Discussion: Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 hours ago, Lines said:

Procs seem higher than they were and there are a few sets that have gone up, like Basilisk's Gaze. (I guess the 4-set recharge bonus is desiriable, but I don't see the current price point sticking). But mostly things have dropped.

Please talk more about this.  A few months ago, BG were in the 3-5mm range.  I can now literally buy all I want for under 2mm.  

 

I can pretty much do this for any set you want to talk about. 

 

My point being, prices are lower.  In my opinion, not because supply is higher (which is certainly isn't), but because demand is much much lower.

[Lines]

2 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Please talk more about this.  A few months ago, BG were in the 3-5mm range.  I can now literally buy all I want for under 2mm.  

 

I can pretty much do this for any set you want to talk about. 

 

My point being, prices are lower.  In my opinion, not because supply is higher (which is certainly isn't), but because demand is much much lower.

 

Since you asked, this is what I'm seeing at the moment from a couple of them:

 

The others are similar with ~5mil and some lowballs thrown in. The proc is at 1.5-2mil, but I've seen it lower recently. It's a little bit wild. I'm sure a lowball bid would pick one up in a reasonable amount of time, but I tried selling one for 2mil and got 4mil.

 

As I said, though, I really don't think the price will hang that high. It's an odd set to be so exceptional, unless I'm missing something.

[Oubliette_Red]

I lowball bid everything. I've scores sweet deals for under 500 inf, not 500k, but 500 inf.

 

[Parabola]

I think Basilisk's Gaze is in that category with Cloud Senses and a couple of others in that they are lower level but still very sought after. The supply is limited due to them being below the normal ranges used for bulk conversion and so the price stays high.

[Lines]

1 minute ago, parabola said:

I think Basilisk's Gaze is in that category with Cloud Senses and a couple of others in that they are lower level but still very sought after. The supply is limited due to them being below the normal ranges used for bulk conversion and so the price stays high.

You're right, that does make sense.

[Dazl]

18 hours ago, Saikochoro said:

You are correct. Central banks can manipulate the economy to certain degrees by using various methods. However, you are correct in that economic rules apply even when there isn’t a central bank to manipulate behaviors. 
 

I like to think of it this way:

 

Say a barter system was in place and there was no central bank. Let’s say potatoes are a commonly traded commodity.  Let’s also say there are 10 farmers who grow potatoes that are traded in a given community.  There will be some sort of equilibrium that is reached. The potatoes value will reflect the equilibrium of supply and demand and also the level of trust that the community in general has in the potato being universally desired. This will happen even without a government proclaiming potatoes legal tender And trades running through a banking system. 
 

Now let’s say 10 new farmers come and start growing potatoes. All of a sudden there is double the amount of potatoes available in the bartering community. Do you think the value of a single potato will increase, decrease, or stay the same if there are no other changes? 
 

It will decrease because there are more available.  It is human nature to devalue something when it becomes less scarce. People will start demanding 5 potatoes for  a 2x4 beam instead of 3 purely by knowing there are more potatoes in the system. It doesn’t even matter if the person holding the potatoes has more or less than they did before the new farmers showed up. It is a function of the overall supply of potatoes in the bartering community. All of this is done without a central bank. It is just human behavior that is reflected in economic principles. 

This is true, again in the real world. The potato and other commodities are tangible, you can hold them in your hand and see the physical evidence that they exist. A digital game currency where only the devs know how much is in circulation, is quite a bit different.

[AboveTheChemist]

On 7/21/2020 at 11:14 AM, Lines said:

Just out of curiosity, I don't suppose you have an estimated income difference as a percentage from farming?

I've completed my testing (using a slightly modified version of Luminara's posted method) and the short answer is that it looks like potential inf earned from farming is approximately 20% lower as a result of the 'Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence' change.

 

I've included a screenshot of my summary spreadsheet with the results of the 16 individual farming runs, along with the summary stats at the bottom.

 

It seems clear that the biggest variability in inf is due to the quality and quantity of marketable recipe drops, including those that can be crafted for profit. Otherwise, I'll let others draw their own conclusions from these numbers.

