Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[Parabola]

I'm staggered that there are people trying to push the argument that printing money is somehow good for the economy. That experiment has been tried many times in the real world and it never ends well. Creating more goods and higher value goods however enriches the economy.

 

Farming is still going an effective means of wealth generation, both directly and indirectly from selling drops. Prices on the market are capped and currently sit nowhere near those caps. There is no doom here. Farm if you want to farm. Marketeer if you want to marketeer. Go hunt kill skulls otherwise. Also try to stay safe in these unprecedented times and keep a sense of perspective.

[Saikochoro]

1 hour ago, Noyjitat said:

I don't get your logic regarding a healthy economy when you seed the market with salvage, recipes and enhancements and put an artificial price cap on everything with reward merits / market seed and inf to reward merits conversion.

 

If you're really going to keep this change you should remove all the previous ae nerfs or at the very least disable the market seeding and be consistent with your own logic.

Why would the get rid of market seeding? That alone would cause prices to skyrocket as their would no longer be price caps via merits/seeding.  This would definitely hurt the player base in general. 

[Targren]

1 minute ago, Jimmy said:

For a videogame, a healthy market (in my opinion anyway) is one that is rewarding for the average player to interact with, but still has depth for those who want to engage further. We're pretty close to that right now.

I guess it depends on what is considered an "Average" player. When I first signed up just under a month ago (having never played Live), the AH prices definitely gave me the impression that my first character had better be some sort of farmer. 

[DR_Mechano]

1 minute ago, Number Six said:

You beat me to it. Playing the market is secondary and doesn't actually generate anything. 😀

 

If anything, the fact that people are able to make tons of Inf off the market tells me that not enough people are playing it effectively and there isn't enough competition between those doing it...

So because people were farming which was, by your words here, obviously more ineffective than just playing the market when it comes to inf gathering sources, isn't ok...but doing so via the market IS OK despite the fact that the people on the market are making vastly more inf (which usually came supplied to them VIA farmers who are the ones which tend to sell low and buy high because they're just wanting to ship things out until they need something specific for a non-farming character) and yet Jimmy is saying they want a market that an 'average player' can interact with despite said market being, mostly, in the hands of people who are making craploads of inf who, if they suddenly decided, could jack up prices massively because they hold a controlling stake in that market more so than the average player.

 

Pardon me if I'm kinda skeptical.

[Saikochoro]

53 minutes ago, Peerless Girl said:

A good game dev (like many people ) would tell you "all things in moderation" i.e. all things can be good and bad, and no one way of enjoyment should be overly more (or less) "profitable" to those who do it than another, as I believe Jimmy said HC's goal is (a laudable goal which I support, as an aside). I'm certain that was always Paragon and Cryptic's intent as well, it just doesn't always work out as intended sometimes. 

My post wasn’t meant to be an argument against the influence change. I’m neutral towards the change. It doesn’t bother me. I do like the fact that the devs are involved and constantly developing the game.
 

My post was more in response to what I felt was animosity toward farmers. Farmers in general I think good for the game and help a lot of people out (especially newer players). So contempt for them is crummy.

[Peerless Girl]

54 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

In other words: "It was like that on live" is not a good argument when it comes to anything related to the economy.

Thank you Jimmy, I agree 100% with this (also true with SOME other aspects of the game, but...yeah).

[Foxfyre]

26 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I'm sorry, but you are wrong.  Buyers set the going price, not sellers. 

This is wrong both in game and IRL.  Now to be fair.....a lot of time it can be right.  However....

If a seller buys up all the items in the market (say Luck Charms as was mentioned above) and relists them for a high price, the seller is controlling the price of the item at that point.  Or if a group of people get together to do the same.

And IRL, monopolies also set the price a lot of times for real world products.  Insulin is a great example of this at the moment.

