Reinstate 2x influence at 50

[Troo]

32 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Why does a casual player *need* purples? Purples are usually terrible and only obtained to min max recharge. There are other sets and much cheaper that deliver half the recharge and still good enough

There is nothing wrong with a player who does not play as much wanting. Why wouldn't they?

 

The issue is expecting something for nothing or the perception that some shiny is a requirement to have a great build.

 

Edited May 25, 2020 by Troo

[Troo]

7 minutes ago, Generator said:

I'm not disputing that but could you break down where the money comes from there?  Also, why does the Abyss one have a higher yield?

 

Thanks.

Rewards such as reward merits used to acquire desired shiny or commonly traded items such as Enhancement Converters.

 

X reward merits = X converters = X $$

 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Special_Salvage

Edited May 25, 2020 by Troo

[Generator]

28 minutes ago, Troo said:

Rewards such as reward merits used to acquire desired shiny or commonly traded items such as Enhancement Converters.

 

X reward merits = X converters = X $$

 

https://hcwiki.cityofheroes.dev/wiki/Special_Salvage

Sure, I get the general case, I do that all the time myself.  But those numbers sounded a little high, is all.

[skoryy]

This thread again?

 

I got all four purple sets I needed to finish up my perma-PA build in around a month of casual playing.  Prices on the AH have dropped since the patch.

 

Farm, TF, MSR, PI, what have you. Just play the game and you'll get the goods.

[Clave Dark 5]

The only farming  I do on any kind of a regular basis is MSR, and that's usually maybe twice a week?  I hate Wenworthing, that's jut dull.  Yet, all those toon sin my sig have builds with IOs, some even have some purples.  Just play and everything will come your way eventually, plus you'll find you were playing all along without those things too.  The frills on your character are fun, but not as fun as the character themselves; that stuff's just frills.

[tidge]

8 hours ago, FullEclipse said:

Please give me back the light at the end of the tunnel reinstate double xp at 50.

[Omega-202]

Run TFs for merits.  Cash in merits for purples.  Tin/pex + Yin can be speed run in about 1.5 hours for 100 merits.   

 

There's no excuse for not being able to afford purples, but even so, a build that runs all purps and winters isnt a good build.  

[Glowman]

I wonder if there would be a way to just disable double inf for AE missions? That would mostly fix the farming problem and allow toons to make extra money doing missions.

[MunkiLord]

I think coming up with different ideas would be a more productive since I don't see the HC team making the requested change.

[Greycat]

I feel one of my characters needs to make an appearance here.

 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Greycat

[Sailboat]

I'm going to take sort of the opposite tack here.  If you're unable to reach your financial goals under the current patch, I don't feel that revoking said patch will do enough to supply everything you need/want.  It would only less-than-double (since you're not always running at 50) your cashflow.  And much like zero-times-two is zero, "grossly inadequate" times less-than-two is still inadequate.

 

Really,  if you're not making enough now, revoking won't help all that much.

[CaptainLupis]

 

21 minutes ago, Sailboat said:

I'm going to take sort of the opposite tack here.  If you're unable to reach your financial goals under the current patch, I don't feel that revoking said patch will do enough to supply everything you need/want.  It would only less-than-double (since you're not always running at 50) your cashflow.  And much like zero-times-two is zero, "grossly inadequate" times less-than-two is still inadequate.

 

Really,  if you're not making enough now, revoking won't help all that much.

I was just about to post something very similar, but you saved me the time.

 

There would also be the massive trade off of not getting veteran levels, meaning that gaining incarnate powers would be significantly harder for a casual player if they disable xp gain. Personally I think they have the potential to be far more useful for many builds than purples would ever be. I have numerous 50s and only 1, my StJ/SR stalker, has multiple purple sets, (I wanted perma hasten on him) the others just don't need them.

[TinyBolt]

My objection to the double inf after 50 is with the additional end game content and the draw of being able to earn incarnate awards with regular gameplay...there's so many people out there with 50's with multiple vet levels. I barely touch my one IO'd out 50 and she's got 14+ vet levels already and I have no intention of not continuing to play her. Double inf after 50 would create enormous inflation above and beyond what we already have.

 

I really wish Homecoming would add more inf sinks to the game beyond the market--as that is passing money around, not removing it from the system.

[CaptainLupis]

12 minutes ago, TinyBolt said:

My objection to the double inf after 50 is with the additional end game content and the draw of being able to earn incarnate awards with regular gameplay...there's so many people out there with 50's with multiple vet levels. I barely touch my one IO'd out 50 and she's got 14+ vet levels already and I have no intention of not continuing to play her. Double inf after 50 would create enormous inflation above and beyond what we already have.

