Reinstate 2x influence at 50

[JnEricsonx]

I don't use the purple sets and I tend to still pretty much feel satisfied with my chars.  My Grav/Psi practically has permadom, my freshly 50 Nin/Nin Stalker is damn near untouchable, my TW/WP Brute literally tells teams, "go ahead, lead the escort out, I GOT THIS."

[Lockpick]

7 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

Yeah but in SWTOR you only needed that better gear for PVP.  You could (I did) run through all the stories with just whatever gear you got as quest rewards for quests you would do anyway.  

 

Actually I spent a lot of time overlevelled for stuff due to all the side quests.  

 

And that was before they made the game even easier by genercisizing Stats making companions merely an aesthetic/story choice. 

 

That's for a game that is basically a solo game with some co-op thrown in.  (PVE wise)  

All true, but I guess the point is that if you wanted the high end gear in SWTOR you had to seriously grind for it.  Here if you want the high end gear you have to do what I would consider minor grinding, but I would argue the grind is much less and there are many more options here than in SWTOR. 

 

You can do most of the content here on SOs that drop from playing the game or the base IO recipes that drop as well.

 

The term grind is going to be subjective to everyone.  IMO the grind here is very limited and you can easily get rewards from just playing the game in whatever manner you choose.  Some options are more efficient than others, but all of them will allow you to fully kit out a character.

 

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, Lockpick said:

All true, but I guess the point is that if you wanted the high end gear in SWTOR you had to seriously grind for it.  Here if you want the high end gear you have to do what I would consider minor grinding, but I would argue the grind is much less and there are many more options here than in SWTOR. 

 

This is true.

 

And SWTOR isn't bad compared to a older MMO like Everquest or Anarchy Online.   

 

In AO you could save up a month's worth of raid points and maybe get loot rights for one piece of gear.  

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Haijinx

[Ironblade]

On 5/25/2020 at 12:42 PM, FullEclipse said:

As a casual player I no longer have anyway to afford the 100+Million influence purple sets.

I am reminded of the conversation on the old forums where someone made a comment about purple sets and Back Alley Brawler responded with, "Did you just say 'casual player' and 'purple out my warshade' in the same sentence?"

 

Just how many purple sets do you need?  Are you trying to fine-tune your favorite character or trying to purple out every character you get to 50?  i.e.  Are you trying to spiff up your car, or own a garage full of sports cars?

[Outrider_01]

I wasn't happy how they pulled the plug, as the only bug/hack/exploit was 99% patrol exp which is does absolutely dick at 50.  Everything else was just using game mechanics as they were intended, and utilized for max efficiency which wasn't broken or exploited; thats just human nature to optimize. 

 

You don't need purples, I have been Mids theory crafting for the last 5 days; vacation during these damn pandemic is is boring! Been optomizing for defense and recharge, as cheaply as possible.  Between Hasten and some LotG, you only really need 2 slots in hasten and Incarnate haste to get Perma-Hasten to 120 sec rech for the 120 duration during battle; you don't need Perma chilling at the tram or in front of Miss Liberty.  I was able to get other things I was never focused on.

 

Outside recharge, there is nothing you can't get from a purple you can't get from another IO bonus.  You just get less of it; and you don't exactly need +15 ACC x5 that much.  Extra fire resist is nice, but even +10 x5 recharge has less return on investment, it starts reduce only a few seconds under WHAT YOU ACTUALLY NEED, not what you desire.

 

Believe me, try making Mids builds cheap, maybe 150m for your favorite proc/bonuses and see what else you can get with another 150m.  I have looked at TW/Electric farm builds, outside Burn it has same specific requirements: damage aura, high energy resist for a different farm, and and endurance recovery click with a built in +20 recharge, even snagged +15% damage bonus. You can even do spines/electric farmer, I think scrapper is better but not an AFK so you have to actively play it.  Got a Savage/EA scrapper self contained all damage type def cap, no PBoAE nuke from epic and went Body mastery.  A Savage/Nin capped positional, +25 dam and assault to go with it.  Stone/Spines tanker, can fire farm on granite or do normal content on the toggles; cheapest build that doesn't excell at anything but does a lot.

