Have contacts sell things again

[GastlyGibus]

Now listen, I know what people are going to say.

"But why? There's stores that sell enhancements and money is so easy to make."

And yeah, I get that. But at the same time, what with all the contacts telling you what they sell when they are introduced, only to have them sell nothing but basic inspirations, and THEN having them go on to say "Look at my best enhancements!" while not actually listing any enhancements, seems just kind of silly to me.

 

One of the things I always liked about this game was how vague the money system is. "Influence" is such a generalized term that it can be used to represent whatever you want. Maybe your character builds their own gadgets and enhancements, maybe you learn more powerful spells, maybe you're like Bruce Wayne and you do have a trillion dollars in your bank account. Or, maybe, your heroic/villainous deeds carry weight with them and your contacts offer you their gear/magic/training to help you out.

 

I'm looking at this from both a roleplay perspective and a practical one. Newer players (and yes, new players still exist. :O) don't have the expertise to just dive right into the invention system straight away, and people like me as well who don't play the market constantly to make fat stacks still use DO's and SO's on their lower level toons until a certain point. I think it'd be neat if contacts actually sold things again, but unlike before where they were 300% base cost  (which was honestly the most baffling design decision in my opinion) have them at slightly cheaper than regular store-bought enhancements. Maybe a 25% discount or so?

 

After rolling several alts it occurred to me just how expensive store enhancements were. (Seriously, 5,000 influence for a level 5 TO Accuracy enhancement???) and how annoying it was (for me) to be sending all of my alts 1 mil in starter cash just to buy basic DO's and SO's. My first idea was just to adjust INF generation at lower levels (because honestly, if you don't play the market in this game, INF generation is an absolute joke until level 40) and maybe that does deserve to get looked at, but then I just thought "what if contacts sold enhancements again, but for cheaper than regular?" It'd be neat from both a practical and a roleplay perspective.

Edited February 23, 2020 by GastlyGibus

[Ukase]

It is indeed crazy how much inf is required to slot DOs and SOs without help from a level 50 alt. I think that struggle was by design to encourage teaming, because nobody could really afford to have all the enhancements they needed unless they had a lot of debt to overcome (which slowed down leveling) or simply went without enhancements of any kind in the very early levels. It was pretty much only through team buffs or taking things very slowly that you could get through the content, as I remember it, before IOs.