 

I really wish Homecoming would add more inf sinks to the game beyond the market--as that is passing money around, not removing it from the system.

It's removing 10% of it.

[Biff Pow]

Keep your xp on, the Incarnate powers are just as powerful as purples (or moreso) and easier to consistently work towards than random drops and an ever-changing market.

[DSorrow]

13 hours ago, FullEclipse said:

So because I'm a casual player I cant want the best the game has to offer? 

You can want it, but if you don't want to put in the time to learn marketeering or other efficient money making methods let alone putting in the time actually doing those methods, the better question is, are you entitled to the best items the game has to offer? While I think your whole argument is baseless, CoH does actually allow you to get a full set of uber level gear at a very reasonable and deterministic time investment and I'll show you why.

 

Consider that a character has 93 slots to fill (24 powers + Health / Stamina + 67 slots) with set IOs. Even if we assume the most outrageous investment of you wanting to have a purple / ATO / winter IO in every single slot, you'd need 9300 merits or roughly 9300 minutes of average merit yielding content (which award you roughly 1 merit / minute) coming in at 155 hours. Now because this slotting scheme is completely unrealistic given that not all powers can even take those enhancements, let's say you want to fill half of your powers with those things and the rest with rare IOs in which case you'll need just under 7000 merits to acquire everything or 116 hours.

 

Now keep in mind, this 116 hours is just counting the merits from average merit yielding content, such as most TFs. Once you start adding in more efficient means of getting merits (Apex / Tin Mage / Hami), influence drops, random drops, level up merits, etc., I'd be surprised if it took you much more than 60 hours of just playing the game. When you look at just about any other MMO out there, 60 hours for a full uber build is a ridiculously reasonable time investment especially when you factor in that it's just doing basically whatever you want, not farming or grinding or requiring end game attendance.

[Digirium]

14 hours ago, FullEclipse said:

As a casual player I no longer have anyway to afford the 100+Million influence purple sets.  I play casually so I am not a farmer by any stretch of the imagination.  If I cannot make the money to afford the best IOs in the game then I cannot fully enjoy the game and its end game content, task forces etc.  I knew that once I hit 50 I could switch off xp and gain double influence in all the missions I did, there was at least a light at the end of the tunnel and one day I would be able to afford those high end IOs.  I knew there were farmers stock piling influence and quite frankly I didnt care. The market still seems the same today as it was back then.  I as a casual player was thinking of making a farmer and spending a couple hours here and there raising the funds for the rest of my toons.  I have what 1000 character slots for this game and now no way to see them reach the pinnacle of their performance.  I don't have the time or desire to spend months and months and months trying to get a toon IO'ed out once he hits 50.  I say let the farmers farm if that is how they want to play the game. The market seems no better or worse to be honest.  Please give me back the light at the end of the tunnel reinstate double xp at 50.

Yup, you're right - the ability to turn of XP and accept inf instead ought to be re-enabled. It's removal was a mistake and hurt casual players the most. It's intended target, farmers, shrugged their shoulders adapted and moved on getting smarter with how to use the AH in the process. Homecoming massively over-reached in their "April Fools Day" patch.

[Carnifax]

5 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

, a build that runs all purps and winters isnt a good build.  

This. Lots of people chase Purps and Winters when in fact they may not even be the best option for a character. Certainly they aren't the most cost effective. 

 

None of my builds use them (other than an odd smattering of purple procs as a nod towards "Final Build") and all of them achieve their goals. Most of my 50s absolutely cream the end game despite a lack of purples and Winters sets. 

[Sovera]

9 hours ago, Generator said:

I'm not disputing that but could you break down where the money comes from there?  Also, why does the Abyss one have a higher yield?

 

Thanks.

A Tinpex (actually two TFs despite being grouped as one) yield 80 merits and takes about 40 minutes or less to run both. A double Hami grants 120 merits if the merit reward is picked twice and takes about half an hour total. Abyss Hami is the same and does not share the cooldown on rewards with Hive's Hami.

 

So that's 320 merits which even at 80k per converts makes for about 76 million for a bit less than two hours. And those two hours don't need to be frantically done back to back without a pause.

 

And that's on one character. Run on multiples if need be. Boring running the same content everyday? Geez louise, this is advice for someone who wants to spend hours running farms.

