The Uber Fallacy

[Myrmidon]

To be fair, Yomo, you would likely find my “sitting in Pocket D working on costumes on a new character for an hour for Long-Range Teleport to begin earning XP” to be a waste of time.😂

 

 

[Sakai]

43 minutes ago, Myrmidon said:

To be fair, Yomo, you would likely find my “sitting in Pocket D working on costumes on a new character for an hour for Long-Range Teleport to begin earning XP” to be a waste of time.😂

 

 

That is  a great idea. 

[golstat2003]

On 6/29/2021 at 4:26 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

This too is 100% correct.  I also behave in this fashion, which I would term economically rational.

 

What keeps things turning is that there are plenty of people who do not follow this path.  It is more important to them to sell something instantly or to buy something instantly.  This is also economically rational, because you have to take the inf value of time into account.  However, I feel that many people over value their time in terms of inf (or, possibly, I undervalue my time in terms of inf!)  If you think about it, every single trade on the AH has an active party and a passive party.  The passive party put in a bid or an offer that would not instantly transact.  The active party put in a bid or an offer that *would* instantly transact.  The active party buys or sells to the passive counterparty, and the passive person gets the better price (higher for a sale, lower for a buy).

 

My guideline is that if I am looking to sell a bunch of something and the first one transacts instantly at my price, I stop and ask myself if I am selling them too cheaply or if someone has a dumb bid in.  If the former, then I change my selling price to something higher than the last price.  If the latter, congrats, you just bought 50 Performance Shifter +endurances!

 

None of this is right or wrong, it just is.  But I'm pretty sure my way is making me more inf.

 

And then you have folks like me who don't sell any salvage on the market unless it's orange. I don't have time to waste on posting yellow and white items on the AH, especially with it's terrible interface. I consider yellow and white salvage vendor trash and treat it as such.

 

MAAAAAYBE if the AH's interface were less painful to use I would contribute to the yellow and white salvage market, but with how little inf you can get for them . . . I doubt it.

[golstat2003]

On 7/1/2021 at 7:27 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Right, but since this is a player-driven economy (meaning that players supply other players), no one wants to be the chump who shovels out the chicken feed.  I doubt that the GMs thought about this when they seeded salvage, but yet another positive purpose that seeding served was to provide all that chicken feed, albeit at (relatively) high prices.

 

This is why I always react negatively to the people who want to only have rare salvage drop for them, since white and yellow aren't worth their time.  In my mind, you shouldn't get to only select the rares, because that's part of the mechanism that keeps whites and yellows coming into the system.  Even if selling them is only muscle memory or habit rather than any significant profit motive.  Also, sometimes I'm grumpy.

 

Meh, we have merits and AE tickets. If yellow and whites stopped dropping today, the devs could just put them as low cost rewards in those stores.

[Murcielago]

I prefer logical fallacies. 

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 7/4/2021 at 3:13 PM, Myrmidon said:

To be fair, Yomo, you would likely find my “sitting in Pocket D working on costumes on a new character for an hour for Long-Range Teleport to begin earning XP” to be a waste of time.😂

 

 

 

The only waste of time is golf.  Anything else is fair game.

[ZeeHero]

I'm not really dead set on making billions of inflluence but when I sell merit stuff its usually the enhancement upgraders, as long as they are going for a million each. I can run one Ape-Mage incarnate TF and make about 20M, more if I'm lucky.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I wanted to resurrect this thread because it seems to be getting worse.  Fewer people are producing supply, and more people are blaming fictitious causes.

 

If you are bummed out there isn't enough supply, do something about it!  I'll help you if I can.  

 

But I, personally, have little to gain at this point from spitting out thousands of IOs for a 2mm+ profit each.

 

And furthermore, you're probably better off not instadumping your holdings.  But to each their own!

[Spaghetti Betty]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I wanted to resurrect this thread because it seems to be getting worse.  Fewer people are producing supply, and more people are blaming fictitious causes.

 

If you are bummed out there isn't enough supply, do something about it!  I'll help you if I can.  

 

But I, personally, have little to gain at this point from spitting out thousands of IOs for a 2mm+ profit each.

