Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[Abraxus]

In the grand scheme of things, the city will go on, and so will the markets. Ragnarok will not happen.  I will play the game....

[Coyotedancer]

And the "unaddressed issue" is exactly what you mentioned in your own post a few minutes ago, Jimmy... And what Doc actually summed up pretty well in his. 

 

If the idea you guys are going for over-all is to make everyone feel like they're on a level economic playing field, then it's going to take addressing more than just the INF-earning potential of farming. You're also going to have to look at the other eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. Marketeering. Which is going to be a proverbial can of worms.

 

This probably isn't the thread to do that with anything approaching depth or detail, granted... but it IS an issue if your intention is making players feel like they don't have to do anything but regular play to get goodies at a reasonable rate when they interact with the in-game economy. That was my only real point in bringing it up, and one that you (And others... you weren't alone in that-) kept basically ignoring to repeat the Inflation point, even after I specifically said that WASN'T what I was actually talking about, That was the bit that makes me feel like it was a deliberate deflection.

[Ukase]

23 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

IIt reminds me a little of the how-many-hundred Underground trials we did back in the Liberty days. Beyond a certain point they weren't about the rewards. They were about "I actively enjoy this". Which is sort-of the point of playing a game.

That darn trial is still my favorite! 

[Eclipse.]

5 hours ago, Obus Form said:

More efficient than converting/flipping? =O

Converting/Flipping doesn't Generate inf - it transfers it (and actually sinks it through the market fees).
Farming Generates inf.

One leads to inflation, the other (theoretically...) does not.

In practice it all leads to wealth inequality, so really depends what they are trying to address.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Eclipse.

[Frunobulax]

5 hours ago, Obus Form said:

More efficient than converting/flipping? =O

hahahaha

[Crysis]

23 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

I may have missed something then. What specifically hasn't been addressed?

Respectfully I think the “other topic” is the one I and many others have brought up here in the thread.  You replied (or one of your colleagues did) to me when I first posted it way back in first couple of pages.

 

Specifically, if you insist on throttling Influence per Hour via farming, as a Fairness design principle, you must also address Marketeering.  Otherwise pot meet kettle, 5th Column meet Coucil.

 

TLDR; Invoke flat pricing on everything in Market.  Hopefully small enough an average player can actually afford a billion influence build.  Or better yet, make billion influence builds cost 250MM.   

[Chirikiti]

Trying to make everyone feel like they are on a level economic playing field through gameplay manipulation doesn't take into account the variability of people's time to devote to the game. If I can only play 4 hours per week, then my expectations of what I can accomplish/earn have to be mitigated. Shouldn't be an endless tweaking of the economy/nerfs/gameplay to try to adjust for such.

 

And perhaps I am wrong on this account: Playing the market/marketeering/flipping/converting, only generates wealth if people have the money to spend on it. Less money, less earned for such activities. It doesn't generate infamy just shuffles it around.

 

I hate new patches. Like a wrote a week or so ago somewhere here....always screws people over in some way. And now all the vet level tracking will be skewed to farmers (not that farming vet levels 'count')....Booo-urns

[Noyjitat]

1 hour ago, ivanhedgehog said:

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.

It isn't a real economy yet hes treating it like it matters. Again I ask to be consistent.

 

  

1 hour ago, Saikochoro said:

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. 

No it wouldn't because 100 reward merits =  100 mil via conversion and you can buy all ios and attuned ios with reward merits.  I just don't get how someone can say something hurts the economy and leave in the current fake supplies via market seeding. And thanks to the reward merits conversion nothing can ever cost more than 100 mil except hami/titan/hydra os.

 

[Jimmy]

14 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

And the "unaddressed issue" is exactly what you mentioned in your own post a few minutes ago, Jimmy... And what Doc actually summed up pretty well in his. 

 

If the idea you guys are going for over-all is to make everyone feel like they're on a level economic playing field, then it's going to take addressing more than just the INF-earning potential of farming. You're also going to have to look at the other eight-hundred-pound gorilla in the room. Marketeering. Which is going to be a proverbial can of worms.

