Everything seems to cost too much influence

[Wavicle]

1 minute ago, Miss Magical said:

 

Ultimately, I consider all economics arguments a distraction from the issue of a subculture of players demanding the privilege to receive vastly more (as much as 10x) rewards than anyone who simply chooses to have a different playstyle, for no reason.

 

 

 

But let's not discount the adjustments that have been made. I think the 10x is no longer really accurate. I agree things were out of whack early on in HC, but it seems to have been mostly resolved.

 

Quote

It all made sense when I learned that this was apparently the developers' first MMO, because there are a lot of clues in this game that it was someone's first rodeo, and this is the most obvious one.

 

Well, maybe the second most obvious. The most obvious is definitely the ignorance of Damage Per Animation Time being important, and more generally just math.

[Miss Magical]

12 minutes ago, macskull said:

The items available through the market or P2W vendors have had (for the most part) fixed prices since they were introduced but prices for other items have remained relatively constant over the last two years. Are you suggesting that there was a sudden and massive amount of inflation due to AE farming right at the start and that equilibrium has been in effect since then?

 

The amount of inf earned PLing a character from 1-50 is far less than the amount of inf it costs to fund a build for that character - even less if the character being PLd is using a 2XP booster. I can crank out all the 50s I want but the act of leveling them alone isn't going to get me the inf I need to pay for their builds.

 

I don't see how that is relevant. The point is that the lack of sustained inflation cannot be used as an argument that farming does not raise prices, because in this game the economy trends towards an equilibrium. Farming can still cause higher prices (raised equilibrium) without being able to cause sustained inflation.

[macskull]

1 minute ago, Miss Magical said:

 

Thank you for understanding the real issue at stake here. Ultimately, I consider all economics arguments a distraction from the issue of a subculture of players demanding the privilege to receive vastly more (as much as 10x) rewards than anyone who simply chooses to have a different playstyle, for no reason.

 

However, I also do not think AE farms can be balanced in a vacuum. If you do that, the farmers will just move on to the next farmable thing. It may slightly less convenient and lucrative for them, but they will still find some way to vastly outstrip the earnings of casual players. What I think this game needs is a comprehensive review of reward systems that ensures all kinds of content and playstyles are incentivized -- and I don't think that is ever going to happen. Right now, the only thing that has anything close to the sort are task forces (balanced by time-based merit rewards, the WST, and diminishing rewards).

 

I was astonished to hear that there was apparently never anything of the sort in this game -- that the vast majority of all content was just made with the assumption that people will do it simply because it exists, and no thought was given to the questions of "how will we keep this content rewarding long into the future? What can we do to support players who enjoy it so they'll continue being able to find teams for it?" It all made sense when I learned that this was apparently the developers' first MMO, because there are a lot of clues in this game that it was someone's first rodeo, and this is the most obvious one.

If I decide to spend my time playing the game in an AE farm, I cannot earn the following rewards:

• Reward merits
• Empyrean merits
• Astral merits
• Incarnate salvage

Reward merits are the fastest way to make inf while playing the game, aside from market shenanigans.

 

Now, all that aside... the "casual player" thing has been a running joke since waaaaaaaaaaay back on live. Who are these "casual players" who simultaneously want the best available gear for their character but are unaware of the myriad dead simple ways to make the inf to get it?

[Miss Magical]

7 minutes ago, macskull said:

If I decide to spend my time playing the game in an AE farm, I cannot earn the following rewards:

• Reward merits
• Empyrean merits
• Astral merits
• Incarnate salvage

 

 

But you can. Your newly 50'ed character can just continue to sit in an AE farm and gain empyrean merits from veteran levels, which are convertible to reward merits, astral merits and incarnate salvage. And this is by far the fastest way of gaining vet levels and hence, empyrean merits. In fact, I suspect this is one of the non-economical reasons why farms are popular -- when combined with veteran levels and the lack of travel time, it's nearly a one-stop shop.

 

Are you seriously trying to suggest that farming does not give, by far, the very best rewards in the game? Farmers would not circle the wagons around their golden goose if it were not. I may be relatively new to this game, but I am not stupid. This is why I am skeptical of pro-farming arguments -- they all seem deceptive in nature.

