Ebil Tuesday #12 - A New Year, A New Ebil Awaits?

[Ura Hero]

Hi diddly Ho Ebil Marketeers!

 

So we all sunk money into Winter Packs and things might not work out like we want.  That might well suck for some of us who were expecting big returns.  At least for me, I didn't buy any to resell.  All I bought was enough for future builds, safely tucked away in my storage base.  

 

My funds have finally depleted enough that I had to do some farming over Christmas break to replenish.  I had forgotten how much fun it is to craft a few hundred random recipes.  (It wasn't).  And how much fun doing all the converting is.  (It wasn't either)  But the influence was nice and I am on my way to having a nice bankroll again.

 

How about you?  Are you still Scrooge McDuckin it?  Or are you poor old Jacob Marley?  Or just Tiny Tim happy with whatever life brings?

[Troyusrex]

More Tiny Tim here... I might have lost a few (dozen) billion on Winter Super Packs, but I have a huge army of snow beasts and enough respecs to last a lifetime! 

[Hardship]

I bought some Winter packs, but I tend to hold the proceeds in case I need them on an alt. BUT, I definitely FELT like I was make a good purchase on the packs -- until now. I spent more than I would have if I wouldn't have thought they were on sale.

 

Kind of the definition of sale, right?  Spend more than you should on things you don't need because it is a price you can't resist.

 

[dopeninja]

Is it official that they are going to stay at 10M? I have a bunch of packs. I'll crack them for IO's as needed.

[Ukase]

17 hours ago, Ura Hero said:

Hi diddly Ho Ebil Marketeers!

 

So we all sunk money into Winter Packs and things might not work out like we want.  That might well suck for some of us who were expecting big returns.  At least for me, I didn't buy any to resell.  All I bought was enough for future builds, safely tucked away in my storage base.  

 

My funds have finally depleted enough that I had to do some farming over Christmas break to replenish.  I had forgotten how much fun it is to craft a few hundred random recipes.  (It wasn't).  And how much fun doing all the converting is.  (It wasn't either)  But the influence was nice and I am on my way to having a nice bankroll again.

 

How about you?  Are you still Scrooge McDuckin it?  Or are you poor old Jacob Marley?  Or just Tiny Tim happy with whatever life brings?

So...I'll be transparent. 

I didn't buy that many winter packs. At least, not as many as I had planned on. Last year, I don't really recall how many I got - I think it was 10B worth. And I had a lot of Winter-Os remaining in my email stash. So, this time around, I only got 5 Billion worth. Honestly, there's nothing in the packs that I don't already have in abundance. I did a tally of all my characters, knowing  how much inf they each carry, and checked the emails. While I don't have a trillion yet, I think, if I were to actually focus on it, I could get there in about 6 months. To what end, though? 

A wise marketer can start ANY character at zero inf, with no help from alts and still get inf cap in a couple of days easily. (if not sooner) So what do I really need big stacks of it for? I often feel like the cat that brings a dead bird to its master. I have the killer instinct; I can make the kill, but I'm at a loss of what to do with it after. 

Converters are dumped on the market and are easily gotten via reward merits. 
Reward merits are easily gotten through TF/arc/explorations/conversions. 
Inf is super easy to get via farming, marketing and just playing. I am still boggled by the folks that don't understand how easy it is - but these are the folks that can't be bothered to read the excellent
guides by Yomo and others. 

 

Crafting is super simple; converting is as well - but damn does it get tedious when doing it in large numbers. 
The content...well, thank goodness for different alts providing differing experiences, despite the same storylines. 

I know I'll take heat - but I think it is only matter of time before the HC devs take steps to inhibit or prohibit afk farming. I've no idea how they would do this, but I think it's in the near future. The notion of taking a day to get to vet level 99, converting 400 emp merits to 4000 reward merits to 12k converters, (840 million if sold at 70k each, not including fees) or other goodies. I just can't see that being allowed for too much longer. 

Notice I put that last bit at the end. A nice tip if you've never thought about it, right at the end for the patient reader. Please don't quote it. Let's reward the practice of reading. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

I spent December mostly giving funds away.  I'm really hoping that the devs will read the whole economy thread and put in a large-scale inf sink, but I'm not optimistic.  Instead we will get more tricks like whoever either bought or took off offer over 1k lotg proc today.  I prefer my market shenanigans to be less quixotic.