[Blastit]

1 hour ago, Digirium said:

Yup, you're right - the ability to turn of XP and accept inf instead ought to be re-enabled. It's removal was a mistake and hurt casual players the most. It's intended target, farmers, shrugged their shoulders adapted and moved on getting smarter with how to use the AH in the process. Homecoming massively over-reached in their "April Fools Day" patch.

If they're using the AH more then that should remove more inf from the system, though. Are farmers still creating as much inf with new methods?

[Turric]

1 hour ago, Carnifax said:

This. Lots of people chase Purps and Winters when in fact they may not even be the best option for a character. Certainly they aren't the most cost effective. 

 

None of my builds use them (other than an odd smattering of purple procs as a nod towards "Final Build") and all of them achieve their goals. Most of my 50s absolutely cream the end game despite a lack of purples and Winters sets. 

This. As someone stated earlier in this thread, the purples are nice for 1) chasing the recharge maximization, 2) capping your fire/cold resists. Otherwise, I would rather have Touch of Death in a melee power that gives me the +3.75% S/L resistance, +3.75% melee defense and +2.5% to damage. For me, those have always been more useful in a build. Don't get me wrong, the bonuses to accuracy and recovery are very nice, but all things being equal, I simply do not find them to be an efficient use IN COMBINATION with the other bonuses and considering the cost involved. I have 21 level 50s, all twinked out, and only my dominator and warshade utilize a purple set (only a single set at that) because I was chasing the recharge phantom. I consider myself a casual player. I do AE farms for influence here and there, but the majority of my money comes from doing task forces and similar content.

[Neiska]

Speaking from just my own server (Everlasting) the current market is... weird. And doubling INF at 50 would only increase the problem I think.

 

I am no expert market flipper, but to my inexpert eye the supply exceeds the demand. People are still making alts sure, but the inital rush of everyone making lots of characters seems to have slown down. Just this weekend yellow salvage seels for just around 1k each, rare for 500,000 or so. Yellow recipies can be anywhere from 100 to a few million and often sell for more than Rare recipies. Rare recipies are around 1k to a few million. The value of purples has come way down, only a select few like winters are still over the 10-20 mil mark. The majority of even purples are below 10 mil each. Compaired to a year ago this is almost half what they used to cost.

 

As I said I am no expert, but increasing the rate of money gains would only increase inflative price. There might be a brief peroid as everyone rushes the market to make quick buys, but in a week or so everything would have just increased in price, and no real lasting effect or market change would be seen.

 

I am no expert farmer either, but I usually get around 5-8 mil per map. Perhaps more depending on drops. Enchancers and Catalysts are still good to sell, for around 80k and 2.5 mil respectively. I could use those to turn yellows/rares into purples, but I think it might not be worth the time as I already have some purples for sale that havent sold, and the price keeps going down. I am fine with the price dropping personally, but I think its a better call for me personally to sell enchancers and catalysts rather than gamble on making a big sale on the purples. I know thats how the experts do it, and thats great. Its just not for me. I would rather make a bit here or there and go on about my day.

 

I just dont think doubling money would really do much, except add another zero or two to everything - prices, everyones bank account, etc. You will still have to farm, still have to earn stuff, you suddenly wouldnt find yourself among the wealthy elite and able to fully outfit each character with only 10 minutes of map running. I make plenty of money for my time, even if I get a ring of bad drops and not find very much. I can usually afford any 6 pc set I want within 8-10 maps, and often in fewer than those. And I am fine with the time required/investment required for do that. For my personal gameplay time, its a good pace of time vs reward. 

 

And honestly, I think its a good thing to have goals, objectives, and things to work for. This includes IO sets and gearing out your character. But if you think grinding a few maps to get IO sets is bad, just wait until you start grinding Incarnate materials. Thats the real grind to me.

 

There is such a thing as "too" easy or "too" quick to get. For arguement sake let us say all vendors were suddenly like the p2w vendors. With a few clicks you can buy anything, no game currancy required. I think there would be an initial rush of characters as people wanted to try stuff, but in a few months there would be no farms, people wouldnt be running merit TFs, there would be few people around helping people level up, running PI, contact, tip, or radio/newspaper missions. And I suspect the player numbers would dip, and we would find ourselves with fewer and fewer people to play and roleplay with. These are the extremes of course, but my point here is that having things to work/grind/earn, is a good thing for the game longevity, the players and, the game economy.

 

Just my two cents. Dont agree with the "make more money" train of thought.