 

I'm done replying to you.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Miss Magical

[Grouchybeast]

14 minutes ago, Miss Magical said:

I was astonished to hear that there was apparently never anything of the sort in this game -- that the vast majority of all content was just made with the assumption that people will do it simply because it exists, and no thought was given to the questions of "how will we keep this content rewarding long into the future? What can we do to support players who enjoy it so they'll continue being able to find teams for it?"

 

That would be a fair question to ask, except that most content in CoX does get played.  Everyone in the game isn't in AE.  People are playing TFs, running story arcs, soloing and teaming,  It continues to be true, as it was even on the live servers with their much more inflated market, that simply playing the game provides more than enough inf to equip characters.   As the saying used to go on the old forums, the game rains inf, all you need to do is hold out a bucket.  (And a much smaller bucket, now, since IO prices are in some cases literally orders of magnitude lower.) Farming is entirely optional.  I assume that most people who farm are doing it because they enjoy it as an activity, not because they feel forced into it.

 

I guess some people do feel compelled to stick to the gameplay that gives the greatest reward over time, but to my mind, at least in CoX, that's very much a them problem.  The game itself easily supports all kind of play styles.  HC CoX is just not a very grindy game.   

 

15 minutes ago, Miss Magical said:

It all made sense when I learned that this was apparently the developers' first MMO, because there are a lot of clues in this game that it was someone's first rodeo, and this is the most obvious one.

 

I'd say the main clue is that it was released in 2004, when the number of MMOs which existed for the devs to take ideas from could be counted on the fingers of one mitten hand.

[macskull]

17 minutes ago, Miss Magical said:

But you can. Your newly 50'ed character can just continue to sit in an AE farm and gain empyrean merits from veteran levels, which are convertible to reward merits, astral merits and incarnate salvage. In fact, I suspect this is one of the non-economical reasons why farms are popular -- when combined with veteran levels and the lack of travel time, it's nearly a one-stop shop.

Yes, I'm aware I can earn Empyrean merits simply by leveling but I can also do that in any other content. If I want to earn them the "normal" way, however, I need to run incarnate trials or Dark Astoria arcs. Besides, the conversion rates for Empyrean merits to any of those other things are... pretty awful.

 

17 minutes ago, Miss Magical said:

Are you seriously trying to suggest that farming does not give, by far, the very best rewards in the game? Farmers would not circle the wagons around their golden goose if it were not. I may be relatively new to this game, but I am not stupid. This is why I am skeptical of pro-farming arguments -- they all seem deceptive in nature.

Yes, I am seriously suggesting that. Running merit-efficient task forces gives the best rewards in the game. If you're defining "the best rewards" solely as influence earned per time spent punching bad guys, of course farming is going to come out on top. If I'm trying to make influence as quickly as possible though, farming is pretty far down on the list of things I'm going to want to do. I'd rather spend a few minutes a day playing the market, or running task forces and using the merits I earn to buy salvage to sell.

 

Full disclosure: aside from the occasional AE farm session every few months when I feel like leveling a new character, I spent the rest of my time ingame running task forces or story arcs for badges/accolades.

Edited September 12, 2021 by macskull

[Xenosone]

I will give you a million to stop being poor.

 

Im sitting on 1.2 billion liquid. My base ia filled with enhancments. My alts are all ioed out. I have 1 50 with a smattering of purples. 

 

Im still empty inside. When i have 2 billion liquid then i wont be empty. Oh yes. All the fake money....

[Ukase]

6 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

 

Just as an aside... Nope. Not unless you get very lucky with recipe drops (to the tune of multiple purples in that hour-) and then sell them on the AH. AE's influence earnings have been nerfed twice since Homecoming went live, so even a well-built speed-farmer isn't regularly pulling in 100m in an hour. Drops are fickle.

 

You need to marketeer to get that kind of potential rate.

