Paying to slot my Character!

[Vea]

8 hours ago, Darkir said:

I have never considered selling any of the many many builds I post and create for people, but this post makes me think maybe I should and then buy all the enhancements and boosters too. Then trade them to a toon for my time on the build (anywhere from 15 minutes to 2 hours depending on the build and how much I like it. If I like a build or the interaction of powers I'll spend ages on a build min/maxing, but that's more for me than them) and the time I spent procuring the enhancements. I generally use 40-50 million an hour  for how much influence I can make farming (especially teamed with a brute on my 🔥/🏃 corruptor). 

 

Something about it just doesn't feel quite right though. However, I think I'd make a killing, I could just hoard the sets I use the most and make the profit on both ends of the deal.

I'm a little lost on this? Are you suggesting posting a build then people 'paying' for it, you then would trade the enhancements?

 

The process being:

1. Darkir posts a build
2. Someone who likes the build goes "Yes please, I'll take one of them, how much?"
3. Price Agreed
4. Enh/Inf traded

If so, I like the idea. It's similar to a shop. Just wondering if you would have any buyers? I quite like the building element (planning the build) so it wouldn't be for me.

 

With that being said, the original idea would favour those who already "hoard sets"

12 hours ago, Giocondi said:

How much time would you expect is involved in this process? How much would someone be able to earn for themselves if they spent the same amount of time just earning on their own terms. The way your idea is designed currently, you want people who have a good understanding of the market to do the shopping. These people would know what enhancements usually go for to avoid being ripped off and possibly have some other techniques to obtain wanted enhancements at favorable prices. These same people are probably A) already well off regarding influence and B) could likely make as much or more money in the same amount of time without the risk of not getting paid. I think the markup would need to be much higher than you are willing to pay for this to work. Even the non-optimal method of earning influence by fire farming would net people over 100 million per hour. So I'd say at a bare minimum your scenario would have to take less than an hour for anyone to consider it. @Olly mentioned something like a 50% markup would be necessary for this to work and I think that is a pretty fair assessment.

 

Personally I kind of like building my toon over the course of a few days while I play. I usually play with basic IO's to 50 and then start the build once I get there and enjoy seeing the power spikes with each set completion.

I appreciate your insight. If you were to purchase all enhancements as a shopping list method, I would say around it would take around 1 hour, and with my example above this would net 5mil inf/hour. Which is twice as fast as farming. You are right as for the fee/mark-up being maybe too low, the balance isn't quite there yet.

 

For this to be worthwhile I think it would suit those who fall in one (or all) of the following categories:

1. Those who hoard enhancements.
2. Those who have stripped toons/builds (or can).
3. Those who don't want to craft/convert grind.
4. Those who don't want to fire farm.
5. Those who want to slowly make inf, or make inf more passively. (The transaction doesn't have to be immediate)
6. Those who hate tax. (Damn you Wentworths!)
7. Those who enjoy making margins

[Darkir]

17 minutes ago, Vea said:

The process being:

1. Darkir posts a build
2. Someone who likes the build goes "Yes please, I'll take one of them, how much?"
3. Price Agreed
4. Enh/Inf traded

Yeah pretty much. I don't think I'd be willing to do it, as I just like making builds and I want them to be freely accessible. I guess I'd just add a price for ordering, but I can't help but feel this would be dickish (maybe I'm wrong). If a bunch of people started ordering this though, it absolutely would cause me to start hoarding sets (godly amounts of LoTG, Superior Avalanche, tons of corruptor/defender IOs, gaussian's, etc.) and enhancement boosters for some things. I'm not sure if I would be willing to actually just play 'the market' and 'city of building' instead of city of heroes though. I suppose I'd be willing to try it, but the mark up would have to be in the 150-200 mil range I think, unless there were lots of customers and I'm just hoarding sets in a super base with things ready to go because I know the things every build of mine needs generally. 

Edited January 30, 2020 by Darkir

[golstat2003]

On 1/13/2020 at 12:47 PM, Vea said:

It seems like a consensus that the fee is a little light or not worth it, but i'd say to that there is three elements of being paid. First the fee, then second your ability to profit per enhancement vs the estimate. For example in the estimate LoTG +Recharge could be estimated at 8m each, where they can easily be bought at 7m. And the third one being you save 10% if you were to sell via the auction house.

 

As for a trade I think its a function within the game that could actually be used here. The SG base is a nice idea but would be susceptible to scams. (throwback to Runescape scams) - but again this would be down to the logistics of the transaction and can change per person. 

 

As for opportunity cost of spending time doing this vs traditional marketing would be down to individuals and how well they can market.

 

Perhaps a case study?

 

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This good ol' Farming build. 

Highlights of this build and my estimate of the cost (not spending much time or thought really):

 

Enhancement	Price per
15 Purples	22m
18 Winter*	20m
4 LoTGs	7.5m
5 ATO*	9m (more if superior)
3 PVP Procs	12m
3 Uniques	5m
45 'Other'	2.5m

 

*Assumption of non-superior in the trade, as I have hundreds of catalysts and it always seems to be better to use your own.

 

Total Cost = 928.5m

Fee @ 15% = 139.5 (Rounded up)

 

From personal experience, from the estimated numbers above includes a sizeable profit I've achieved on the market myself. Assuming 1m profit per enhancement that's another 90m. As for inf/min - this all depends on your stock and how fast you can purchase. It would need to take longer than 70 minutes to be worse off than farming for inf (based on 2m inf/min).

Yeah no. For me I'd never do this. That fee (profit) is absolutely abysmal for the amount of work I need to do (the amount of IOs I need to get for the person over time, based on your table). I can make 139 mil in less than 30 - 45 minutes of playing with converters and selling the resulting rares on the market. The fee (profit) would have to be waaaay more than 140 mil for me to ever consider doing this for anyone.

[golstat2003]

On 1/15/2020 at 2:32 AM, Vea said:

Sure. If you could, why wouldn't you. But it looks like a sellers market based on the people saying they wouldn't do it!

 

Using Yomo's signature as inspiration, I want to be a superhero, not a trader..

 

Not a negative Nelly at all! - I would say see above, that the 138million is only a portion of the total inf gained. I'm not entirely sure how long it would take to get 70-90 enhancements, but from experience I don't think it would take longer than an hour. On that assumption its 2m inf/min just on the fee alone which is comparable to AE Fire farming.

The investment up front from the builder is an obstacle - but a 30% return isn't too shabby.

 

I guess if anyone is interested, they can post a build to see if anyone would take them up on it.. if not I will (if I have the inf eek.)

No you can't buy specific IOs like that in an hour. It would take a lot more. And often times if one or more of those high level IOs is missing, you'd have to wait for them to fill or try to convert/create/craft them yourself.