Amplifiers

[Sakai]

I was curious what kind of info we have on how many Amplifiers received out of 100 packs opened.

 

My Fire/Dark corruptor seems to live by them and it isn't always convenient to hit a P2W when I notice they have run out.  I don't think she is going anywhere so I figure I might as well try to get a bit of a stock pile.

[Yomo Kimyata]

Very small sample set, but recently in 20 Hero packs and 20 Vigilante Packs, I got 2 Offense, 1 Defense, 4 Survival.  I didn't track the split between Hero packs and Vigilante packs.

[Andreah]

Well, since you ask. The last few times I bought packs, I received

 

  79 Defense

111 Offense

  86 Survival

 

Amplifiers out of 2,000 packs.

 

In addition, Bopper has a thread where he's calculated the exact probabilies of the various drops: 

 

And according to that, one ought to get 4.41 of each kind of amplifier per hundred packs, which is pretty consistent with my pack opening history.

 

 

[Sakai]

Thats not bad honestly.  Each one works out to be around 83 million and change. Plus I would have more costume tokens then I could shake a stick at. As well Converters and such but they are just a by product. 

 

I am in the process of clearing my bases/email of the various ATO/Winter Os I seem to have accumulated.  After I finish that I will pick up a fat stack and see how it fairs. 

 

Maybe I could pick up another Windfall. Don't know if it actually does anything but it is fun to pretend. 

 

 

Edited March 20, 2021 by Sakai

[Andreah]

One of the perks of being in-game wealthy is you can run amplifiers all the time.  

 

Having all three amplifiers active is a very nice boost: 

 

Survival: +15% Max HP, +20% Recovery, +40% Regeneration
Offense:  +15% Damage, +10% ToHit, +15% Recharge
Defense:   +5% Def (All), +7% Res (All), Mag4 Protect (Hold, Stun, Immobilize, Fear, Confuse, KB)

 

It's like being a level higher.

 

One could buy these from the P2W vendor, or, if you buy a lot of Superpacks, run them out of your email item claim.

 

If one isn't wealthy enough to use them all the time, they're very good for those special occasions -- the harder task force, or itrial, etc.

[Crysis]

The Amplifiers are great for Proc Monster or frankenslotting builds.  I have entire secondary builds tuned entirely around Amplifiers.

[EmperorSteele]

On 3/20/2021 at 2:42 AM, Sakai said:

Maybe I could pick up another Windfall. Don't know if it actually does anything but it is fun to pretend.

 

They definitely do. It's not a HUGE difference, though. All I know is that when I run one while farming, I get insps more often (when set to ignore everything except medium and large reds/oranges/purples), I get a few more recipes, and I usually run out of space in my salvage inventory before the end of the AE arc and have to stop to either trash some commons or auction off some rares.

I mean, the number of packs you have to buy just to get one isn't worth it (that is, if you have to open 20 packs to get one, you will NOT make back 200Million inf from using it); it's just a fun bonus on top of everything else you've gotten.

[Sakai]

I ended up receiving 15 Amplifiers as well 40 Experience and  3 Windfalls.  Oddly enough no Respec which I was "deeply saddened" by.

 

All of the ATOs (127) were made into Superiors (Defender, Corruptor, MM, Stalker, Dom and Tanks were converted first as I do not have a 50) and then listed.  I received enough Catalysts and Converters (with some merit's used) to not spend any actual influence.

 

It took 2 1/2 hours to do (spread out over 2 days cause yuck so much clicking) for an average of 10 minutes/amplifier, this time out, which seems acceptable to me.    Chunk of that time was spent placing storage tables in base, deleting IOs to make space on various alts, eventually making 3rd builds with nothing in them so I could just slot the ATO as close to the bottom as possible, shuffling the ATOs between the characters and making some chicken wings (forgot to turn off timer 😞 ).  Given that experience, and work already done,  I am pretty sure I can get it well below 2.