 

This probably isn't the thread to do that with anything approaching depth or detail, granted... but it IS an issue if your intention is making players feel like they don't have to do anything but regular play to get goodies at a reasonable rate when they interact with the in-game economy. That was my only real point in bringing it up, and one that you (And others... you weren't alone in that-) kept basically ignoring to repeat the Inflation point, even after I specifically said that WASN'T what I was actually talking about, That was the bit that makes me feel like it was a deliberate deflection.

Right, OK. I did answer this, albeit indirectly.

 

It's certainly not an 800 pound gorilla, and not something we're trying to hide or obfuscate in any way. It's a deliberate part of the economy working as intended right now.

 

Basically: Those people marketeering? They are turning the supply of low-demand goods into high-demand goods, thus lowering the cost of those high-demand goods for everyone. That's a net positive for the economy, specifically a net positive for the average player interacting with the economy. Anything we do to remove or damage this process would cause prices to skyrocket. We don't want that.

 

However if your argument is that it should be simpler or easier to engage in this process? That's a reasonable one, and certainly something we might look at in the future.

[Eclipse.]

6 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

No it wouldn't because 100 reward merits =  100 mil via conversion and you can buy all ios and attuned ios with reward merits.  I just don't get how someone can say something hurts the economy and leave in the current fake supplies via market seeding. And thanks to the reward merits conversion nothing can ever cost more than 100 mil except hami/titan/hydra os.

 

100 reward merits is worth a lot less than 100mil, depending on what you are using the merits on
 

Number of Merits
100
Item Name	Merit Cost	Number of Items	Item Value	Total Value	value/merit
Enhanc unslot x10	5.00	10.00	150,000.00	30,000,000.00	300,000.00
enhance convert x 30	10.00	30.00	100,000.00	30,000,000.00	300,000.00
Enhance Catalyst	20.00	1.00	2,500,000.00	12,500,000.00	125,000.00
Enhance Booster	25.00	5.00	1,500,000.00	30,000,000.00	300,000.00

I can't get on the game to doublecheck the item value, but that table is accurate as of Saturday, at least.
These prices also line up with where the market currently has purples and ATOs, roughly.

Edit: Unless you meant after using the merits to then convert trash IOs ala marketeering.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Eclipse.

[Troo]

 

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by Troo

[Coyotedancer]

1 minute ago, Jimmy said:

Right, OK. I did answer this, albeit indirectly.

 

It's certainly not an 800 pound gorilla, and not something we're trying to hide or obfuscate in any way. It's a deliberate part of the economy working as intended right now.

 

Basically: Those people marketeering? They are turning the supply of low-demand goods into high-demand goods, thus lowering the cost of those high-demand goods for everyone. That's a net positive for the economy, specifically a net positive for the average player interacting with the economy. Anything we do to remove or damage this process would cause prices to skyrocket. We don't want that.

 

However if your argument is that it should be simpler or easier to engage in this process? That's a reasonable one, and certainly something we might look at in the future.

 

Exactly.

Now we're on the same page, so to speak. 

 

Farming just isn't the only source of that "OMG. I can't afford to equip Hero X. I *have* to build a farmer.... Or learn to marketer... to get anywhere"-feeling.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Just now, Jimmy said:

Right, OK. I did answer this, albeit indirectly.

 

It's certainly not an 800 pound gorilla, and not something we're trying to hide or obfuscate in any way. It's a deliberate part of the economy working as intended right now.

 

Basically: Those people marketeering? They are turning the supply of low-demand goods into high-demand goods, thus lowering the cost of those high-demand goods for everyone. That's a net positive for the economy, specifically a net positive for the average player interacting with the economy. Anything we do to remove or damage this process would cause prices to skyrocket. We don't want that.

 

However if your argument is that it should be simpler or easier to engage in this process? That's a reasonable one, and certainly something we might look at in the future.

I'm not sure I understand the (not Jimmy's) antipathy for people who are familiar with the market.  Read some of the posts on the Market Forum.  Send one of us a PM.  As someone said in another thread, you literally cannot get us to shut up about how you can make inf.  We are literally giving away inf to anyone who wants it.  Not only are we giving away free fishing lessons, we are giving away free fish!

 

I understand that some people simply don't want to have to market, just like some people don't want to have to farm.  That's the beauty of this game!  You don't have to.  Nobody has to.

[Eclipse.]

11 minutes ago, Jimmy said:

However if your argument is that it should be simpler or easier to engage in this process? That's a reasonable one, and certainly something we might look at in the future.