Drops can be fickle, yes. 
A lot depends on if you include selling the commons to a vendor, and how you deal with the uncommon and rare recipes. You mention marketing. Some farmers market the drops (I do), while some just vendor some recipes, and sell some on AH. And they also sell the rare and maybe the uncommon salvage, too. No one right way to profit off a map. But one point another made earlier is about scale. 

During a test run: 
My afk hour - was only 51m. That doesn't include drops/vendor sales. I've got to think that an active farmer would easily double that, but I could certainly be wrong. 

But...I can scale with an afk farmer. 3 accounts X 51M....I can surpass 150M. Of course, some days, I don't even bother with resetting, as I can get distracted easily. 
 

[Ukase]

5 hours ago, Wavicle said:

 

I do find this unfair and annoying...but...

 

Overall the increased supply of goods is probably worth the basically minor annoyance.

 

Actually, I take it back. I think this disparity ought to be addressed so that more players will join teams outside of the AE.

 

This is absolutely right:

"While farmers try a variety of arguments to defend farming, what they are really arguing for is the special privilege to receive about 10 times the rewards of other people, simply because others choose to enjoy the game differently."

And so, you would stop them and force them to team with you? Be careful what you ask for. 
Are you also going to compel the HC devs to prevent me from making 10X a farmer because I'm an effective marketer? 

Farmers do not argue for the privilege to farm because others choose to enjoy the game differently. They argue to farm because they enjoy being able to buy the enhancements they need because some of them can't be bothered to use converters to get the IOs they need. 

I would venture that if you were to remove the folks who routinely post in these forums and ask each member of the current player base - only 2 out of 3 would know how to make a superior ATO or Winter-O. Add to that the folks who "just can't be bothered" to create the IOs they need, it's clear to me that farmers are necessary. And if you remove the rewards within to 10% of current rewards, I'd guess most would stop playing. 

Is this what you want to see in the AH? Take a good look. 10 months for a sale? (This was from Rebirth server, today)

I do understand that if you've got 50 folks farming, that's using resources of the server, and they're potential teammates that aren't in the mix because they're farming. I do get it. Back on live, there used to be a big beef against fire tanks (before CoV and the lovely brute) and then some genius on the dev team implemented fear in burn. The controllers were finally getting to team up, because they could hold the mobs while the tank burned 'em down! 

I can't recall how long it was - but they eventually took fear out of burn. They had to know it was a mistake. If folks want to team, they'll team. But this game is solo-friendly. And that's a good thing. We have options! Why would you want to reduce options? And why would you want to corral others to play your way, instead of their way? 

 

[Miss Magical]

1 hour ago, Grouchybeast said:

 

That would be a fair question to ask, except that most content in CoX does get played.  Everyone in the game isn't in AE.  People are playing TFs, running story arcs, soloing and teaming,  It continues to be true, as it was even on the live servers with their much more inflated market, that simply playing the game provides more than enough inf to equip characters.   As the saying used to go on the old forums, the game rains inf, all you need to do is hold out a bucket.  (And a much smaller bucket, now, since IO prices are in some cases literally orders of magnitude lower.) Farming is entirely optional.  I assume that most people who farm are doing it because they enjoy it as an activity, not because they feel forced into it.

 

I'm sure that every piece of content in the game has been done at least once, by the completionists if no one else. However, failure to properly incentivize content means that ease of participating in different kinds of content, and hence support for different playstyles, can vary widely. On Excelsior, which is the most populated server, it's surprisingly hard to assemble a team for Graveyard Shift (the newest hero storyarc) and the reason is pretty simple -- it doesn't offer any notable rewards. That's why systems such as merit diminishing rewards and the WST exist: to help players who want to run content that is less popular, and because content being worth playing both intrinsically and for rewards is objectively better than this being not the case.

 

I don't doubt that people exist who do farm for fun; repetitive grinding does appeal to some players, and it was a hallmark of the earliest generation of MMO's. There is nothing inherently wrong with this kind of gameplay, provided that rewards are properly balanced with respect to the rest of the game. Ultimately, the problem lies more with the fact that farmers are fighting to demand the special privilege of having their playstyle award vastly more (up to 1,000% as much) rewards than players who choose to enjoy the game differently.