 

Just going to finish, with purples and AT you get limited options towards a few bonuses.  If you Franken slot for the first 2-3 bonuses and jam in something else to finish that power; you might free up an entire power you don't need for something else.  You might build a character you like, which is more fun than optimal bad ass.

[Haijinx]

59 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

I am reminded of the conversation on the old forums where someone made a comment about purple sets and Back Alley Brawler responded with, "Did you just say 'casual player' and 'purple out my warshade' in the same sentence?"

 

Just how many purple sets do you need?  Are you trying to fine-tune your favorite character or trying to purple out every character you get to 50?  i.e.  Are you trying to spiff up your car, or own a garage full of sports cars?

That's basically it.  Even a causal player can afford purples on ONE character at current prices.  

 

I have ONE character that is "Purpled Out"  (8 purple sets if you count the ATOs, all the shiny uniques, etc etc.). 

 

I have no purples on any other characters. 

 

If I need for some reason to perform in the Perma-Hasten, nigh-invulnerable, high performance role I can do that on that one character.  Just as good as someone that lives full time in COH and has 15 characters at that build level. 

 

 

[ForeverLaxx]

9 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

That's not how economics works.

 

Rampant inflation is a terrible idea and was curtailed for good reason. Please see the other monstrous thread about the details and math.

As someone who was part of that old mega thread, I laugh every time you use that line. It's your catchphrase now.

 

It's also true.

 

It's pretty clear the OP abandoned this thread though. I kinda hope that means this won't turn into Double Influence 2: Electric Boogaloo as there's still a small selection of holdouts only interested in their influence accumulation rate with an utter disregard for its effect on the economy and hiding behind the "it's for the casuals" excuse.

[Doc_Scorpion]

1 hour ago, Outrider_01 said:

I wasn't happy how they pulled the plug, as the only bug/hack/exploit was 99% patrol exp which is does absolutely dick at 50.  Everything else was just using game mechanics as they were intended

Even if they were "using as intended", nothing in a game is set in stone - if something is having a negative effect even if it is WAI, then the devs are going to stomp it.

[ForeverLaxx]

1 minute ago, Doc_Scorpion said:

Even if they were "using as intended", nothing in a game is set in stone - if something is having a negative effect even if it is WAI, then the devs are going to stomp it.

I never understood people who try to claim something wasn't an exploit because the game allowed it to happen. It being allowed to happen at all is why it's an exploit and not a hack/cheat, but for some reason, people think that's means it must automatically be okay.

[ImpousVileTerror]

There still seems to be some confusion as to what actually happened on the technical side:

There were two changes, not one.

 

A bug related to Veteran Level Experience and Patrol Experience was patched,

and

A specifically designed and long-standing feature was removed.

 

The first is completely and totally understandable.  It was an exploit.  Patched.  Done deal.

The -issue- arises in that a feature was also removed.  Specifically a PvE feature, designed to encourage play at all levels.  And, to the best of my understanding, the Homecoming Team removed this long-standing PvE feature specifically at address issues with the player market.

 

While I can't say if the original thread author here is even fully aware of the depth of what took place, I certainly have a bias to sympathize with their feelings because of how that change played out.

I understand -why- it happened, and given different context and implementation, I probably would have even agreed with it.

But as it stands . . . feels shitty.  Real shitty.

Feels like the Homecoming Team saw a threat to the market, and shot wildly at the first target they could spot.

[kelika2]

If you are casual why do you want the not-casual stuff?

[Lazarillo]

Seems like a bad idea.  Just makes things cost more.

[ImpousVileTerror]

A lot of these threads/discussions always talk about things "costing more."

I do really wonder if players are just being facetious, or if they've forgetting that there are fixed-price items.  That fixed-price items are the original "economy," and that there is still much fixed-price stuff to buy.

 

Double Inf might negatively impact the player market with inflation, but it sure as shit helps players afford everything ELSE that exists in the game.