 

One lesson learned is that lvl 1 characters do not have 100+ auction slots to work with.  Forgot about that little fact so this added some additional time in the listing process.

 

I imagine I will be doing this again at some point but am not sure if I will go through the Catalysing process.  Guess it depends upon how long it all takes to sell, what my Influence/Minute ends up being and how quickly I burn through the Amplifiers.

 

So if you find your Superiors aren't selling as well this weekend that will be my fault.  My apologies but now we have some more data so it all balances out. 

[Andreah]

54 minutes ago, Sakai said:

(spread out over 2 days cause yuck so much clicking)

 

I'm of two minds about the clicking. 

 

On the one hand, clicking is awful, and you have not suffered until you've bought, claimed, converted, and sold 1000 or more superpacks in a day.

 

On the other hand, if it was easy everyone would do it, and profit margins would drop. 😄

[Yomo Kimyata]

2 hours ago, Sakai said:

I ended up receiving 15 Amplifiers as well 40 Experience and  3 Windfalls.  Oddly enough no Respec which I was "deeply saddened" by.

 

All of the ATOs (127) were made into Superiors (Defender, Corruptor, MM, Stalker, Dom and Tanks were converted first as I do not have a 50) and then listed.  I received enough Catalysts and Converters (with some merit's used) to not spend any actual influence.

 

It took 2 1/2 hours to do (spread out over 2 days cause yuck so much clicking) for an average of 10 minutes/amplifier, this time out, which seems acceptable to me.    Chunk of that time was spent placing storage tables in base, deleting IOs to make space on various alts, eventually making 3rd builds with nothing in them so I could just slot the ATO as close to the bottom as possible, shuffling the ATOs between the characters and making some chicken wings (forgot to turn off timer 😞 ).  Given that experience, and work already done,  I am pretty sure I can get it well below 2.

 

One lesson learned is that lvl 1 characters do not have 100+ auction slots to work with.  Forgot about that little fact so this added some additional time in the listing process.

 

I imagine I will be doing this again at some point but am not sure if I will go through the Catalysing process.  Guess it depends upon how long it all takes to sell, what my Influence/Minute ends up being and how quickly I burn through the Amplifiers.

 

So if you find your Superiors aren't selling as well this weekend that will be my fault.  My apologies but now we have some more data so it all balances out. 

 

I'd be super curious if you track how long it takes for them to move by AT, if you decide to share that info.  I don't generally trade in the Superior versions of things due to liquidity issues, but maybe I'll start.  Hmm, reading that, you definitely shouldn't share that info with me...

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Andreah said:

 

I'm of two minds about the clicking. 

 

On the one hand, clicking is awful, and you have not suffered until you've bought, claimed, converted, and sold 1000 or more superpacks in a day.

 

On the other hand, if it was easy everyone would do it, and profit margins would drop. 😄

 

I think of making inf in a very classical economic way:  I'm trading off some scarce resource in exchange for inf.  That resource may be time, convenience, knowledge, clickiness, other.

 

I started a guide on "profitability per click" but it quickly became more effort than I was willing to put into the project.

[Black_Assassin]

5 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I started a guide on "profitability per click" but it quickly became more effort than I was willing to put into the project.

 

Oh the irony...

[Sakai]

Oops .  Forgot to post some results. 

 

The Superior IOs I placed for sale brought in a 800 million profit it seems and were gone by the end of that weekend.  That works out to be 5.3 million/minute on time invested.  My average, when dealing with converting, is 6.5 million/minute. No idea how this compares to anyone else but seems like lots to me.  I only know the million/minute because I spent a couple months converting and tracking in different fields to see which yielded the best result...I discovered if I knew what things generally sell for the Rare conversion into a wide variety of IO types had the highest profit margins.  Converting Def/Res IOs into more lucrative Def/Res IOs is also profitable but seems a fuller playing field so it can get dicey.  Either way I did get stuck with some things I priced to high and to this day haven't sold.  Need a nice supply of Cloud Senses?  I can definitely hook you up.