 

 

 

[macskull]

1 hour ago, Miss Magical said:

I don't doubt that people exist who do farm for fun; repetitive grinding does appeal to some players, and it was a hallmark of the earliest generation of MMO's. There is nothing inherently wrong with this kind of gameplay, provided that rewards are properly balanced with respect to the rest of the game. Ultimately, the problem lies more with the fact that farmers are fighting to demand the special privilege of having their playstyle award vastly more (up to 1,000% as much) rewards than players who choose to enjoy the game differently.

You keep saying this and everyone else is giving you examples of how this isn't true. It's like you're being intentionally obtuse. If farming really were that lucrative you'd have a hard time finding teammates for any other content.

 

EDIT: The actual data doesn't bear it out either. The last time for which statistics are available is March 2020 but I have little reason to doubt they've changed significantly since then. At the time there were 115,559 level 50 characters, 12,387 of which were Spines/Fire or Rad/Fire Brutes. For simplicity's sake we will say every one of those Brutes were only created or used as farmers. Even with that assumption that's only about 10% of the total level 50 population. If you take into account all characters across all levels (1,207,409) that's 1.03%.

Edited September 12, 2021 by macskull

[Dazl]

2 hours ago, Miss Magical said:

Ultimately, the problem lies more with the fact that farmers are fighting to demand the special privilege of having their playstyle award vastly more (up to 1,000% as much) rewards than players who choose to enjoy the game differently.

Where the heck are you coming up with this? Farmer's aren't asking for anything special. Farming has already been nerfed. If you want to make influence then you need to be marketing. Farming anymore is just good for power leveling alts.

[MHertz]

Stepping around the debate around farming, let me offer an answer that hasn't been supplied yet: if everything is too expensive, stop trying to buy everything.

 

Seriously, don't. It doesn't matter. You'll be able to play even without the Best Stuff, especially at lower levels.

 

Your lower-level characters who lack wealth also lack slots. This means they have much less need to fill slots with new toys, and the toys will have much less effect on how well you can play. When my DOs are green, it takes 3 hits for my blaster to destroy certain mobs. When they're red, it takes ... 3 hits. So what did I spend 25K influence on? At that level, not a lot. One less miss in 20 swings? I dunno. It's a minuscule improvement to put a couple of percentage points from a DO into 1 damage slot at level 12. It's a lot more important to put in more hefty SO or IO enhancements when your main attack has 6 slots at level 38 ... but by then you'll have more cash.

 

If you want to be frugal, make a diverse set of alts (blaster, controller, defender ... natural, magic, mutation ... and so on). Start a supergroup and put your alts into it. Drop off those Enhancements for one of your alts to find. Somebody's going to be able to use that DO or SO or recipe you found.

 

Don't get me wrong, you can make money if you want to, but don't feel like you have to.

[Blackbird71]

13 hours ago, Coyotedancer said:

You need to marketeer to get that kind of potential rate.

 

The difference being that marketing 1) does not introduce new Inf to the economy, as any Inf made through the market comes from other players, and therefore does not contribute to inflation, 2) actually removes Inf from the game through auction house fees, and therefore, to an extent, helps reduce inflation, and 3) would not be nearly so lucrative without farmers increasing the Inf supply in the economy.

 

11 hours ago, macskull said:

If the "farmers contribute more in inflation than they do in supply to the market" argument had any leg to stand on we would have seen a gradual trend upward in prices over the last two years. 

 

I don't know what prices you're looking at.  For many popular (non-purple) IO set enhancements, I've seen as much as a 200%-300% price increase just in the past six months or so, and the same build now costs me significantly more than it did last year.  So yes, inflation is a thing.

[Ukase]

51 minutes ago, Blackbird71 said:

I don't know what prices you're looking at.  For many popular (non-purple) IO set enhancements, I've seen as much as a 200%-300% price increase just in the past six months or so, and the same build now costs me significantly more than it did last year.  So yes, inflation is a thing.