 

EDIT: I meant to include my drops tabulation as well, I've included that screenshot below.

 

If you want my detailed methodology, I've included it as spoilered text below.

 

Spoiler

I'll begin by noting that this was NOT an investigation into the inf difference resulting from the two exploits that were removed, namely the "Double Inf While Exemplared" exploit and the "Patrol XP" exploit, as those were beyond the scope of what I wanted to study.

 

A run is defined as completion of the five missions that comprise the Bloody Rainbow Fire Farm by Brigg, AE arc ID 125.

 

Prior to each run, I verified that salvage was empty (not including any non-transferable salvage such as incarnate salvage), recipes were empty, enhancements were empty, and total inf was 0. I emailed myself the daily sums of inf and stored it on an alt. A pre-run screenshot was taken that included the above information as well as the current level and XP amount. A second post-run screenshot was taken showing the amount of enhancement, recipe, and salvage drops, as well as the raw inf gained and the current level and XP amount.

 

I modified Luminara's suggested method slightly. Raw inf (A), enhancement drops (B), salvage drops (C), and XP (F) were tallied as Luminara suggested. Salvage drops included common, uncommon, rare, and special salvage (enhancement catalysts and enhancement converters).

 

Recipes were sold via two methods. Common IO recipes and set recipes whose market value appeared to be lower than vendor value were sold to a vendor. Set recipes whose market value was greater than vendor value were sold in the auction house (with the exception of the recipes that were crafted, detailed below). The total inf from both vendor and market sales was combined into a single sum, representing categories D and E from Luminara's suggested method.

 

Some set recipes, including very rare (purple), PvP, and certain uncommon/rare set IO recipes (such as LoTG), were crafted into the respective enhancement if the value of that enhancement was substantially greater than the value of the recipe itself. My general rule of thumb was that if I felt I could earn at least 2 million more inf by crafting the recipe and selling the enhancement, versus just selling the recipe, then I crafted it. I included the crafting cost and any salvage cost in this consideration. If a recipe required salvage that I had not obtained on that day's run, then I purchased it from the auction house. Inf income from crafted enhancements was tabulated separately.

 

Finally, I found it necessary to create a catch-all 'Other' category, to capure any miscellaneous expenses. As it turned out, the only expenses that ended up in this category were relist fees. I had a few small relist fees early on as I was feeling out some unfamiliar territory in the market, and later on I got burned by some misleading information in the 'Last 5 sales' window for a LoTG recipe.

 

I tallied the total inf excluding XP, as well as the total inf including XP, and the percent difference is: 1 - (total without XP / total with XP).

 

I should also note that I did a 'warmup run' on 21-July to test my method, to burn up the maxed out Patrol XP I had accumulated, and to burn up any day job benefits that might skew the numbers. This run was NOT included in the totals.

 

Edited August 11, 2020 by AboveTheChemist
add drops tabulation, edit table heading for clarity

[Bionic_Flea]

Nice!  Thanks for sharing that.  I'm impressed at how consistent your Raw Inf number is.

[Lines]

I pretty clearly asked for an estimate. Not a science project!

 

Staggering work. Thank you for putting the time in there and sharing it.

[Saikochoro]

On 8/5/2020 at 9:05 AM, Lines said:

 

Since you asked, this is what I'm seeing at the moment from a couple of them:

 

The others are similar with ~5mil and some lowballs thrown in. The proc is at 1.5-2mil, but I've seen it lower recently. It's a little bit wild. I'm sure a lowball bid would pick one up in a reasonable amount of time, but I tried selling one for 2mil and got 4mil.

 

As I said, though, I really don't think the price will hang that high. It's an odd set to be so exceptional, unless I'm missing something.

I’ve bought and sold basilisks gaze enhancements several times in the last couple week. 
 

I never paid more than 2.5m for a buy now price. I would list at 2m and it would usually take 12-24 hours to sell for usually 2-2.5m.  The highest I got for one was like 2.7m. 
 

I think a lot of it depends on time of day. 

[AboveTheChemist]

12 minutes ago, Lines said:

I pretty clearly asked for an estimate. Not a science project!