Just make All Common/Rare/ultra-rare IOs share a pool the same way salvage does.
Gets rid of 1 step of the conversion proces, just have to do conversions within sets


That'll make mareketeering easier/non-existent -- and it totally will not  have any adverse effects at all 😅
 

Edited March 31, 2020 by Eclipse.

[Abraxus]

3 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm not sure I understand the (not Jimmy's) antipathy for people who are familiar with the market.  Read some of the posts on the Market Forum.  Send one of us a PM.  As someone said in another thread, you literally cannot get us to shut up about how you can make inf.  We are literally giving away inf to anyone who wants it.  Not only are we giving away free fishing lessons, we are giving away free fish!

 

I understand that some people simply don't want to have to market, just like some people don't want to have to farm.  That's the beauty of this game!  You don't have to.  Nobody has to.

The address is @abraxus. 😉

 

But, in all seriousness.  I've only just begun to discover ways to make INF beyond gameplay (converting merits to converters), and it has helped.  But, it's obviously gonna take more studying to figure out how to really make enough to be financially independent.  I'm still in the "I can't afford that I/O build that I want to do" crowd.  I've know the tricks were there, but just never delved into it far enough to make it habit.  Since there is almost literally a school of instruction out there, well...time to go back to school!

Edited March 31, 2020 by Abraxus

[Troo]

Which 'fix' to announce today?

 

Choose wisely.

 

AE AFK Farming or Base Portal Exploit

 

..the forums might explode if we do both at the same time.

 

Give us back the old Energy Transfer already!

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by Troo

[Coyotedancer]

1 minute ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I understand that some people simply don't want to have to market, just like some people don't want to have to farm.  That's the beauty of this game!  You don't have to.  Nobody has to.

 

Except a lot of people DO end up feeling like they have to, rather they enjoy that kind of thing or not... (For an example, see the post up-thread that stated basically "New player. Looked at Wents. Decided my first character had best be a farmer.")

 

It sounds like that's one of the problems Jimmy & Company want to address. That's not a bad thing. 

[Gremlin]

1 hour ago, Foxfyre said:

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.

Sellers cannot control the price of a niche in CoH because they cannot control the supply. If you try to force the price up, all that happens is that you end up holding a load of stock that you cannot sell because other players get drops that they list for less. Try it some time and you'll see what I mean.

 

If you've got a lot of inf you _can_ mess with prices for a short while. What you can't do is profit from it. The reason is that the only behaviour you can force on other players is to pay more than everyone else and to sell for less than everyone else. If you try it, you'll rapidly run out of inf and the market will quickly return to normal.

[Saikochoro]

11 minutes ago, Noyjitat said:

It isn't a real economy yet hes treating it like it matters. Again I ask to be consistent.

 

  

No it wouldn't because 100 reward merits =  100 mil via conversion and you can buy all ios and attuned ios with reward merits.  I just don't get how someone can say something hurts the economy and leave in the current fake supplies via market seeding. And thanks to the reward merits conversion nothing can ever cost more than 100 mil except hami/titan/hydra os.

 

I misread your post as I thought you were also advocating removing the merit price cap.  That would cause prices to skyrocket. 
 

Even so, removing the seeding makes no sense. That would help nothing. It would hurt the market in general by increasing the price of salvage.  It serves the same purpose as merit price caps. 

[Noyjitat]

18 minutes ago, Eclipse. said:

100 reward merits is worth a lot less than 100mil, depending on what you are using the merits on
 

Number of Merits
100
Item Name	Merit Cost	Number of Items	Item Value	Total Value	value/merit
Enhanc unslot x10	5.00	10.00	150,000.00	30,000,000.00	300,000.00
enhance convert x 30	10.00	30.00	100,000.00	30,000,000.00	300,000.00
Enhance Catalyst	20.00	1.00	2,500,000.00	12,500,000.00	125,000.00
Enhance Booster	25.00	5.00	1,500,000.00	30,000,000.00	300,000.00

I can't get on the game to doublecheck the item value, but that table is accurate as of Saturday, at least.
These prices also line up with where the market currently has purples and ATOs, roughly.

Edit: Unless you meant after using the merits to then convert trash IOs ala marketeering.