As someone who does take the drops my afk-farmer gets and places them in the AH, I can tell you that I've seen only small instances of this. 
It's weird. The Preventative Medicine Absorb proc. I love that one. It's literally called a proc. It's in the name. Damn thing works no matter where it's slotted. And you can literally see that it works when the letters flash across your screen in game. But, I digress. 

But price fluctuations in a market are completely normal, as supply and demand are also fluctuating. Converters are the big game changer, though. You can sell them and pay the price directly, or you can use them and make what you need. Or someone else can. Makes no difference to me. 

It's easy to say 200-300% and it be true, though. The trash IOs...like an uncommon Targeted AOE (now called Ranged AoE) like detonation or Air Burst...those turds sell for 100-300k. The variance in the sale prices alone ranges between 200-300%. 

But what about the popular items? Like LotG 7.5%? Over this past year, I think I've seen them sell for 5M for a weekend. There were literally hundreds sold at that price - while mine were stuck, listed at 6M. But, over the course of this year - they're still stuck at 6m, dropped from the fairly routine sale price at 7M from before the NoXP2XInf nerf. It's a stable price. 

So, I'd need some specific examples of these price ranges, otherwise, I'd say you're just not being patient. Bid, log, check back the next day. 

[Bionic_Flea]

I agree with Ukase, there are temporary, cyclical ranges in the price of IOs but I have seen no evidence of sustained inflation.  In fact, I have seen much more evidence of deflation in the most sought-after IOs. 

 

Where there is some small inflation is in what most would consider "junk" IOs.  Uncommon sets with middling to bad set bonuses have gone up in price while popular, powerful pieces have gone down in price because people buy the junk and convert them to the popular and powerful.  You'll also see the same IO vary in price over the week.  More people tend to play on weekends so it is common to see a spike in prices as demand goes up and then slowly goes down over the course of the week until the next weekend.

 

Miss Magical's thinking that farmers cause inflation even though there is no inflation because the farmers set the equilibrium makes no sense to me.  The equilibrium is set by the merit cost of rewards at the ATM vendor.  You can buy a reward merit for 1 million inf and buy any purple recipe or ATO for 100 merits.  Therefore, no reasonable player would spend more than 100 million for any of those items regardless of the amount of farming they had done.  Further, reward merits can be priced by the sale of Boosters, Catalysts, and Converters to be roughly about  210,000 inf.  Using that number and multiplying by 100 merits you get a price of 21,000,000 for a purple recipe or non-superior ATO/WinterO.  Again, no reasonable and informed player would more than 21 million for a purple recipe  . . . and they don't.  ATOs and WinterOs are further capped by the price of Super Packs at 10 mill (25 for Winter).

 

I also don't buy the argument that farmers insist on 10x the influence rewards.  Influence is magically created when a player defeats an NPC.  Influence is also magically created when a player completes a story arc or TF or sells an item to a vendor.  Every player gets the same amount per kill, per completion, and per sale.  The difference is the speed in which those tasks are completed.  Some people like farming, some like speeding TFs, others like spending hours perfecting a costume, base, or AE arc.  Those are all fun and worthy endeavors and totally allowed by the game.  The game only rewards killing critters and completing missions.  Players, however can and do reward creativity by having costume contests, paying for a base builder to make a dream home, and highly rating an AE arc.

Edited September 12, 2021 by Bionic_Flea

[Miss Magical]

6 hours ago, Dazl said:

Where the heck are you coming up with this? Farmer's aren't asking for anything special. Farming has already been nerfed. If you want to make influence then you need to be marketing. Farming anymore is just good for power leveling alts.

I already gave details in my original post, but in short, a kill-most 54x8 ITF produces something like 10 to 12 M inf. The best active farmers that I know of can reach about 100 M/hr. That’s as much as 10x more.

In terms of exp, my experience is that 1-50 takes approximately 20 gameplay hours (on my characters that do not turn off exp to stay within the range of specific contacts). A good farm gets you there in about 2-3h — again, up to 10x faster.

 

Then, you need to consider that farming can be done AFK and is much easier to multibox with than other playstyles. Most other playstyles are not scalable to this extent. 