 

And furthermore, you're probably better off not instadumping your holdings.  But to each their own!

What's the most efficient way to generate uncommon salvage? Farming? Brainstorm ideas? I'll probably spend a few days generating as much as possible to dump on the market. Probably won't make much of a dent though.

[Yomo Kimyata]

13 minutes ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

What's the most efficient way to generate uncommon salvage? Farming? Brainstorm ideas? I'll probably spend a few days generating as much as possible to dump on the market. Probably won't make much of a dent though.

 

I'd say farming, either regular or AE tickets.  Just like the good old days when I used to go street sweeping in Dark Astoria to get alchemical silver!

[Andreah]

16 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'd say farming, either regular or AE tickets. 

I'd be curious to see what the yellow salvage price would have to be at to make running AE farms for tickets more efficient than for regular drops.

[BastionWalls]

Not sure if this has any connection or not, but it is pretty much exactly a year ago that the "Uncommon Salvage Spike" happened. If I remember correctly, it lasted about 6-8 weeks before things went back to the 1000-1500 range.

[Ukase]

On 7/14/2021 at 8:27 AM, golstat2003 said:

 

And then you have folks like me who don't sell any salvage on the market unless it's orange. I don't have time to waste on posting yellow and white items on the AH, especially with it's terrible interface. I consider yellow and white salvage vendor trash and treat it as such.

 

MAAAAAYBE if the AH's interface were less painful to use I would contribute to the yellow and white salvage market, but with how little inf you can get for them . . . I doubt it.

How is it painful? Lug over 10 salvage at a time, choose a list price and wait to collect. Rather painless and simple. 

[Spaghetti Betty]

6 minutes ago, BastionWalls said:

Not sure if this has any connection or not, but it is pretty much exactly a year ago that the "Uncommon Salvage Spike" happened. If I remember correctly, it lasted about 6-8 weeks before things went back to the 1000-1500 range.

It's definitely because school is out over the summer. Last night I probably threw about another 300 uncommon salvage up after farming, opening super packs, and using brainstorm ideas. Didn't move the price much.

 

Another thing to note is that LotG's are way down in price, 6mil compared to 7-8mil a couple months ago. The IO with the most buying and selling traffic (correct me if I'm wrong) becoming cheaper while crafting resources go up in price tells me that this is just the summer economy at work.

[Yomo Kimyata]

5 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Another thing to note is that LotG's are way down in price, 6mil compared to 7-8mil a couple months ago. 

 

This is the interesting part!

[Ironblade]

6 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Another thing to note is that LotG's are way down in price, 6mil compared to 7-8mil a couple months ago.

Hmm.  Just checked and the last five prices are 5.25 million.

[golstat2003]

7 hours ago, Ukase said:

How is it painful? Lug over 10 salvage at a time, choose a list price and wait to collect. Rather painless and simple. 

 

And also pointless. The gains compared to orange salvage and enhancements gotten via converters, is a complete waste of time. Faster to vendor them.

[Andreah]

Imo, the salvage bottleneck to crafting, if there is one at all, is still rares. 

 

Here's a thought experiment. If salvage could ONLY be bought from the market at the seemed prices of 10,000/100,000/1,000,000 would it greatly change the end prices of the converter production? 

 

I think somewhat, sure, but not hugely. The majority of the production costs would still be in converters.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Andreah

[Andreah]

2 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

This is the interesting part!

Could it possibly be that someone posted a step-by-step guide on how to make them?, and more people are now doing so?

 

:D

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 3/9/2022 at 12:50 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

I doubt this outcome wasn't already a forgone conclusion to anyone, but at this point in the cycle, all I really care about is shaking the jar and seeing what happens.

 

By making it so obvious, maybe more people will try it?  Maybe there will be a run on converters?  Maybe there will be a glut of LotG +rech?  Who knows?!?   Running experiments on the /AH keeps me warm at night.

 

5 minutes ago, Andreah said:

Could it possibly be that someone posted a step-by-step guide on how to make them?, and more people are now doing so?

 

😄

 

I do not know to what you refer, I am sure!

 

The other day I saw someone in ?General? post a reference to that thread.  It made my jar-shaking heart grow three sizes.