1,000,000 inf = 1 reward merit

 

 

This means you'll never pay more than 100 mil for any purple.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Noyjitat

[Grouchybeast]

Just now, Coyotedancer said:

 

Except a lot of people DO end up feeling like they have to, rather they enjoy that kind of thing or not... (For an example, see the post up-thread that stated basically "New player. Looked at Wents. Decided my first character had best be a farmer.")

To be fair, this is a problem primarily caused by new players not knowing the ludicrous difference in inf generated by playing as a level 50 character v. playing as a level 1.

 

Honestly, I'm not sure why inf drops scale so dramatically.  Perhaps the real solution to sticker shock is to change the rewards so that defeating a minion at 50 drops about the same inf as a minion at level 1, dividing everyone's existing inf by 1,000 (or whatever value is appropriate) and starting again.

[Bionic_Flea]

15 minutes ago, Eclipse. said:

Just make All Common/Rare/ultra-rare IOs share a pool the same way salvage does.
Gets rid of 1 step of the conversion proces, just have to do conversions within sets


That'll make mareketeering easier/non-existent -- and it totally will not  have any adverse effects at all 😅
 

Sorry, but that's wrong.  If all IOs were part of 1 giant pool the price of purples and ATOs and other good stuff would SKYROCKET.  Why?  Because no one would want to risk the chance of turning a hold purple into an uncommon sleep recipes.  So all the good stuff would be hoarded or sold for a higher price.  That would also lead to decreased supply.  With all IOs in the same pool you'd have to do a LOT on conversions to get something decent.

 

Oh . . . wait.  I may have misread this.  We already have IOs bundled by rarities.  I think perhaps you were joking.  If so, my bad.

Edited March 31, 2020 by Bionic_Flea

[Targren]

2 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Sorry, but that's wrong.  If all IOs were part of 1 giant pool the price of purples and ATOs and other good stuff would SKYROCKET.  Why?  Because no one would want to risk the chance of turning a hold purple into an uncommon sleep recipes.  So all the good stuff would be hoarded or sold for a higher price.  That would also lead to decreased supply.  With all IOs in the same pool you'd have to do a LOT on conversions to get something decent.

I took them as meaning each tier has its own pool, not sharing one big pool. 

[Coyotedancer]

7 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

To be fair, this is a problem primarily caused by new players not knowing the ludicrous difference in inf generated by playing as a level 50 character v. playing as a level 1.

 

Honestly, I'm not sure why inf drops scale so dramatically.  Perhaps the real solution to sticker shock is to change the rewards so that defeating a minion at 50 drops about the same inf as a minion at level 1, dividing everyone's existing inf by 1,000 (or whatever value is appropriate) and starting again.

If I had only heard that from newbies like the poster up-thread, that would be one thing... But some of the folks I run with on Everlasting are by no means "new" to the game and still grump about that kind of thing. "I didn't sign up to play City of Wentworths" isn't an uncommon sentiment. 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2020 by Coyotedancer

[Eclipse.]

5 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Sorry, but that's wrong.  If all IOs were part of 1 giant pool the price of purples and ATOs and other good stuff would SKYROCKET.  Why?  Because no one would want to risk the chance of turning a hold purple into an uncommon sleep recipes.  So all the good stuff would be hoarded or sold for a higher price.  That would also lead to decreased supply.  With all IOs in the same pool you'd have to do a LOT on conversions to get something decent.

1.) I was being a sarcastic ass in the first place.
2.) You misunderstand what the suggestion was for.

Currently All white salvage is put in a "white salvage" pool, all yellow is put in a "yellow salvage" poo, orange in orange, etc.
This means all white salvage has the same price as other white salvage.
All yellow salvage has the same as other yellow, etc.

Currently it works the same way for IO levels & the non-level IOS. If you post a level 20 Scirocco's Dervish it can be purchased as a leveless or even level 50 Scirocco's Dervish, transparent to the purchaser/seller.

I was suggesting to do the same thing for IOs (again, see point 1) as salvage based on color (rarity)
So if you post a Level 10 Bone Snap acc/dam, someone could buy a Crushing Impact Dam/Recharge and you'd get the sale if you were the lowest price.

Aain, SEE POINT 1

Edited March 31, 2020 by Eclipse.