Money Making Methods for Everyone

[Saikochoro]

Background

For all of my time on live I was in the only use SOs camp and was always pretty poor in terms of influence. Upon coming to Homecoming I started out the same way. I didn’t even start using common IOs for quite a while even on homecoming, let alone expensive set IO. Eventually, I got a taste for build making in mids and wanted all the power of a purpled out build. 

 

Then began my quest to making influence as efficiently as possible. Like many, I hate using the market in games. I abhore it. I also have always hated farming. I have nothing against either method, I just don’t enjoy them. So, I will go through the various ways I have funded my 500m influence builds. My hope is that people can look at this and find a method that works for them.  I will go in chronological order of how I started using the methods. 

 

Death From Below

Level: 1+

Team: Yes, 8. 

Where: Trials tab of LFG

Barrier to Entry: none

Expected Earnings: <100k/hour

I would farm this mainly for xp and then sell the SOs. By the time I was level 25ish I would have maybe 120k. At the time I thought this was a lot of influence. Not a very efficient money maker.

 

AE Ticket into Rare Salvage

Level: 1+

Team: No

Where: Architect Entertainment Buildings  
Barrier to Entry: none

Expected Earnings: ~1-2m/hour

I used the Fastest Farm in the West AE arc set to ticket rewards. I started this as a quest for faster xp. It just also happened to reward a decent amount of tickets. I turned the tickets to rare salvage. Made influence a LOT faster than DFB farming, but was much more boring. 

 

Summer Blockbuster

Level: 15+

Team: Yes, 4.
Where: Holiday Events tab of LFG. 
Barrier to Entry: low

Expected Earnings: ~20-25m/hour

I first tried this when someone sent me a tell asking if I wanted to join a double feature event that had a good reward. I said yes, and then had a lot of fun fighting AVs, ninjas, and rikti monkeys. At the end I had the choice of taking an Overwhelming Force enhancement.  Note, despite the in game message, this can be repeatedly chosen as the reward on the same character with no cooldown. At the time these enhancements sold for 20m. This was by far the fastest and funnest way to earn influence. These now sell for around 10m. However, teams fill fast and the event takes 20-30 minutes. So this is still a good way to make decent money and it is very fun. I hit 100 million for the first time ever farming SBB.

 

Twilight Son’s TF “Smoke and Mirrors” merit farming

Level: 34+ (need to double check this)

Team: No
Where: Oroborous
Barrier to Entry: low

Expected Earnings: ~20-25m/hour

4 missions, no travel between missions, repeatable with no diminishing rewards, 12 merits per completion. Best done on a stalker. I got to a point where I was competing runs on a StJ/EA stalker in less than 6 minutes. So I was getting around 120 merits per hour = 360 converters = 20-22m influence per hour. This is the fastest way I have found to farm merits without having to wait to form speed TF runs. Problem is that it gets boring and repetitive fast. 

 

Converter Roulette

Level: 1+

Team: No

Where: type /ah and be near a worktable (rikti warzone building is a favorite) or have portable workbench. 
Barrier to Entry: low-moderate (just need some starting funds for yellow recipes and converters. Obtaining even just the AP exploration reward merits is enough to get started).

Expected Earnings: ~up to 100m+/hour

Roulette is a good word for beginners at the enhancement conversion, but as you get used to it it becomes much more focused and predictable. I started saving my converters and instead using them to convert level 31 yellow recipes to desirable rare set IOs. Lots of good guides on this. I reached 1 billion influence for the first time when I started this. I got more efficient over time as I learned what sells and what doesn’t. This does take time to craft and market, but can easily make over 100m influence per hour (not counting time it take for sales to be filled on AH).  One of the most efficient ways of making influence and has the benefit of being diversified so people don’t encroach upon your niche. This is magnitudes faster than any type of farming. 

 

AE farming

Level: 50+, you can start much earlier, but the real money is at 50. 