[Without_Pause]

19 hours ago, FullEclipse said:

As a casual player I no longer have anyway to afford the 100+Million influence purple sets.  I play casually so I am not a farmer by any stretch of the imagination.  If I cannot make the money to afford the best IOs in the game then I cannot fully enjoy the game and its end game content, task forces etc.  I knew that once I hit 50 I could switch off xp and gain double influence in all the missions I did, there was at least a light at the end of the tunnel and one day I would be able to afford those high end IOs.  I knew there were farmers stock piling influence and quite frankly I didnt care. The market still seems the same today as it was back then.  I as a casual player was thinking of making a farmer and spending a couple hours here and there raising the funds for the rest of my toons.  I have what 1000 character slots for this game and now no way to see them reach the pinnacle of their performance.  I don't have the time or desire to spend months and months and months trying to get a toon IO'ed out once he hits 50.  I say let the farmers farm if that is how they want to play the game. The market seems no better or worse to be honest.  Please give me back the light at the end of the tunnel reinstate double xp at 50.

I have for some time come up with the idea that material things cost money, time, and space. This being a digital game, space isn't really a factor here. If you want to play casual, then yes, it will take more time to reach min/max slotting. If you want to talk about 1,000 slots per server then yes, it is going to take a really freaking long time if you want to create a mass of characters. You want a pimped out character as a casual? Then play that character and only that character until you get what you want. Anytime you make a new alt means you instantly added to the time it will take either build to get to it's final stage. I highly doubt there are many min/maxers who have all that many builds pimped out. I saw one thread in the market section and people with billions of currency said they have at most 6-7 characters with completed builds. This means you as a casual might look for 2-3 at most. I play as a casual by default based on how many breaks I take from the game. All of my characters have common IOs and my farmer sits at 200+ million influ, and I know enough to dabble in the market. Yep, that's it. I do have over 20+ builds and have deleted at least that any. Someday, sure. I would like to drop IO sets on a build, but I still enjoy the game even with how my characters are currently are slotted, and I'm more inclined to hammer out Incarnate powers first. Doing so isn't cheap either. Sure, if I like a character enough to slot out everything T4 and still want to play it, I'll look into it at that point. Until then, (rolls a new alt)

 

FYI, back on live I played for 8 years. I had multiple characters with over a billion influ. No IO sets let alone purples. I enjoyed the game enough to play for that long while running a SG. I also gained the vast majority of my wealth via the market since I had 40+ alts across various servers and again, that's not counting the ones I deleted. 

[Luminara]

For comparison and discussion, consider the inflationary control methodology of other games.

 

Many begin with a specific currency, such as gold coins, but over time, have to add currencies of increasing value because there are neither currency sinks nor developer-implemented inflation controls.  Gold is replaced by platinum.  Platinum is replaced by mithril.  Mithril is replaced by adamantite.  Adamantite is replaced by diamonds.  Et cetera.  This succession of currency goes on and on and on, and has a tremendous restrictive influence on the game.  New players begin at an enormous disadvantage, earning gold when the primary currency has devalued it to a tiny fraction of its original value, making it overwhelmingly difficult to afford even minor upgrade items.  New player influx declines, old players move on, and the game gradually dwindles to a (generally unsustainable) minimum of hardcore fans.

 

Some games use a base currency across all content, like Co*, but decouple progression from said currency.  Effectively, that currency has little utility or value, beyond collecting things for the sake of completeness.  When inflation inevitably spins out of control, nothing is done because it has no actual impact on progression, leading to a "nothing matters but stats" mentality.  Since currency becomes increasingly irrelevant as leveling continues, fewer and fewer people bother to utilize it.  The existing market, if there is one, becomes stagnant, underused and under-supplied with overpriced items.  And the offered temporary boost items, "pots", or collectables, such as costume options, are typically grossly overpriced in an effort to give the currency some value, but this also makes them difficult for newer players to acquire.  The decay spiral mimics that of escalating currency games.  People leave, fewer people enter, game dies a slow, torturous death.

 

Then there are the games which attempt to control inflation by introducing a new and different currency with every content update, and, consequently, making all previous currencies obsolete.  In essence, the economy is almost totally reset to base with every content update.  It does control inflation to a greater degree than other methods, but players who have passed older content, even recently released, are reluctant to return to it because they receive little or nothing in return for their investment of time.  Those who are at the threshold of said content find it difficult to progress, due to the lack of other players.  This method actively discourages players from revisiting content.  It devalues the content itself, through the removal of useful currency.  Inflation is controlled, but there is little or no life in the game below the most recent content.  New players are discouraged not only by the lack of activity at sub-max levels, but also by the continually shifting currency and inability to plan out a progression path and prepare for it by buying things ahead of time.

