Your start up working capital needs

[Yomo Kimyata]

I've seen people post about this before, but when you start up a new alt, what do you consider to be a good amount of inf to support a fresh alt's needs?

 

I prefer to start each one from scratch, but when I don't, my rule of thumb is 20mm.  10mm goes to the portable workbench, 8mm to converters, and the rest to raw materials and posting fees.

[Coyotedancer]

Being a farmer more than a marketer, I just toss them enough to get the handful of vet/p2w powers that I typically have on everyone, with enough left over to get them DOs/SOs until they hit 32 and can dive into the Common IO bins. So... yeah... about 20m. 

 

When I start working on their set builds, I tend to send them the actual IOs rather than INF. 

[Mr. Vee]

Half a billion per alt. I want them to just be able to buy anything they need without me having to send them more and have some on hand to give away if that situation arises. I spend quite a bit on p2w powers off the bat and buy their IOs as they level. I now have enough purple/pvp in base that they generally have between 200 and 300 million still left when they hit 50, but that's fine. If I like the toon I'll leave it on them for future amplifier purchases. If I don't i'll ship most of it off before retiring them once they're tier 4'd.

[Ukase]

Mine get 100M to start - covers the workbench, the teleports, a summon pet, jet pack, and other miscellaneous temps. 

They all have to earn 1.1 Billion by 50. 1 Billion to hold, and 100 million for the next alt. 

[0th Power]

Usually start with 20mil. I’ll transfer more if I like the character. 

[tidge]

200 MInf. The new toon buys the P2W powers (minimum: Envenomed Daggers, Mission TP, Team TP, Assemble the Team, Portable Workbench) and puts in bids for ATOs and converters on the AH. Whatever is left pays crafting fees and the like (such as buying other players the Team TP power). I used to start with transferring much less, but I found that this was the 'right amount' to support wild spending and still be able to amass more Inf without trouble.

 

I don't have the new toons dedicate themselves to "playing the market' as much as I did previously. Prices have generally come down; the existing wealth is more than enough... for now! I've adopted a slightly different approach to the market that builds bank a little slower than previous methods but also allows me to build up the sets I'll want for a given character.

[ScrewlooseCohh]

Erm Nil.

I make every character work up their own cash and assets.

Often I will grab some stuff off the market at under the NPC vendor sale price and cash it in.

Then I will flip some white salvage til I get to the 7000 items sold badge, gets me about 2 Mil.

Then after I have done some TFs and Arcs I cash in my Merits for Enhancement Converters and start flipping level 31 Enh.

That will take me up to over 100 Mil and then I can start buying Enhancement Converters and flipping til I have as much Inf as I think I am going to need.

 

On the other hand I did bank roll my two last characters that I was starting to generate Inf for with 5 Mil each just because it greased the wheels and meant I didn't have to worry about a cash flow bottle neck.

 

regards, Screwloose.

"I am not young enough to know everything."

 

[Sir Myshkin]

Have a primary Market toon, found it boring to always log in to that one every day to flip things around so just sent out seed money packets into my ATM (email) and picked them up as needed and started marketing on the individual toons since it doesn't take much to do it. Then I eventually started just doing each build from scratch with no seed money at all because it was more interesting and gave me an honest reason to try. Now even my characters I built from scratch sit with hundreds of millions of Influence for no reason. I probably have 4-5 billion in assets floating around because of it.

[Hyperstrike]

I usually market right away to build up a few million.

[Mr. Vee]

Well after my post I noticed this was in the market forum and was thus probably asking about seed money for marketeering, which i don't even do anymore. Derp.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

Well after my post I noticed this was in the market forum and was thus probably asking about seed money for marketeering, which i don't even do anymore. Derp.

No no, not just for marketeering.  For example, I'm learning that some people (like me) work every character and some like to jump start them to various levels of comfort.

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Veelectric Boogaloo said:

Well after my post I noticed this was in the market forum and was thus probably asking about seed money for marketeering, which i don't even do anymore. Derp.

 

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

No no, not just for marketeering.  For example, I'm learning that some people (like me) work every character and some like to jump start them to various levels of comfort.