 

Farmers don’t give up anything in exchange for this. You can unlock incarnates in AE, and you can make and buy incarnate salvage by powerleveling through vet levels and getting empyrean merits. (In fact, I recently read discussions on these forums about the economic viability of power leveling new alts just to claim empyrean merits: you’d level throwaway characters to vet level 18, which is the last level that gives 20 empyreans, then mail them to the character you want, and those merits are in turn convertible to other rewards not directly available from AE.) The only thing that can’t be obtained from AE farms is badge credit.

 

Past nerfs or no, the fact is that currently, farming provides rewards many times those of most other playstyles. Farmers may try to downplay it here, but they aren’t really hesitant to extol how much they earn and how fast they level when trying to convert new players to their playstyle. As for comments that profiteering on the market makes more money, I think that’s  just whataboutism.

[Miss Magical]

45 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

I also don't buy the argument that farmers insist on 10x the influence rewards.  Influence is magically created when a player defeats an NPC.  Influence is also magically created when a player completes a story arc or TF or sells an item to a vendor.  Every player gets the same amount per kill, per completion, and per sale.  The difference is the speed in which those tasks are completed.

In terms of rewards, there is no difference in being able to kill 1 critter and receive 10 inf instead of 1; or being able to kill 10 critters 10 times as fast, and receiving 1 inf for each. Either way, both result in a reward rate of 10 inf/unit time, which is the metric that must be considered (in the same way that DPS is the generally relevant metric for damage, rather than the damage of any specific hit). Farmers may be advocating for the latter over the former, but the net result is still that they want their playstyle to be vastly more rewarding in comparison to most others, for no reason. Oh, and they can AFK farm, too.

 

The equilibrium prices are determined by the relative rates of inf generation and elimination. When the rate of inf generation is higher, more inf enters the economy and prices rise generally because there is more money to spend. When the rate of inf elimination is higher, inf is removed from the system, and people are less willing to pay high prices because less inf exists now and inf itself has value as a commodity (P2W powers, super packs, etc.)

 

What the various vendors do is set a ceiling price beyond which the equilibrium cannot rise further, the ultimate ceiling being the conversion of inf to reward merits directly (1 M inf = 1 merit). You won’t see runaway hyperinflation in this game the way some real-world economies experienced, because it’s not possible. However, below that level, farming can certainly raise the equilibrium and result in elevated prices.

 

I also think there is a separate effect where farming increases demand for IO’s by mass-producing high-level characters who will all now desire enhancements. This generates demand, and increased demand leads to higher prices.

[MoonSheep]

and there’s me missing the days when purples costed 200M etc..

 

everything is ridiculously cheap these days

[Luminara]

20 minutes ago, Miss Magical said:

I already gave details in my original post, but in short, a kill-most 54x8 ITF produces something like 10 to 12 M inf. The best active farmers that I know of can reach about 100 M/hr. That’s as much as 10x more.

 

20 minutes ago, Miss Magical said:

Farmers don’t give up anything in exchange for this. You can unlock incarnates in AE, and you can make and buy incarnate salvage by powerleveling through vet levels and getting empyrean merits. (In fact, I recently read discussions on these forums about the economic viability of power leveling new alts just to claim empyrean merits: you’d level throwaway characters to vet level 18, which is the last level that gives 20 empyreans, then mail them to the character you want, and those merits are in turn convertible to other rewards not directly available from AE.) The only thing that can’t be obtained from AE farms is badge credit.

 

The foundation of your premise is flawed from the outset.

 

For example, your hypothetical comparison of a farmer generating 100,000,000 inf* per hour versus 10,000,000-12,000,000 inf* per hour for a "kill most ITF" doesn't clarify the conditions of the comparison.  A farmer triple-boxing versus a single character on a full team is what your suggested comparison implies, and that would grossly skew the metrics involved to make it appear that the farmer was generating ten times the inf*, when in actuality, the inf* generation would be equivalent for the activities, with the difference being the ITF inf* split eight ways, rather than all going into a single pocket.