 

I'd still like to see the Homecoming Team's analyses from the data-mining which lead to this decision.  Did fixed-price purchasing even factor in to it at all?

[SwitchFade]

25 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

A lot of these threads/discussions always talk about things "costing more."

I do really wonder if players are just being facetious, or if they've forgetting that there are fixed-price items.  That fixed-price items are the original "economy," and that there is still much fixed-price stuff to buy.

 

Double Inf might negatively impact the player market with inflation, but it sure as shit helps players afford everything ELSE that exists in the game.

 

I'd still like to see the Homecoming Team's analyses from the data-mining which lead to this decision.  Did fixed-price purchasing even factor in to it at all?

Rampant inflation did, was and would have driven prices continually up.

 

Prices are now lower for the majority of items that have no artificial floor.

 

LoTG are lower, steadfast are lower and aegis are lower, to name a few. This trend is prevalent across the market.

 

In the short term, rampant inf inflation served a minority by allowing them to pay any price for any good, but the forces of supply and demand followed that trend passively, raising equilibrium price for everyone. The cycle would have (proven by past actual events) continued unabated until everyone was either a) required to have mass inf or b) priced out of the market.

 

What happened was what SHOULD have happened on live, an exploit was removed, reducing the rate of inflation vs deflation, normalizing economic equilibrium. Why it happened now was to stop it from ever ramping in the first place.

[Luminara]

3 hours ago, Lockpick said:

We have that here though, right?

 

According to all information given, any player can acquire 3.2 purples, using the least efficient method available, in 90-120 minutes.  2 hours max.  That's a lazy Sunday afternoon's "I have nothing else to do right now, I'll play a game".  Minimal additional effort, in the form of checking a few prices and making a few judicious sales, or using some converters, or some combination thereof, can bump that up to 5 purples.

 

2 hours to acquire "best in slot gear".  In 40 minute increments, in fact, so it could be spread across three days.  This is faster and easier progress than you can make in those mindless IDLE TAP AFK CLICKER BBQOMGSOKEWL "games" that have infested the mobile platform.  If anything, this is more casual than hyper-casual mobile games, because there are no exponentially increasing progress metrics, no advertisements being peddled as a means of increasing progress speed, no gacha boxes gating progress.

 

2 hours a week to acquire a set of purple IOs.  Seven sets a week if a player takes a "casual but still playing for a couple of hours every day" approach.  That's only about three weeks to fully kit out a character, playing casually, daily.  In three weeks in casual mobile games, you get jack, nada, zilch, nothing, and those games are the benchmark for casual.

 

So, yes, this is an incredibly casual-friendly game, to answer your question.  It's one step removed from a handout (and that's available on the test server).  How much easier does it need to be made for the casual player?  Two or three dozen purple sets as a reward for logging in?  So they can... not play even more?  If we're catering to the mentality that a game shouldn't have to be played, not even for a couple of hours per week, to meaningfully progress, what's the point having the game at all?

[Luminara]

51 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

But as it stands . . . feels shitty.  Real shitty.

 

Grinding for an entire work week to pay for a few IOs; having to work around the inf* cap to buy one IO; spending ten times the inf* cap and still being only halfway finished kitting out a build, feels shittier.

[drbuzzard]

13 hours ago, Crysis said:

To be fair, “cannot fully ENJOY the game” is entirely subjective.  Relative to the influence gains you used to be able to make relative to effort versus today, it’s not as enjoyable today versus a month or so ago for some.

 

Personally, I find Marketeering an utterly boring way to spend my in-game time.  Clicking, dragging, converting....that’s “administrivia” effort in a terrible UI.  I may as well be saving the same Microsoft Word document over and over and over again.  But to some, Marketeering is an ENJOYABLE past time.  To others, farming is an ENJOYABLE past time.

 

Not that it matters at this point as we’ve been instructed by the developers to quit enjoying ourselves doing one thing and if we want the goodies to do the other thing instead. 

 

 

 

There is a very large difference between flipping to make influence on the market and farming to generate influence from scratch. The former is deflationary, the latter is inflationary. Now of course farming also generates drops, so it is not quite so cut and dry, but the discussion here is about the influence generation rate, and the removal of the 2x option. 