 

I bought another fat stack the day after my original purchase just out of curiosity.  Converted them all to the same types, did not catalyze and put them up at what I thought was a reasonable price.  Seems my reasonable price wasn't so reasonable after all.  Just finished selling the last of those a few days ago.....took FOREVER.  Net profit was about 85 million.  I don't recall how long it took to process the inventory but the results was kind of pathetic in comparison.  I did end up receiving more amplifiers than I had in the initial batch so I am set for a good long while.  Works for me as that was  ultimately the point of all the clicking..

 

 

Of the IO types that I chose to sell scrappers seemed to sell poorly (especially the non superior variety) while Blasters and Brutes went quickly.  

 

At the end of the day, if you want a stash of Amplifiers, definitely put in the time to make the IOs Superior. Easy money.

 

 

Edited June 26, 2021 by Sakai

[tidge]

I'm surprised that there is much of a market for Superior versions of ATO (and Winters). I grok why level 50 builds use them, and I am intellectually aware that some folks prefer to only play with a full-kit level 50+ build so won't find value in (uncatalyzed) ATOs but from my PoV the difference between a catalyzed and uncatalyzed ATO is basically 20 minutes of play (one drop per day at level 50) or (heaven forbid) merit-farming... hey, you want those accolades don't you? The only time I every look at the catalyzed ATO market is to price-check the difference between them when looking for a specific piece.

[iBot]

ATOs (and winters) are odd.  Personally, I don't see why anyone would ever spend inf to buy the superior.  And until recently I don't see why anyone would ever spend more than 7 - 8 million inf on the normal version of the ATO.  I don't use winters all that much so not sure what the normal version selling is.  Even if you factor in the cost of a catalyst I still don't understand why a superior goes for 16-20 mil and the normal + the catalyst would only run you 9 - 10 mil at which point just buy the hero pack yourself and try to get the ATO + catalyst for 10 mil total.  Granted there is some RNG there but by this point I've started to dedicate my farmer to buying them once I amass more than 110 mil inf.  Plenty of ATOs to convert, plenty of converters to do so, and the catalyst to boost at 50.  Yes I slot ATOs well before 50.  Ah well.  People are funny.

[Ukase]

Let me grant you some perspective. There are forum visiters, who lurk, read and post that play this game. But there are probably 7 times as many who don't do this and literally have no idea how your standard ATO becomes superior. Same with the winter-Os. 

Additionally, there are many players who have no idea there's a distinction between types of defense and resistances. They are just here to play - which is completely fine - but they are, well, bluntly put, willfully ignorant. They're quite aware there must be more to the game, but they don't care. They just want to make the costumes, mash some buttons and feel heroic or villainous. They're after a different experience than I am, for certain. And that's quite alright. I just wish they would all at least take some time to learn how to accumulate influence and stop complaining about spending 20M for a very rare IO when they could have bought the recipe for 13-14M and crafted it more cheaply at worst, or done a market crash trial and gotten one for free on a character that hasn't run it. There's still a lot of players who don't know this! 

About 9 months ago, I was ready to stop playing, as it's just a time sink and I consider myself to have mastered the game, done all the content, gotten all the badges, etc. Then I realized that there was an area of the game unexplored by me - an SG. I joined Cosmic Council, as they had helped me get a lot of those badges. They will literally take anyone. They have rules, so they don't keep everyone. But - I then had to filter my chat to make sure I wasn't too much of a jerk to people (which comes all too easily, I'm afraid). 

This SG, which helps people get RHW every weekend just about, has more ignorant players than I could ever imagine. Some truly sharp players, don't get me wrong, but the number of casual players who could care less about the market or maximizing their build...let's just say I don't team with them often because some of them have page load times that are longer than the missions when I would do them with speed in mind. Some of them actually use flight, have no stealth and no IOs in their builds, despite the SG granting them free access to all the IOs they could want or need  for their builds. They even have "Build Specialists" that will make a build of any AT/powerset combo for you! And yet, still some of these players are woefully inept - but they are having fun with their ineptness, and that's what matters to them. Different strokes for different folks, right? 