 

Your comparison fails to account for the 26 merits rewarded for completing the ITF.  Yes, the farmer can collect Empyrean merits for achieving veteran level milestones and exchange those for reward merits, but the character on the ITF can acquire those Empyrean merits as well and the ITF reward merits in addition.  That equates to roughly ~6,000,000 additional inf* for every character on the ITF, and potentially more, depending on how they use those merits, that wasn't included in your comparison.  That increases the average inf* generation from 10-12,000,000 inf* to 16-18,000,000 inf* per participating character, netting a total of 128-144,000,000 inf* for completing that TF (28-44,000,000 more than the farmer generates).

 

You're throwing out numbers with no qualifying data, and either failing to account for all variables or deliberately obfuscating the results.  People here actually look at the facts.  People here test things.  And people here have had this discussion numerous times in the past, so they're not easily hornswoggled, or unlikely to notice that you missed some very obvious points.  If you'd like to be taken seriously, post some real data, not wild guestimates presented as gospel or deliberately disingenuous comparisons intended to incite FUD.

[Coyotedancer]

On 9/11/2021 at 8:24 PM, Ukase said:

Drops can be fickle, yes. 
A lot depends on if you include selling the commons to a vendor, and how you deal with the uncommon and rare recipes. You mention marketing. Some farmers market the drops (I do), while some just vendor some recipes, and sell some on AH. And they also sell the rare and maybe the uncommon salvage, too. No one right way to profit off a map. But one point another made earlier is about scale. 

During a test run: 
My afk hour - was only 51m. That doesn't include drops/vendor sales. I've got to think that an active farmer would easily double that, but I could certainly be wrong. 

But...I can scale with an afk farmer. 3 accounts X 51M....I can surpass 150M. Of course, some days, I don't even bother with resetting, as I can get distracted easily. 
 

 

I'm a frequent "active only" farmer (AFK farming just feels too much like an exploit to me, personally, so I don't do it out of principle-) who runs two accounts tandem... my active farmer and follow-along sidekick built to help hold aggro. Together they tend to average about 60m or so for an hour's run after everything is sorted and sold. (ETA: Obviously, that can vary quite a lot based on exactly what drops. Looking at my notes from when I was actually figuring out averages, to see if having the second character in there was worth it or not, it went anywhere from 50m on the low end to 71m at the highest. That's combined earnings. Not what they each made individually. Each run was made using Byro's version of the Atta cave map.)

 

I vendor all of the common recipes, but toss the vast majority of the uncommon and rare recipes I get on the AH. There are a few specific recipes that I keep for our own use, along with any purples or PvPs that come along, but by-and-large I do consider supplying the market to be a big part of the farmer's role in the City ecosystem.  Common and Uncommon salvage goes to the AH, likewise. Rares I keep for crafting.

 

I'm not in any way a marketeer... I find that entire process absolutely, mind-numbingly tedious... so I just supply the raw material that lets the people who do have the patience for crafting and converting their way into monocle and top hat territory make their billions. 

 

As "just a farmer", I'll never have the vast INF hordes that you and Yomo do. But with Sunni and her Barn Cat sidekick, I do make enough INF to be comfortable. I've been able to equip my own alts to a pretty high standard, and I've had the extra resources to support the CoyoteNephews and their mom's alt experiments. (They're new to the game, and at this point in the learning curve, worrying about how to afford the SOs on the fourth alt idea they've created this week would be more annoying for them than fun. Economics and income-earning lessons will come along eventually... but for now I'm honestly more concerned with just teaching them how to actually PLAY the game. 😆 ) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 14, 2021 by Coyotedancer

[Sovera]

Farming is fine. People who like farming are fine. There is no gross inflation as some people are talking about. Purples used to cost 22-25 million and are down to 15-17 mill. ATOs have always cost 8-10 mill and haven't budged, winter IOs used to go as high as 40 mill and nowadays are 20-22. LotGs used to be a solid 7 mill and nowadays are a solid 5-6 mill.

 

Yes, farming gives more, but does it matter as long as we have enough? Well, does it?