 

Worst of all is the micro-transaction approach, in which in-game currency is intentionally difficult to acquire without a credit or debit card, items are priced in such a way as to make them extremely tedious to acquire without paying real money, and progression itself is frequently tied to your bank account.

 

Co*, in its final days as a retail product, was guilty of some of these mistakes.  Our currency became so devalued that we had to have content-specific currency (merits) to bypass the inf* limit, and the subscription-based model was changed to micro-transactions (for which I sincerely hope the initatior of that burns in the deepest pits of Hell).  But the HC team takes a different approach.  Micro-transactions have been changed to use in-game currency, or simply given out freely.  Additionally, content-specific merits have broader value through easy exchange, now that they aren't restricted to the micro-transaction system.  As a result, our base currency is good across all levels and equally valuable for all players, and our content-specific currencies aren't obsolete shortly after acquisition.  We have an active and healthy market.  Content across all levels and in all types is (more or less) equally rewarding, so we aren't experiencing a dearth of players at sub-max levels or specific zones (at least, not because the reward is of limited value or worthless).  And because the inf* and merits a player gains at level 1 are equally valuable at level 50, the game isn't restrictive or discouraging from an economic perspective.

 

Contrast the current state of the game economy to what it was at sunset.  Recipes which cost more than the maximum amount of inf* it was possible to have.  Currencies locked to specific content and not easily exchanged.  IO sets which cost several times the inf* cap for full sets, resulting in "dream builds" costing 50 billion inf*, or more, and requiring weeks of grinding or farming to afford each set.  Micro-fucking-transactions.

 

We still face the problem of inflation, though, of our "gold" needing repetitive upgrades to keep it relevant.  The HC team recognized this and made a decision to curtail the influx of new "gold", inf*, to slow down inflation.  They had also previously implemented methods of keeping prices from spiraling out of control by seeding specific items on the market.  And converters, by their very nature, act as inflation control, in that they provide a comparatively inexpensive means of acquiring any recipe or generating currency with which to acquire recipes, which actively contributes to keeping market prices lower than they would be otherwise.  Between these methods, we're unlikely to need yet another currency for a very, very long time, if ever, and everything is affordable, even for those who neither grind nor farm.  Affordable within a very reasonable span of time, in fact.  Not years or months, or even a couple of months, but weeks or days, to achieve "dream builds", and that's not weeks or days after hitting 50, it's including the leveling up to 50.

 

So, as frustrated as some people may be at the notion of not being able to kit out a build with all purples in less than a week, this is the lesser of the evils in regard to the economy.  The alternative, uncontrolled currency generation, has been extensively tested and proven to be hideously deleterious in the long term in every game, just as it has in reality.  It leads to bad development decisions which create a variety of even less pleasant restrictions later.

 

And I say all of this not as someone who already has multiple fully-IOed 50's already, and is therefore uncaring because I have what I want, but as someone who has 0 50's, 0 inf*, 0 merits.  If you have anything in-game, you're already well ahead of me, and I still support everything the HC team has done to control inflation, despite knowing it will mean my own progression will be slower when the day comes that I can play, because I realize that this slower road will still be markedly faster than the road I'd have to take without inflation control being implemented.

 

I still remember having to grind for a month to pay for 4-5 purple recipes, 6-8 hours every day, passing out on my keyboard sometimes because it was so tedious.  I still remember never being able to acquire some recipes because the method of access was restrictive (PvP) and the recipes were sold for more inf* than I could accumulate in a month.  I still remember totaling up the cost of my most expensive build and discovering that the 15,000,000,000 I'd spent over the course of a year was only half to two thirds of the eventual final cost.  I still remember how much fun the game WASN'T when the economy spiraled out of control and made acquisition of IOs so frustrating and tedious.

 

Those who believe increasing the inf* gain would be good would be wise to remember the past, too.  As it stands now, you can complete a "dream build" in a couple of weeks, casually, no grinding or farming required, and that's without learning how to flip on the market.  You're not suffering, you're not struggling, and you're not going to have it easier by making the economy worse in the long run.

[Haijinx]

Some people want to be casual.   

 

AND have armies of alts.

 

AND have lots of purple sets for all of them.

 

Y'all are just haters.   

 

Instead of the OP's idea though, lets just give all purples away for FREE@!@!!!111