Team: No, but can be done in teams. 
Where: Architect Entertainment Buildings
Barrier to Entry: moderate-high (you need specific archetype, power set combos, power picks, and set bonuses to be competitive)

Expected Earnings: ~50-100m/hour (Varies greatly depending on build and drops).

I finally broke down and made an alt account to power level my main account toons. As a side result, I got to start making influence via AE farming. Most of the time it was cut in half or more due to me leveling my main account. I did try a few times without having an alt to power level to see if I could make good money. It is pretty good. I could casually make about 50-60m per hour without too much fuss sometimes quite a bit more with lucky purple drops. However, this still doesn’t hold a candle to enhancement conversion. 

 

Niche Marketing

Level: 1+

Team: No
Where: Type /ah and maybe be near a worktable or have the portable workbench
Barrier to Entry: moderate-high (requires good knowledge of the market and supply/demand)

Expected Earnings: ~100-500m/hour (highly dependent on niche)

With the knowledge I gained from my converter roulette marketing, reading guides, and making builds I got a good idea for what people want. I began various niche marketing, which can take all sort of forms. Because it can vary so much I won’t go into all the ones I used. Niche marketing focuses on a very specific market transaction and usually a very specific good. It can involve flipping, crafting and converting, catalyzing, etc.  This runs the risk of others discovering your niche and eroding your profits. This is the most profitable money making method I have discovered. I have made 300-400m per hour using this method. 

 

Content Merit Accumulation
Level: 1+

Team: No, Yes, and various sizes.  
Where: Everywhere
Barrier to Entry: none-high (depends on the content)

Expected Earnings: ~10m+/hour (estimating ~1 merit/min, + for drops)

This is different from merit farming in that I don’t find the most efficient merit reward arc and repeat until bored.  Instead I join whatever task force is being advertised while I am online. The weekly strike targets are always going on so that is icing on the cake. Doing this can net you 100s of merits (10s of millions of influence) per week, which is honestly more than enough to fund even the most expensive builds in a relatively quick manner.  This method may not be the most efficient in terms of inf/min, but it honestly is the least repetitive method and thus is the most fun. 

 

Closing thoughts

Even though enhancement conversion and niche marketing is much more efficient I don’t often do that anymore. Instead I use the last method for most of my playtime to just accumulate merits as I play and then cash them in when I need them. I also still play summer blockbuster a lot because it is just plain fun. 

 

My journey to influence affluence has been a long one and I used many methods as shown above. Being happy with earning 120k from selling SOs from 8 DFB runs is a far cry from spending 3-5 minutes doing niche marketing and raking in 40-50m in profit. I have done many types of farming and many types of marketing. Not every method will work for everyone. However, I do believe there IS a method that will work for everyone to fund what they want to fund in a reasonable timeframe. 

 

If you have any questions on any particular method, please let me know and I’d be happy to go more into detail or point to helpful guides. Also, please feel free to share any other money making methods below. I want everyone to be able to find the method that works for them. 

Edited November 14, 2020 by Saikochoro

[Yomo Kimyata]

Thanks for posting this!  Homecoming is the land of milk and honey, and there is no reason that every single person shouldn't be swimming in inf.  By describing different methods, you really demonstrate how people can find their own groove.  Well done!

 

[Hyperstrike]

I do the niche marketing thing to put initial operating capital on my characters.
So, usually by the time I'm 10th level, I can afford level appropriate enhancements until generic IOs at 30 or so.

[Aeroprism]

@SaikochoroCame here following our discussion. Fantastic guide!  I'm going to push my Stalker ahead and give that Smore and Mirror TF a try.

 

I really appreciate when people take time to write clean, well thought guides like this.  Thank you.

[jprewitt73]

On 3/25/2024 at 6:59 PM, LinkAiris said:

Thanks for this forum post. Now I know how to earn more money!

 

It should be noted that some of these numbers have changed since the original post back in 2020. 

 

If you're just starting out, here is a good idea for you to get some initial seed money to help you get some enhancements to make your leveling experience a bit easier: