOs available for sale. I have actually found that the crafted enhancements for certain ones like LoTG are cheaper to buy than the recipe, salvage, and crafting fee. Instead of coming on here and being negative, assuming others are going to gang up on you... post your question/suggestion and read the actual replies. The enhancements are out there - if you HAVE to have the recipe so you can craft them... that is your choice and you are limiting yourself.

 

FYI seeding of recipes would simply cause some people to buy them all up - and... craft and sell them. 

[MunkiLord]

13 minutes ago, Burnt Toast said:

 

FYI seeding of recipes would simply cause some people to buy them all up - and... craft and sell them. 

Depending on the seeding price, this is exactly what I would do.