[Ukase]

13 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

 

And also pointless. The gains compared to orange salvage and enhancements gotten via converters, is a complete waste of time. Faster to vendor them.

Vendor common salvage if you must. 

Vendoring uncommon and rare salvage is just ...well, nothing I would ever do, particularly given the silly marketing thing going on with uncommon salvage. 

But, you're gonna do what you're gonna do. Me telling you that you're taking supply of uncommon out of the game that could be used by other players for a fair price is just going to fall on deaf ears. 

Just don't ever complain that prices are high, because it's vendoring inventory that could be placed on AH that causes upward pressure in prices. Supply and demand and all that jazz. 

[golstat2003]

10 hours ago, Ukase said:

Vendor common salvage if you must. 

Vendoring uncommon and rare salvage is just ...well, nothing I would ever do, particularly given the silly marketing thing going on with uncommon salvage. 

But, you're gonna do what you're gonna do. Me telling you that you're taking supply of uncommon out of the game that could be used by other players for a fair price is just going to fall on deaf ears. 

Just don't ever complain that prices are high, because it's vendoring inventory that could be placed on AH that causes upward pressure in prices. Supply and demand and all that jazz. 

 

I vendor uncommon not rares. Rares are pretty much the only ones I put on the market. Uncommon and common aren't worth the time or space to put on the AH.

[Golden Azrael]

On 6/29/2021 at 9:58 PM, Ukase said:

My father, a Dean of Economics (just so ya know he wasn't just some wise old fart), would say to me, "Time is more precious than money. I can accumulate money, I cannot accumulate time." 

But, the construct of time, while we're gaming is an interesting thing. I think a number of folks have a certain number of hours they can play, while another set of folks have...seemingly limitless time to play. I work remotely, and candidly, my "8 hour day" only takes a couple of hours for me. So, I do have a lot of time, if I so choose. But, between meals, exercise, family, I'm still only going to play so much. So time is important, but I detest the feeling of being "ripped off". It makes no sense to use brain storm ideas for uncommon salvage when it can be had for less than 125k. (5 brainstorms gets an uncommon vs 20 for a rare). So, 20 brainstorms are worth roughly 500k, making an uncommon (5 brain storms) worth roughly 125k. Yet, I'd sooner burn through them rather than pay over 5k for an uncommon. It's a loss, but the feeling of letting some marketer get over at my expense is a worse feeling. 
I've got ...sheesh...maybe 7000 (units of 20) of them on one of my accounts. Not like I'm gonna miss them, lol. But It's not like I'd miss the influence either. 

But, my grandmother who didn't even attend a high school, had no idea how old she was (no birth certificates in her country of origin - only a certificate of baptism) would tell me, "Every dollar you save multiplies to the bottom line. That means, if you save your money, that's time you don't have to spend working." 

So, there's some wisdom in not giving the AH your resources. As we "work" ( Play our characters), we earn inf. If we never spend any on the AH, it stands to reason we'll accumulate a lot more than if we were spending inf on the AH. But then...the idea of blowing 100 merits on a recipe...now that's really painful, when I know I can get converters and make a lot more than that recipe would cost if I'd bought it from the AH. 

Ultimately, it comes down to each person's preferred gaming experience. I have spent a lot of time on another thread trying to determine why someone would kill most/all when they could race through, get the merits and move on. And someone was kind enough to get it into my thick skull that all of us have our own preferred gaming experience, and it doesn't have to make sense to anyone else. Wouldn't think it would take so much effort for something so simple to sink in a thick skull, would ya? 

Some genuinely detest the market. They think it should all be free, or they at least want to minimize time with the AH open, so they sell goods like lotg 7.5% for 1 inf, and then they overpay for the same thing 8M when they want one. Doesn't make sense to me, but hey, doesn't have to. 

 

Yeah.  We're not getting the 'time' back.  It's compounded if we spend it with profligacy and ignorance.  (Ticks both boxes with some modicum of lament.)

 

The yellow salvage price run.  (And there's zillions available...)  11500 each.  Somebody is going to hell.  *Readies the hot poker.