 

At this point, making inf is just muscle memory or providing supply in under-supplied markets.  I don't think I'm anywhere near a trillion, and I don't expect to get there in calendar 2021.  

[tidge]

I stopped being Ebil^TM quite some time ago. There have been far fewer PUGmates that didn't have the 10M prestige powers, so I haven't been giving nearly as much away. I definitely stopped playing the market after the this happened on the third character (I play characters through content):

1. Pull 200 MInf out of email, spend something like 30% at P2W.
2. Somewhere around level 7, go to the SG base and start pulling out attuned PVP and ATO pieces to use
3. Somewhere around level 20, go to the SG base and start crafting the non-common recipe drops. Use merits for converters.
4. Put the converted pieces on the market. Profit!
5. Somewhere around level 25-30, start pulling spare attuned pieces from the SG base, or buying the missing pieces.
6. Somewhere around level 40, the character is back past 200 MInf

By now, I'm usually ready to play some of my level 50s... so I go play them and collect more (now level 50) PVPs and Purples and Catalysts and Merits...these go into SG storage.

• Then I come back to the level 40, convert the drops to prep for the level 50 respec, buy some 10M packs to convert to (or fund purchase of) last few ATO pieces I need. Play up to level 47... by now on most AT I can play 0x8 content without trouble, so the drops start rolling in.
• At level 50, buy the missing Superiors, Swap out attuned PVPs to level 50 PVPs, catalyze pieces as needed. Buy boosters with merits.
• Put 200 M Inf in email for the next character.

My builds end up with some pricey pieces... but it feels like I did it all by effectively starting with 100 M Inf (I start with 200M to be able to give away early).

 

The worst side effect of my now "meh" attitude is that I can't take anyone seriously whenever a "500M Inf build" is mentioned.

[Coyotedancer]

With my middle nephew and his mum in the game now, and FCM and I teaching them the ropes and financing their first builds, I've found myself doing a little more crafting-converting-and-selling instead of just dumping all the recipes I get when I go farming onto the market as raw drops... Little Dude picked a (very) smashy and (very) ambitious Brute as his first character, so the build I'll eventually pull together for him isn't going to be cheap. His mom's Dominator won't be quite as much of an investment, but I don't want to have to worry about scrimping with that one, either... So, for a bit at least, I'm being more Ebil than the average farmer. 

 

I've suddenly got dependents, 🤣

[nihilii]

I went all in with Winter Packs, which for me is about ~15B. By far the largest gamble I ever made.

If they sell for ~35B, I'm not sure what I'll do with the inf. I'm already slotting alts on a buy-it-NAO basis. Perhaps fully committing to the amplifier lifestyle, and keeping all 3 on all the time. I tend to multibox so this can add up fast. I could also go the "speedrunner" route, and keep many charges of those tasty, tasty signature summons...

Regardless, it's difficult not to get bit by the marketing bug. I'm slotting a new alt as we speak, and there's a supply crunch on several damage procs: going for 6M and above rather than their usual 2M. It is *physically impossible* not to buy a bunch of other IOs in the same set and play converter roulette, even though I know this use of my time is largely pointless.

[tidge]

On 1/7/2021 at 8:54 AM, nihilii said:

 I'm slotting a new alt as we speak, and there's a supply crunch on several damage procs: going for 6M and above rather than their usual 2M. It is *physically impossible* not to buy a bunch of other IOs in the same set and play converter roulette, even though I know this use of my time is largely pointless.

Hmmm... this surprises me about typical (non-PVP, non-Very Rare) "2M" damage procs. The %proc sector has almost always been upside-down in terms of number available v. number of open bids.

 

Outside of PVP and Very Rare sets: the primary %proc sector where I've noticed fluctuation is in Holds. I attribute this to a few things:

• There are an over-abundance of Hold IO sets (six, not counting the PVP, Very Rare and Winter IO sets!), so converting between the Hold sets is somewhat uneven (in terms of landing on the better sets)
• Basilisk's Gaze specifically grants a key bonus (+Recharge) with only 4 pieces, and this is a low level IO set.
• Many low-damage ATs have access to Hold powers, so franken-slotting with %damage from multiple Hold sets can significantly boost damage output for those AT.
• Some other players simply can't stop themselves from adding Hold %damage pieces to powers with perfectly acceptable damage outputs (often single-target attacks!) if those attacks have a secondary hold effect.