[Ukase]

2 hours ago, PorkTips said:

Plus I dont understand flipping. 🙂 That prevents me as well. 🙂

This isn't the proper forum section for me to share this, but simply send me a tell in game @ukase and I will type up a storm in an email for your reference. A child could make a billion inf in a week if they have the time and inclination. But it does take time! And, you will need to actually roll a character to get some explores if your current characters have already spent those reward merits. 

[Saikochoro]

4 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

So because people were farming which was, by your words here, obviously more ineffective than just playing the market when it comes to inf gathering sources, isn't ok...but doing so via the market IS OK despite the fact that the people on the market are making vastly more inf (which usually came supplied to them VIA farmers who are the ones which tend to sell low and buy high because they're just wanting to ship things out until they need something specific for a non-farming character) and yet Jimmy is saying they want a market that an 'average player' can interact with despite said market being, mostly, in the hands of people who are making craploads of inf who, if they suddenly decided, could jack up prices massively because they hold a controlling stake in that market more so than the average player.

 

Pardon me if I'm kinda skeptical.

Making money on the market is honestly a lot more accessible than farming.
 

With the market, you can start from level one using one of the many guides. By the time you are in the lvl 20 range you can have easily earned 20-50 merits. That’s all the start up capital you need. More than enough. From there it’s converter roulette and the money starts flowing in. 
 

Farming requires you to level a specific toon up to 50, get influence, buy an optimized build, and then farm. Start up time and capital for farming is a lot higher than using the market.

[Peerless Girl]

48 minutes ago, Deacon Stone said:

If the farmers are doing anything, they are supplying the market with Influence distribution.  Since I've returned to playing, I've made not even a single character 50.  It's not all the interesting to me to be 50 to be honest.  One of my toons is a level 5 Emp locked with xp turned off.

I've had no problems making money.
In general I make 7 influence per minion
I have made about 250k from teaming.
I have made millions working the market though.
I've been crafting for the badges, I'm working on level 45-50 IO's and I'm level 5!

So, with that in mind I'd simply ask the question, What is balance?
Certainly my level 5 does exceedingly well alongside players of all levels with my stacks of temp powers and slotted with SO's that give me fair percentage and decent returns on a character that is only a month or two old and not consistently played.

Thus, the minor change to influence when xp is turned off is nominal in my opinion.  I don't think the change will impact the economy all the much to be honest.

 

You have accurately discribed 90% of my CoH life from issue 3 to now (with the exception of ED and Inv nerfs, which took a lot of learning). The game is fun at all levels, you have fun with friends, you enjoy it, I never rushed to 50, and didn't have my main to 50 until Issue 9 or so, and I started at i3. Other than a lot of RP which was also fun, you have summed up the mechanics of my game experiences. CoH is just good in general. This is a nominal thing that will adjust. 

[ivanhedgehog]

16 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

You're being rather inconsistent when you think hard caps on prices and an artificially supplied economy is healthy. 

 

newsflash: this isnt a real economy. you cant instantly seed a real economy. in a real economy, item creation is not controlled by a random % drop rate that can be changed by invisible omnipotent beings at will. even in real economies real economists argue back and forth as to what is good for said economies.

[DR_Mechano]

Just now, Saikochoro said:

Making money on the market is honestly a lot more accessible than farming.
 

With the market, you can start from level one using one of the many guides. By the time you are in the lvl 20 range you can have easily earned 20-50 merits. That’s all the start up capital you need. More than enough. From there it’s converter roulette and the money starts flowing in. 
 

Farming requires you to level a specific toon up to 50, get influence, buy an optimized build, and then farm. Start up time and capital for farming is a lot higher than using the market.

That's playing convertor roulette which is considered 'babbies first AH' and yes is VERY easy to get in to, I've done it myself on several characters. But the level we're talking about requires actual genuine market knowledge and people keeping an eye on what IOs are worth what, when IOs have just had their prices tank so you can buy them up and then resell them at a later date when the price has recovered because you're now in control of all the supply of said IO, knowing what sells well from week to week and day to day (for example ATOs fluctuate quite widely between weekdays and weekends...admittedly not so much now we're all stuck inside) and THAT requires a lot more work than setting up a farmer who can self level on their own at -1x8 from about level 18 if you stack purple insps and go from there.

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 minutes ago, Foxfyre said:

This is wrong both in game and IRL.  Now to be fair.....a lot of time it can be right.  However....

If a seller buys up all the items in the market (say Luck Charms as was mentioned above) and relists them for a high price, the seller is controlling the price of the item at that point.  Or if a group of people get together to do the same.

And IRL, monopolies also set the price a lot of times for real world products.  Insulin is a great example of this at the moment.

But in this particular version of the game, with fungibility, converters, merits, tickets, etc., you cannot stop more supply from entering the market.  The seller can control the price at which he or she lists, but cannot stop anyone else from creating more supply and listing it for less.  There is no way for a monopolist in HC to stop more supply from entering the market.  

[Jimmy]

17 minutes ago, Targren said:

I guess it depends on what is considered an "Average" player. When I first signed up just under a month ago (having never played Live), the AH prices definitely gave me the impression that my first character had better be some sort of farmer. 

That's fair. Perhaps "pretty close" was a bit of an overstatement, but I think it's fair to say we're a lot closer to that goal than the economy on live was 🙂

 

Something else your post highlights is that the reward balance between farming and literally everything else still has some ways to go - you should never feel like you have to farm.

 

There are no solid plans right now, but we've had some discussions about improving the way that rewards are distributed for "normal" content to make it more worthwhile. It's not on the immediate horizon, but it is definitely something I want to spend time on at some point.

[Saikochoro]

34 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

That's playing convertor roulette which is considered 'babbies first AH' and yes is VERY easy to get in to, I've done it myself on several characters. But the level we're talking about requires actual genuine market knowledge and people keeping an eye on what IOs are worth what, when IOs have just had their prices tank so you can buy them up and then resell them at a later date when the price has recovered because you're now in control of all the supply of said IO, knowing what sells well from week to week and day to day (for example ATOs fluctuate quite widely between weekdays and weekends...admittedly not so much now we're all stuck inside) and THAT requires a lot more work than setting up a farmer who can self level on their own at -1x8 from about level 18 if you stack purple insps and go from there.

Farming -1x8 at level 18 isn’t going to be making a lot of influence at all. 
 

Doing the converter routine for even a few hours will give you an idea of good IOs to convert and sell.  It makes a lot of influence very easily without the need for deep knowledge. It makes at least as much influence as optimized farmers and has a much lower entry threshold. 
 

I’m not trying to bash on farming. Just making a comparison. I do farming and playing the market. I only farm to power level alts. Any money I make off farming is incidental. I make money off the market because it is much easier and much more efficient. 

Edited March 31, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Parabola]

1 minute ago, Jimmy said:

There are no solid plans right now, but we've had some discussions about improving the way that rewards are distributed for "normal" content to make it more worthwhile. It's not on the immediate horizon, but it is definitely something I want to spend time on at some point.

Music to many of our ears I'm sure. Please include greater reward for harder content and smoothing out the disparity between earning potential between high level and low level play. Oh and maybe tweaking drop rates so that taking down hard targets is rewarding in proportion to the time it takes vs mowing down a sea of minions?

[Aracknight]

I keep seeing the term "average player."  I feel like this isn't a thing for Homecoming.  I believe most of us are returning from live, and although some of our memories might be rusty on deep dive numbers, I think the myth of the neophyte using TOs, DOs and SOs is a bit overblown, to be honest.

 

I'm not saying that term invalidates anyone's arguments, make no mistake.  But the constant use of that term makes me twitchy.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Aracknight

[Peerless Girl]

19 minutes ago, DR_Mechano said:

So because people were farming which was, by your words here, obviously more ineffective than just playing the market when it comes to inf gathering sources, isn't ok...but doing so via the market IS OK despite the fact that the people on the market are making vastly more inf (which usually came supplied to them VIA farmers who are the ones which tend to sell low and buy high because they're just wanting to ship things out until they need something specific for a non-farming character) and yet Jimmy is saying they want a market that an 'average player' can interact with despite said market being, mostly, in the hands of people who are making craploads of inf who, if they suddenly decided, could jack up prices massively because they hold a controlling stake in that market more so than the average player.

 

Pardon me if I'm kinda skeptical.

Farming CREATES Influence, it's a market inflationary force. the Market moves Influence around between people (and takes 10% of the transaction OUT of the game with every one), it's a market CONTROL force. The fact that some people know how to use it and don't isn't the issue.

[Bionic_Flea]

9 minutes ago, Foxfyre said:

This is wrong both in game and IRL.  Now to be fair.....a lot of time it can be right.  However....

If a seller buys up all the items in the market (say Luck Charms as was mentioned above) and relists them for a high price, the seller is controlling the price of the item at that point.  Or if a group of people get together to do the same.

And IRL, monopolies also set the price a lot of times for real world products.  Insulin is a great example of this at the moment.

Except that your fictional marketeer cannot keep ALL common salvage.  If I want to buy a luck charm its exactly the same as brass or any other common salvage.  They are all in the same bucket.  Don't believe me?  Go look in the game and check several common salvage.  The amount for sale, outstanding bids, and last five sales is exactly the same.  So your mythical ebel marketeer would have to buy up ALL common salvage and most of it at the dev seeded price of 10K.  At that point, the devs could seed more or any player could go punch something and get a piece of common salvage. 

 

This game is NOT like real life.  You cannot corner the market when the supply is limitless.

 

[Targren]

Just now, Aracknight said:

I keep seeing the term "average player."  I feel like this isn't a thing for Homecoming.  I believe most of us are returning from live, and although some of our memories might be rusty on deep dive numbers, I think they myth of the neophyte using TOs, DOs and SOs is a bit overblown, to be honest.

 

*Raises hand*

[Aracknight]

1 minute ago, Targren said:

 

*Raises hand*

Lol, I knew that was gonna  happen when I hit Submit Reply.  Welcome to the City, Targren!

[Burnt Toast]

As a person who farms daily... I have no issues with the influence change. Excited for all the other stuff in update 🙂

[Aracknight]

3 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

This game is NOT like real life.  You cannot corner the market when the supply is limitless.

 

[Targren]

Just now, Aracknight said:

Lol, I knew that was gonna  happen when I hit Submit Reply.  Welcome to the City, Targren!

I was half convinced it was Elmer Fudd-like bait to drag out the newbies. Decided it might be fun to bite anyway. 😄

[DR_Mechano]

1 minute ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Except that your fictional marketeer cannot keep ALL common salvage.  If I want to buy a luck charm its exactly the same as brass or any other common salvage.  They are all in the same bucket.  Don't believe me?  Go look in the game and check several common salvage.  The amount for sale, outstanding bids, and last five sales is exactly the same.  So your mythical ebel marketeer would have to buy up ALL common salvage and most of it at the dev seeded price of 10K.  At that point, the devs could seed more or any player could go punch something and get a piece of common salvage. 

 

This game is NOT like real life.  You cannot corner the market when the supply is limitless.

 

Sure they doesn't work for salvage but it does work for recipes and enhancements, it is quite easy for 1 marketeer to 'corner the market' on selected items. How do I know this? I did it. due to me buying one specific set of uncommon recipes drove up the price from 500 inf to over 20k inf because I was buying them in huge bulk, creating and then converting them and nobody else was buying them (surprisingly). Because I was willing to spend 20k at that time it caused people to take notice and more people to flood to said recipe because it was selling over the odds which meant the prices went up even higher when people were curious as to how far they could push my price. I think it hit like 25k before I bounced on it and found something else. This wasn't me flipping and reselling them either, this was just me buying them to see how much money I could make on a fresh level 1 and he ended up with over 100 million inf in the space of 24 hours, which is small fry compared to proper marketeers who can make 10 times that in the same timeframe.