 

As for Uncommon recipes.  I can no longer keep up with the ones my 'two' farmers pump out.  I've stopped buying yellow enhs off the market (for a more direct path to what I want to craft) because between what I've bought and what I've farmed, I've got a back log to work through.  I've been making 40-80 million day.  More if you really push it.

 

If 'I was in charge?'  I'd simply have a 'hero' shop where you'd spent merits to acquire the sets we need.  Double the TF/Hero merits rewards and half the costs things.  So you can relatively quickly (compared to now) make a build.  Bring those 'Origin' vendors back into play a bit more.  I'd quite happily prefer I go to my Magic Origin vendor and pay fixed price of eg. £10 million fixed price for a purple enhancement or 50 merits rather than the current 100.  (You can do this with hero merits but it's pricey.  Ergo my farming and targeting the market somewhat. Though most of my alts were just made just with brute force straightforward playing)  And then move onto your next alt.  As the market currently is?  Price cap and just make more things available from Vendors.  

 

I think the objective, for me, is still for HC Devs to make the content the driving force for boosting population numbers (I'm sure they're working on that...) rather than altitis rolling (addict that I am...)  Perhaps getting the community to pad out the zones, the tips, the radios, the arcs, street sweeping missions using an improved AE '2' with submit 'choice cut' dev content (missions/arcs) making it's way into new 'community' derived contacts that can fill the game.

 

I wasn't fond of the market when it 1st appeared.  But still, Batman and the Legion seem to keep mementos of their past battles.  Bruce Wayne/Tony Stark are rich and can fund their heroic deeds, I guess.  It's another layer for many to enjoy the game, perhaps.

 

Part of me will never leave Patch 3 and perma-hasten (with SOs of recharge piled in there.)

 

Yes.  Selling enhans for '1' and then buying it back expensively for the next cool build.  *figits awkwardly on seat.  (Ignorance brings it's own 'rewards.')

 

*musing.

 

Azrael.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Golden Azrael

[Ukase]

On 6/29/2022 at 9:26 PM, Ironblade said:

Hmm.  Just checked and the last five prices are 5.25 million.

I think that's a good thing, but I am inclined to think that it's the work of one or more players working to drive the price of it down. Or, they're liquidating a large reserve. I dunno. But, I'm gonna make sure my base is re-stocked. 

I do not think it will last, but I could certainly be wrong. 

 

[Golden Azrael]

28 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I think that's a good thing, but I am inclined to think that it's the work of one or more players working to drive the price of it down. Or, they're liquidating a large reserve. I dunno. But, I'm gonna make sure my base is re-stocked. 

I do not think it will last, but I could certainly be wrong. 

 

 

LoTG Globals (ReUnion.)  Varies from 5-ish million to 'upto' 7 million (from week days to the weekends.  Though I have seen them go as high as 8 mill' and my luckiest sell was when somebody gave me '26 million' for one.

 

I certainly wouldn't mind the price of LoTGs, the price of ATs, Purples, Uniques being much lower.  I'd be happier still with fixed (and lower) prices from Origin Vendors as a potential outlet.  I still think the merit rewards for TFs is somewhat stingy.  And that the price of these things from current vendors are overpriced.  I do feel like the bar to entry for newer players could be sawn in half for the prices and doubled for the rewards and you'd still be in for a 'tidy' amount of time to get one built out.  

 

If I count up the time taken, most of the stuff I've learned has come from a generous community sharing their knowledge.  I used to wonder how players seemed to move 2-3 times faster than me and their powers charge 2-3 times faster than me...how they never ran out of end...how indestructible they seemed.  Like I was a guy that turned up in home made tights and the rest were mega-Olympian heroes forged in the CoH hero factory.  (Ting.)

 

I doubt LoTGs are going to stay low.  They're in demand as 'THE' unique people like to buy to pad out their build with speed.  As many as '5' per build?  5 alone gives you half of hasten for about 25-35 million depending on when it comes time for me to buy (if it's me, usually 6 million to buy them minimum.  Naturally I liked to buy at peak times to gouge myself more...)

 

Whether its LoTG, Converters, Uncommon salvage, there seems to be alot of market machinations ongoing.

 

Azrael.

Edited July 1, 2022 by Golden Azrael