There are a few %procs in popular Debuff sets which had historically been around 6M... maybe the price of these had dropped to around 2M for a while?

[Saikochoro]

I ate my words when I said I probably wouldn’t buy a lot of packs in the beginning of the sale. I found that I thought more highly of the winter Os when they were 7m a pop instead of 20m a pop and so ended up slotting them more. 
 

I bought a total of 66 packs, which was a fairly significant strain on my liquidity. Even though I do market a fair amount I make alts pretty much non stop so I never actually have a lot of inf on hand. 
 

I may end up using a lot of the WOs that dropped for me, but I plan to sell 50 of them for hopefully 15-20m a piece at some point this year. That way I will recoup my costs.  I did get 975 merits to fund my enhancement conversion so that was a nice bonus. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

I've actually taken a little time to take stock of a few things, one of which is how much inf I actually have, how quickly I can extract it from the AH, etc.  I figure at this point, there are very few things I'm not willing to be completely transparent about.  So if you're curious about something, I'll tell you what I can (unless it's one of my two secrets...)

[Sakai]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I've actually taken a little time to take stock of a few things, one of which is how much inf I actually have, how quickly I can extract it from the AH, etc.  I figure at this point, there are very few things I'm not willing to be completely transparent about.  So if you're curious about something, I'll tell you what I can (unless it's one of my two secrets...)

Ok I'll play. How many billions do you figure you have. Has to beat the 4 I seem to have settled upon. 

 

Thinking about it I am pretty sure that is what I had Live as well. Things are so much cheaper here so I am SOOOOO much wealthier 🙂

Edited January 16, 2021 by Sakai

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 hours ago, Sakai said:

 How many billions do you figure you have. 🙂

Cash and equivalents:  203,970,084,062 as of last time I logged on each of my alts. 

 

That's subdivided as:

135 bids in the AH for 1bn apiece on items that currently do not exist in the game

20 emails for 999,999,999 a piece (will move these to bids at some point)

48,970,084,882 inf spread across 129 alts

 

I'm not counting inventory, just straight cash, homie (h/t Randy Moss).

 

EDIT:  I know, I thought it would be higher too!

Edited January 17, 2021 by Yomo Kimyata

[Sakai]

Wow. That's a lot. 

[Ukase]

Yowza, Yomo! 

I "feel" like I'm close to your total.
Just as you do, I'm sure, a healthy number of bids outstanding, sales pending, inventory, etc. 
Liquid Inf is currently: 

197,853,842,712

 

I expect to break 200B tomorrow; the sky is the limit. 

[Troyusrex]

I have closer to 10B liquid. Much more than that illiquid (building up a thousand plus snow beast army isn't cheap!). I think after I made a killing last year on Winter Super Packs I had 12 or 15 billion. I might build higher for awhile if I'm trying something (like taking the rare salvage market).

 

I just can't seem to get above about 15B. Oh, I certainly have the ability, just not the drive. As is, I can purple out multiple alts in a day with no sweat, so I have everything I need and therefore I just can't motivate myself to build up yet more. 

 

 

[Crysis]

On 1/7/2021 at 8:54 AM, nihilii said:

I went all in with Winter Packs, which for me is about ~15B. By far the largest gamble I ever made.

If they sell for ~35B, I'm not sure what I'll do with the inf. I'm already slotting alts on a buy-it-NAO basis. Perhaps fully committing to the amplifier lifestyle, and keeping all 3 on all the time. I tend to multibox so this can add up fast. I could also go the "speedrunner" route, and keep many charges of those tasty, tasty signature summons...

Regardless, it's difficult not to get bit by the marketing bug. I'm slotting a new alt as we speak, and there's a supply crunch on several damage procs: going for 6M and above rather than their usual 2M. It is *physically impossible* not to buy a bunch of other IOs in the same set and play converter roulette, even though I know this use of my time is largely pointless.

As an experiment, I have a few alts built entirely around Amplifiers and other P2W buffs.  The only IO’s I’ve really slotted on them have been recharge and recovery procs.

 

They’ve played out surprisingly well.  Not quite at the level of a fully kitted top tier IO’d toon but between P2W buffs, powers and assists from summons plus normal SO’s and a handful of procs I’ve been able to hit softcap for primary defensive and great damage output.  I don’t think this would be viable on a Troller or Dom but for everything else it’s a low budget way to trick out a toon.

 

Just an experiment, but yet one more way to easy street.