They aren't wrong. They may not be optimal, but their path is every bit as right as my own. I think these types of players are some of the ones that overpay for IOs because they don't know any better. Nor do they care to learn. It's just not the experience they're after in the game. 

I mean, I've learned how to accumulate inf. I'm at well over 300 billion now, despite kitting out all my characters. I really don't even farm any more, unless I just feel like it. (rare) Now I just make strange characters and try to make things hard on myself - almost emulating the way some of these more casual players play! Just for the challenge. Who's to say that's not what these folks are doing? Maybe they're not as inept as I think! 

[iBot]

@Ukase You are certainly not wrong there.  I too have experienced the "I like my costume" crowd where most of my costumes are just 1 or 2 clicks shy of pressing the random button and calling it a day and I'm certain they roll their eyes at my character on screen and wonder "Doesn't he know there are other head choices???".  And don't misunderstand, I'm not saying that anything they are doing is wrong.  Sub optimal sure.  But optimal is nothing more than a personal preference.  I'm sure most of them don't care that my build can handle +4/8 and cost under 1 bil to build.  I've made my peace with it.  When they ask why I don't huddle together with the rest of the team waiting to be slaughtered by the evil +4 carnies I just chuckle and reply "Because I don't need to."  Sometimes one of them will venture into build territory and ask "how can I be that good?" and I gladly show them.  Other times they complain that I'm not being a "team" player and I just make a note that in the future I will not readily team with them.

 

Market is certainly another area along those same lines.  Some players care about getting the most for the least and some players just want the item and don't care about the cost.  Still it is an amusing indication of human behavior that some wonder "what caused the price of this to be X?" and then don't investigate it but rather just complain it is "too high" which is subjective itself.

[Ura Hero]

20 hours ago, Ukase said:

Let me grant you some perspective. There are forum visiters, who lurk, read and post that play this game. But there are probably 7 times as many who don't do this and literally have no idea how your standard ATO becomes superior. Same with the winter-Os. 
 

 

In my experience running forums for other sites, it's more like 5% of the actual users use the forums.  About 0.5 to 1% are the vocal minority who scream and yell about things.  The majority are happy with the status quo.  Unfortunately a lot of folks listen to the vocal minority and make changes that affect the folks who were happy, thus making them now unhappy. 

 

My current job had this mentality until recently.  The managers tended to listen to the folks who called in to complain instead of actually using raw data to make assessments.  I ran some data a while back to show the percentages of who called and what they called about.  It took some time for me to get the word around to enough folks, but eventually we moved to being data driven instead of whiner driven.  Not to say that people who complain shouldn't be listened to, but more that the complaining should be tempered with a bit of reality that most folks are probably satisfied with the way things are and that changes should be made with that in mind instead of the willy nilly; "This needs fixed nao!"

[tidge]

I'm not exactly sure what point is being made about ignorant users when we are discussing the subtleties of market prices for catalyzed ATOs versus uncatalyzed ATOs. I certainly believe that there are more players than forum regulars, and I completely believe that some folks are ignorant about the invention system... I think it may be a stretch to assume they are ignorant about a lot of stuff and are also paying customers for catalyzed ATO that are on the market.

 

From my PoV the enhancement market looks 'rational' to me (balancing costs, profits, specific badges for crafting, supply and utility) with only a couple of outliers, such as:

• There are a peculiarly large number of some %proc that simply don't sell (i.e. not all %proc are useful... if 700+ are on the market with the last sale prices below 1Minf, don't try to sell here!)
• The catalyzed pieces being on the market <- I completely accept that inf can be made form the ignorant, but it is a peculiar amount of effort involved to make these specific pieces to put on the market.