 

Luminara's post does a good job of explaining the consequences of rampant in game inflation. Already the change removing that option has cut market prices pretty substantially. That's a good thing, even though it has certainly lowered earnings for market flippers (as I'm one of those).

[Crysis]

27 minutes ago, drbuzzard said:

 

There is a very large difference between flipping to make influence on the market and farming to generate influence from scratch. The former is deflationary, the latter is inflationary. Now of course farming also generates drops, so it is not quite so cut and dry, but the discussion here is about the influence generation rate, and the removal of the 2x option. 

 

Luminara's post does a good job of explaining the consequences of rampant in game inflation. Already the change removing that option has cut market prices pretty substantially. That's a good thing, even though it has certainly lowered earnings for market flippers (as I'm one of those).

Curious....

 

Has the change cut market prices dramatically, or has a decrease in demand done so?  Or an increase in supply?

 

Corollary or causal from the influence nerf?   

[ImpousVileTerror]

Only the Homecoming Team are in a position to mine the data to get a potential answer to that.

[Monos King]

Have you guys seen DCUO? They had to delete trillions, tr-tr-tr-tr-trillions of in game currency because of their terrible market control and exploiters becoming the elite and monopolizing prices, and they see 1m the way we see 100m. The money ceiling was way higher than here even after our little debacle. They even instated a tax to remove more money if they thought you had too much.

Edited May 27, 2020 by Monos King
I hate DCUO

[Wobegone]

3 hours ago, Crysis said:

Curious....

 

Has the change cut market prices dramatically, or has a decrease in demand done so?  Or an increase in supply?

 

Corollary or causal from the influence nerf?   

Perhaps players that relied on influence farming started splitting their time between farming and earning merits(or just started buying converters) in order to craft and convert uncommon recipes rather than just dumping them.   

[stanld03]

As a "casual" player myself, it's a big hard no from me. I'm level 20 and have 83 million influence (mixture of selling stuff I crafted, running missions/TFs, converting merits to things I could sell in the auction house). I'm really not in any hurry to get purples either.

[skoryy]

10 hours ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

I do really wonder if players are just being facetious, or if they've forgetting that there are fixed-price items.

The fixed-price items that cost, what, 10 mil at most?  Really?  Really?

 

And y'all have the temerity to call everyone else facetious.  Good gravy.

[drbuzzard]

9 hours ago, Crysis said:

Curious....

 

Has the change cut market prices dramatically, or has a decrease in demand done so?  Or an increase in supply?

 

Corollary or causal from the influence nerf?   

 

I can say that things still will sell quickly if you adjust to the new price, so demand isn't an issue from my small window. While there are tons of bottom feeders out there who make selling for 1 (or 1000) on a recipe a trap, you can still gauge market prices and sell for around that and have things move. 

[MTeague]

19 hours ago, drbuzzard said:

There is a very large difference between flipping to make influence on the market and farming to generate influence from scratch.

I would add a clarifier to this point. You may or may not agree with me, but it's my take on it. 

 

If I buy a Red Fortune +Defense for 2,000,000, and then turn right around and post that SAME THING for 4,000,000. 

• yes, that's inflationary and arguably parasitic.
• I mean, the same thing happens all the darn time in the real world... middlemen are everywhere. 
• But in the real world there's typically some contribution in terms of storage / warehousing / maintenance of supply lines, something, to justify that middleman's slice of the pie.  Maybe not all the time, but usually. 
• But the above example of buying and reposting the same darn things to the same market.... is basically Day Trading.  Whether or not I should, I hold a distinctlly un-charitable opinion of that. 

But, contrast that with buy a Dampened Spirits To-Hit Debuff/Recharge recipe, craft it, convert the result until you get a LoTG Def/+7.5% global recharge. 

• I do not consider that inflationary or parasitic in any way.
• You have consumed and destroyed some raw materials to produce a more valued commodity that people are willing to pay more for.  Not unlike buying the raw materials and then selling pizza.