Haha, it was quite the lucrative science project (pushing 1B inf if I include my 'warmup run' on 21-July). I'd still consider this just an estimate though. As Luminara originally noted, a lot of runs would be needed to even out the variability.

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

I've completed my testing (using a slightly modified version of Luminara's posted method) and the short answer is that it looks like potential inf earned from farming is approximately 20% lower as a result of the 'Disabling XP No Longer Increases Influence' change.

 

I've included a screenshot of my summary spreadsheet with the results of the 16 individual farming runs, along with the summary stats at the bottom.

 

It seems clear that the biggest variability in inf is due to the quality and quantity of marketable recipe drops, including those that can be crafted for profit. Otherwise, I'll let others draw their own conclusions from these numbers.

 

The first conclusion we can reach is that the misconception of "double inf*" has been proven to be just that, misconception.  Worst case, according to your data, is a ~25% income differential, presuming atrocious drop luck, whereas luckier farmers are experiencing only ~11% less raw income than before the change.  ~20% average might sting, but it's a very long way from 50%, and considering the rate of gain, not the catastrophic situation that has been portrayed by some.

 

The second conclusion I can draw is that 3 extra runs would've placed you at the same income you could've gained before the change.  I expect a similar situation for all farming approaches, so the time invested is a relevant factor.  If you happen to have an average run time for your tests, that would let us know approximately how much extra time farmers have had to invest to compensate for the change.  As an example, if your average run time were 30 minutes, then that would equate to an additional 5 minutes and 37.5 seconds of farming every day in order to match your previous income.  If your runs were as long as 60 minutes, an additional 11 minutes and 17 seconds daily would make up the difference.  Et cetera.

 

The third conclusion is that there's some headroom for some farmers.  The ones who vendor or sell everything for minimum price, never craft, etc., can recoup some of the lost 20%.  Even using your methodology, @AboveTheChemist, there could be some additional income to be garnered.  Crafting every set IO recipe and dedicating even one merit to potentially enhance the value could net a sizable income increase.  But that's minutia, and I certainly don't expect you to replicate this test with a new methodology.  You've done enough to give us some serious discussion points, and your work is greatly appreciated.

 

❤️

 

That's either a heart, or an upside-down bloody scrotum, whichever you like more, and it's all yours.  🙂

[AboveTheChemist]

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

If you happen to have an average run time for your tests

I do! I didn't include it above because I figured the inf gain would be the same on a run whether it took 20 minutes or 45 minutes so I thought that including the time might overly complicate things. That being said, my average time was 41 minutes. Early on it was in the high 40's but over time I got more efficient and at the end I was regularly in the high 30's.

 

There is definitely some headroom there, I think. I was trying to strike a balance between 'sell everything for 1 inf' and 'squeeze every drop of inf out'. I was also trying to be mindful of how much time I spent processing the drops into inf. I probably spent 20-25 minutes on post-processing, and I could likely have shaved some time off that with some effort. I feel like I captured the bulk of the inf that was there for the taking, but with a bit more effort, and especially throwing some converters into the mix, there's definitely more inf there for the taking.

 

I will treasure my scro heart always!

[arcane]

I still don’t understand how the significantly reduced sale price of recipes is being accounted for in the income comparison analysis. Although, I do understand that’s effectively mitigated by the reduced purchase price of items you actually need. Thanks for giving us some real data though.

[AboveTheChemist]

1 hour ago, arcaneholocaust said:

I still don’t understand how the significantly reduced sale price of recipes is being accounted for in the income comparison analysis.

If you are willing to share your data with regard to the differing sales prices, I would be more than happy to account for that in my estimate.

 

As noted above, the total inf from recipes is a combination of vendored recipes and recipes sold on the AH. Of the 77.2 million inf made from all recipe sales, 56.6 million inf (roughly 73%) came from vendored recipes, and 20.6 million inf (roughly 27%) came from recipes sold on the AH. Looking at that last number a bit more closely, 14.4 million of that 20.6 million from recipes sold on the AH came from one transaction, which was a purple recipe I sold on the AH on 24-July. Excluding that outlier, the overall percentages break out closer to 90% from vendored recipes, and 10% from recipes sold on the AH.