For the past five months or so, none of my seeded toons have really been "marketeering". Blame the peculiar rise in uncommon salvage (now reversed, presumably whatever the individual(s) behind it were trying didn't really have an effect they feel like gloating about), but I simply didn't feel like more crafting/converting once the family fortune had been made.

 

Now my toons tend to convert recipe drops along the way, but it is rare that they've recovered their costs/gifts from the initial investment (for me 200M Inf) until the 30s. It all depends on the content I'm playing. In the 40s when the characters have significantly more slots to use and nearly complete power choices, is usually when I start turning up the spawn size (for more drops). This still isn't strict marketeering, but it funds purchases of odd needs and second (or third) builds.

[Troyusrex]

Maybe 50 million. Enough to get TT and some other P2W items plus enough to get a few ATOs when they reach level (although often they just grab them from email). 

[Crysis]

I PL 90% of all my alts to lvl 33 and then give them 200-300MM to start.  About 50Mm goes to P2W vendor, 120MM goes to Hero Packs as fodder for the ATO’s I need for that alt (unless I can snag any for 6mm or less) and the rest goes to converters.  I tend to buy lowest within category and then convert to what I really want.  For all the purples, winters and uniques I have dozens of each already in email and other alts’ inventory for the new alts to grab.  Any remaining is used to fund what I need on way to 50.  Once I T4 out that alt I Xfer any remaining influence to email for next alt. 
 

 

[Tidbit]

If I'm going to work up a character, as opposed to PLing, I prefer to have them earn their keep.  But if they do a lot of teaming I'll usually send them enough to buy the TPs, which are helpful.

[ImpousVileTerror]

It's not capital, but 879,699,000 (give or take) bare minimum for a character I'm serious about.

50,000,000 for a character I'm less serious about.

15,000,000 for a character that I'm just trying to get out the door.

[Ura Hero]

8 minutes ago, ImpousVileTerror said:

It's not capital, but 879,699,000 (give or take) bare minimum for a character I'm serious about.

50,000,000 for a character I'm less serious about.

15,000,000 for a character that I'm just trying to get out the door.

 

Pretty much what I do too.  Send what I think it will take to fully IO out a serious character, a big chunk to something I know I am going to play for a while, a pittance to something I am not sure I will like.

Edited June 15, 2020 by Ura Hero

[ImpousVileTerror]

IOs?
This is just P2W Inf.

IOs come from Base Storage.

[justicebeliever]

I have so much fun crafting and selling that all I want on a character to get started is Inner Inspiration.  The rest they have to earn...(Even though I have Influence banked in email, I've not yet felt the need to tap into it, even for a new character)

 

[Mister Mass]

It's interesting to see everyone's different approaches here.  Mine is idiosyncratic, evolving out of the way I played on Live.  I joined the original game at Issue 4, the one year anniversary, & learned the game as a dirt poor noob working my way up the ladder, & never really having a wad of INF.  Not having a "friendly 50" to throw cash my way, I got used to scrimping & scraping to afford DOs & SOs as I leveled my alts, each mostly earning his own way. 

 

Then I got invited to the Closed Beta of Lord of the Rings Online, & basically stopped playing CoX for about a year & a half, just logging into my characters often enough to pay the base rent.  While in LotRO, I got used to using the crafting & Auction House systems.  All of my characters had a different crafting specialization, so I could theoretically supply all of my alts with the crafted gear they desired as they leveled up.  By collecting raw materials, crafting, & buying & selling on the AH, I made enough to keep all of alts well supplied.

 

I finally returned to the game after the Devs had introduced Inventions & the Market, but before most of the playerbase had really begun to appreciate the opportunities those additions offered.  Being a badger by nature, my main immediately set out to earn all of the crafting & marketeering badges.  A lot of badgers were willing to lose a lot of INF on crafting & marketeering in order to earn the badges as fast as possible.  But not being sitting on a small fortune myself, I set the goal to earn the badges while making money, even if that meant taking my time doing so.  By the simple expedient of earning all of badges for crafting generic IOs of each level & then selling them on the AH, I began to make INF.  I remember the satisfaction of earning the accolade that awards the workbench.  Being able to craft right at Wentworth's (pre "/AH" command) was a huge QoL improvement.  Within 10 weeks I had hit the 2 billion individual INF cap, simply by crafting selling generic IOs.  Once there on my main, I had my next alt run the same process, continually handing off the crafting reins to the next alt in line.  I think I had over a dozen that completed the process before NCSoft pulled the plug on the game.