 

I have a 'start with no inf transfers, no IOs' challenge documented in the Brunker thread and though it was not pleasant having no money at all and scramble for everything I still finished the first day with 83 million just by leveling via TFs which already bough most of the basic and expensive IOs. Tell me that in one week I wouldn't have the character fully kitted in purples and winter IOs?

[Coyotedancer]

It's the pearl-clutching about how we farmers are just *ruining* teaming that really makes me face-palm...

 

Miss M's head might actually explode if they knew just how many of us in the City prefer to solo, or to run with duo/trio small teams instead of joining their 8-player task force slog-fests. 

 

The idea that everyone would just flock to some wonderland of easy teams and instant leagues if only those terrible, terrible farmers were all forced to change their Evil Ways is... well, pretty misguided, to put it kindly.   

 

 

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by Coyotedancer
Miss not Moss. XD

[Bionic_Flea]

 

 

1 hour ago, Luminara said:

Your comparison fails to account for the 26 merits rewarded for completing the ITF.  Yes, the farmer can collect Empyrean merits for achieving veteran level milestones and exchange those for reward merits, but the character on the ITF can acquire those Empyrean merits as well and the ITF reward merits in addition.  That equates to roughly ~6,000,000 additional inf* for every character on the ITF, and potentially more, depending on how they use those merits, that wasn't included in your comparison.  That increases the average inf* generation from 10-12,000,000 inf* to 16-18,000,000 inf* per participating character, netting a total of 128-144,000,000 inf* for completing that TF (28-44,000,000 more than the farmer generates).

A good team built for the ITF can run a 54/x8 Kill Most at 15-20 minutes, so you can multiply that 10-12 million by 3 or 4.  But lets be conservative and say 30 million inf per hour per player.  Multiply that by eight players and you have 240 million.  If we add in Luminara's merits and call it 16 mill per run x 3 runs (48 mill) x 8 players is 384 million added to the economy in an hour.

 

Also: Nerf Regen, not farms or ITFs.

[InvaderStych]

33 minutes ago, Coyotedancer said:

It's the pearl-clutching about how we farmers are just *ruining* teaming that really makes me face-palm...

 

Even more broadly: this is the thing I never understand about any particular player's forum crusade against farming. By comparison to most around here I could be considered a "casual," and yet kitting out high end builds on the toons that hold my interest into the proverbial "end game" has been a complete non-issue.

 

It just doesn't affect me at all because of the following:

 

3 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

The equilibrium is set by the merit cost of rewards at the ATM vendor.  You can buy a reward merit for 1 million inf and buy any purple recipe or ATO for 100 merits.  Therefore, no reasonable player would spend more than 100 million for any of those items regardless of the amount of farming they had done.  Further, reward merits can be priced by the sale of Boosters, Catalysts, and Converters to be roughly about  210,000 inf.  Using that number and multiplying by 100 merits you get a price of 21,000,000 for a purple recipe or non-superior ATO/WinterO.  Again, no reasonable and informed player would more than 21 million for a purple recipe  . . . and they don't.  ATOs and WinterOs are further capped by the price of Super Packs at 10 mill (25 for Winter).

 

On a whim I dropped 110 merits and netted +/- 22 mil after market fees about 90 minutes ago or so.  Approximately 200,000inf/merit using the "Path of Least Resistance." 110 merits can be had in very short order.  And most in this thread can accumulate them much faster than myself.

 

It simply doesn't matter.  I incorrectly assumed that the consistency in Special Salvage pricing was due to artificial intervention; however, it seems to be designed into the broader interaction between Merits and Inf.  Cool, I learned a little something. 😛

 

There's a "gamer goal" thing going on here.  Max Rewards Per Unit Time simply isn't how my measure my gaming experience.  If I want to use that metric to measure something I'll go do my real life accounting & such.  😄 If that is a metric that is important to a player; then it behooves them to employ the in-game strategies that net those maximums. It's been demonstrated repeatedly in this thread and others not only that farming isn't the only way to do so, but that farmers don't have the detrimental impact on the broader player base - even "filthy casuals" like myself - anywhere remotely near the level proclaimed by some crusaders.

 

Edited September 12, 2021 by InvaderStych
general cleanup