 

I mention this for two reasons. The first is that it highlights the advantage of including more (many more, preferably) runs, to help even out the variability. The second is that total inf from recipes sold on the AH (20.6 million) is a relatively small contribution to the total inf earned (819.6 million), and as such I would not expect different sales prices to have a drastic impact on the final percentage I reported. Again, though, I am happy to look into it if you can provide more detailed information regarding how much prices have changed.

[arcane]

I, ofc, have no data. Only general ideas of what things used to cost vs now. Just pointing out that we have no real means of doing the full calculation.

[Luminara]

14 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

I figured the inf gain would be the same on a run whether it took 20 minutes or 45 minutes

 

That's what I expect as well.  Every farmer will have his/her own approach to farming, but that approach will be a routine, and as such, have a generally non-variable run time which should generate an estimable income rate in the same way, so the math will be applicable across the board.

 

14 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

my average time was 41 minutes

 

14 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

I probably spent 20-25 minutes on post-processing

 

Then let's set the average time at 1 hour.  Time spent collecting booty after the run is still time spent.  11 minutes and 17 seconds of extra run time per hour to achieve pre-change daily income.

 

Breaking that down further, on a 5 map run, each map required 8 minutes and 12 seconds average time to complete.  A single extra map would be sufficient to accomplish the same goal, leaving a few minutes afterward to manage sales.

 

So we now know that "double inf" was functionally ~20% extra inf, and that the additional time required to make up the difference is comparatively minimal, ~11 minutes of additional time per hour spent farming.

[AboveTheChemist]

13 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

Just pointing out that we have no real means of doing the full calculation.

Quite true, and I hope it's clear that my results are just an approximation. I'd still be willing to explore it using estimated price differences (i.e. recipes are now worth X% of their pre-change value). Alternately, there is enough information in my previous post and my results post from yesterday for anyone to be able to look into the matter themselves. I am also more than willing to share my spreadsheet, and even my screenshots and logs, if anyone wants to investigate further.

[Luminara]

24 minutes ago, arcaneholocaust said:

I, ofc, have no data. Only general ideas of what things used to cost vs now. Just pointing out that we have no real means of doing the full calculation.

 

Dig up the pre-change recipe sales data.  It's going to be scattered among posts, but shouldn't be difficult to collate if you're serious about knowing what the difference is (check the market sub-forum).  Take the average value of each rarity tier (uncommon, rare, very rare, etc.) in a recipe category (ranged damage, universal travel, accurate tohit debuff, etc.), multiply it by the average drop rate, then multiply the result by the average number of drops per run shown in @AboveTheChemist's data dump.  That will give you an estimated income value of any recipe rarity in a category before the change.  Then do the same math with current sales prices to determine the current income value of the same recipes.  Compare the pre-change total to the post-change total and you have your answer.

 

It won't be as precise as actual records of each recipe's sale price over the last six months, but it will be accurate enough.  It's worth noting, though, that crafted enhancements contribute an order of magnitude more income value in the above data, so it may be better to do the math for crafted enhancements, rather than raw recipes.

[tidge]

I would take non-generic IO recipes out of consideration for 'farming inf'. I agree that crafting and converting (at least uncommons) will increase Inf, but as that relies on the market I feel that those players who see the Farm and the Market as non-intersecting are unlikely to factor any aspect of the Market into their Inf paychecks.

 

The analysis does drive home the point about NOT turning off common recipes at lvl 50. If nothing else, vendoring those recipes will pay for crafting fees for uncommon recipes.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, tidge said:

I would take non-generic IO recipes out of consideration for 'farming inf'. I agree that crafting and converting (at least uncommons) will increase Inf, but as that relies on the market I feel that those players who see the Farm and the Market as non-intersecting are unlikely to factor any aspect of the Market into their Inf paychecks.

 

Every set IO is potentially worth whatever the highest selling IO of comparable level range happens to be at any given moment.  Ignoring the existence of that potential revenue is certainly a choice individual players can make, but it's not something which can be dismissed in an examination of income sources and their relation to any given activity.  It's relevant to the overall community, even if it isn't for some players.