 

When I discovered Homecoming in May last year, I immediately began the process over with my main, Mister Mass.  Starting out dirt poor, he slowly earned the crafting badges as he leveled, again feeling pride as he earned the workbench.  The INF he earned was used to send as seed money to my alts - at first 1 million, then 10, then 100.  At first my alts were expected to earn mostly their own way through selling drops on the AH.  But once I began to see the value of attuned sets (which I had never used on Live, as they seemed indicative of a "Pay 2 Win" mentality) in making the leveling process more fun, my main began to buy more of those for my alts.  And, as on Live, as my alts leveled, they serially took over the crafting/marketeering reins.  At this point, I am on my 4th marketeer, who just crossed 1.7 billion, & my seed money level for a new alt is up to 300 million, so they can buy their own sets as they level up. 

 

I was amused by a conversation I had this weekend in Cimerora with another player who noticed my crafter's workbench out.  He was surprised to notice that I had earned it the old fashioned way instead of just purchasing it.  He noted that it was probably cheaper to just buy the workbench than to earn it (I agree - I think it costs each alt about 200 million to earn it given the losses you have to take on mez IOs of all levels & the high level IOs) but was pleased to find a kindred spirit in the game who does it old school. 😎

Edited June 15, 2020 by Mister Mass

[Hedgefund]

I just stash a bunch of 100M e-mails out in the ether.  This is for any character, whether a vet lvl 80 who blew his cash on amplifiers or a lvl 1 making sure he has Reveal.  

 

Typically for new characters, I take down 2 of these e-mails, grab whatever is available in base storage then pull down more inf from e-mail as needed, which is rare unless the build is heavy on winter-os, since I don't have a huge cache of WOs.  Maybe I should finally open up those winter packs I spent (literally) all my inf on when they were 10M.

[ILIWAPCT]

N/A

I have a personal SG.

 

Around level 20 I fire up Mid's and target a respec build (24/27).

My King alt places the orders about a month in advance.

I don't farm, I play normally. I have no 50's and about 50 alts. 

 

By (24/27) I usually find a discrepancy resulting in that alt being placed in the dusty "reserves"

The fun (meritocratic) alts have their orders fulfilled.

The dusty "reserves" slowly level and contribute IO drops.

 

Recently, I found my bins nearing capacity and was considering removing inspiration storage to increase bin capacity.

Instead,  I realized I would be better served by unloading (at a profit) IO's that were replaceable and not needed at the moment.

Now my bins contain the meritocratic IO's. 

 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

Thanks everybody!  Some good thought provoking things in there.

[lemming]

I don't really do much funding on characters.   I tend to sell the first few large inspirations I get on the market which gets ~10-20k which is enough for reveal map.  Then just sell stuff as it comes up to buy the ATT, MT, and TT vet powers.  (I will on occasion throw inf at them for that purpose)

For enhancements though, my main which has all the memorized recipes, builds the generic IOs if needed, though most get handed down from other levelling alts.  So it's more material funding than monetary

I don't really think about sets until much later in their builds.

[FrauleinMental]

On 6/15/2020 at 3:50 PM, Mister Mass said:

It's interesting to see everyone's different approaches here.  Mine is idiosyncratic, evolving out of the way I played on Live.  I joined the original game at Issue 4, the one year anniversary, & learned the game as a dirt poor noob working my way up the ladder, & never really having a wad of INF.  Not having a "friendly 50" to throw cash my way, I got used to scrimping & scraping to afford DOs & SOs as I leveled my alts, each mostly earning his own way. 

I had a similar experience my first year of playing.  I joined at Issue 6, and I remember spending a respec at level 37 just to cash in my slotted enhancements so I could afford 40 SOs.  I leveled my mind/kin to 50, mostly solo (8 months), then the next day made a PB and started her to 50.  Once I got back to my main, I found it much easier to generate inf as a 50, and then I just started funding my lowbie toons.  But then I never had a ton of alts.

 

Now, like others here, I send 25M to my new alts.  That handles their P2W powers and leaves a little for other stuff.  But I don't tend to buy enhancements until 22 (25 IOs); before that, toons slot what drops.