[Yomo Kimyata]

16 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

Every set IO is potentially worth whatever the highest selling IO of comparable level range happens to be at any given moment.  Ignoring the existence of that potential revenue is certainly a choice individual players can make, but it's not something which can be dismissed in an examination of income sources and their relation to any given activity.  It's relevant to the overall community, even if it isn't for some players.

I would probably apply a heuristic that gives a consistent, if not completely accurate, approximation.  For example, I would probably count every yellow recipe as 2mm value added (crafted and converted to something sellable), every white recipe as 100k (vendor), every orange as 10k (vendor).  That probably underestimates true value, but not drastically so.  The main variability would be in the rare recipes that have 1mm+ bids outstanding, and there aren't a lot of them.

[EmmySky]

For myself, I would factor all recipe and salvage drops at vendor prices as they are guaranteed, whereas the AH prices fluctuate.  It would most likely give a lower standard but offer the option of 'you can maximize profits by marketeering'.

 

I usually vendor white drops and AH yellow, orange and purple.  But to try to nail an average to that, well I guess I dont pay enough attention or keep good records.  Drops are too random and AH prices are too flexible to really depend on (for my own extremely general calculations).  I do not craft or convert so I save that amount of time for more face punching.

 

Math and I dont get along, so that's also a factor.

 

I am so glad this discussion has finally returned some useful insight and has stopped being a mud throwing contest.  Thank you all for that 😀

Edited August 13, 2020 by EmmySky

[AboveTheChemist]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I would probably apply a heuristic that gives a consistent, if not completely accurate, approximation.

 

1 hour ago, EmmySky said:

For myself, I would factor all recipe and salvage drops at vendor prices as they are guaranteed, whereas the AH prices fluctuate.

I think there is enough information in my results posts to allow the pursuit of either/both of these lines of inquiry. If not, I am more than happy to share my spreadsheet, screenshots, and/or logs with anyone interested in utilizing a different approach to look at the numbers.

 

Edit to add that if I wasn't clear previously, I am not a regular farmer. My testing above was the first time my fire farmer had set foot in AE since about last September, shortly after I got him to 50. My approach to selling/crafting seemed reasonable to me but I honestly have no idea how well it represents a typical farmer's approach. That's why I encourage anyone who is interested to take my data and apply their own approach.

Edited August 13, 2020 by AboveTheChemist
added clarification

[Coyotedancer]

1 hour ago, EmmySky said:

For myself, I would factor all recipe and salvage drops at vendor prices as they are guaranteed, whereas the AH prices fluctuate.  It would most likely give a lower standard but offer the option of 'you can maximize profits by marketeering'.

 

I usually vendor white drops and AH yellow, orange and purple.  But to try to nail an average to that, well I guess I dont pay enough attention or keep good records.  Drops are too random and AH prices are too flexible to really depend on (for my own extremely general calculations).  I do not craft or convert so I save that amount of time for more face punching.

 

Math and I dont get along, so that's also a factor.

 

I am so glad this discussion has finally returned some useful insight and has stopped being a mud throwing contest.  Thank you all for that 😀

 

That's pretty much what I do, too... Vendor the common IO recipes. Horde the PvPs and purples for my own crew. Toss all the salvage bits, uncommon and rare recipes on the AH. (I honestly do consider "keeping the AH recipe/salvage supply healthy" to be a big part of a farmer's role in the CoH Ecosystem. It's one of the more important, and probably most beneficial, side-effects of what we do.)

 

I don't do the build-and-convert marketeering thing at all with my farming drops, even though there's more profit to be had in it.

I got into farming in the first place so that I wouldn't HAVE to do any of that. 

 

I'll just keep tossing the stacks of spare recipes out there for you guys to buy and convert. Call it "sharing the harvest" or something. XD

 

Anyway, yeah. It's interesting to see other people's numbers as a comparison to my own observations... even though my own returns don't include any potential crafting or conversion-based profits.

 

 

 

Edited August 13, 2020 by Coyotedancer