Upgrading SO's 1-50: Ballpark cost?

[GATE-keeper]

Does anyone know how much roughly it costs to outfit a toon using just SO's from 1-50?  I know it's a nearly impossible question to answer, there being billions of possible powerset/powers/slotting combinations.  But what's a ballpark figure?  $5 mil?  $10 mil?  $20 mil?

 

Also, is there a cost difference in using the magic Upgrade button every level versus every other level?  I know back in the old days before the magic Upgrade button, we would only replace SO's at Lv 12, 17, 22, etc when they turned yellow.  What's the optimum now?

[Mezmera]

I haven't gotten SO's since my first toon when Homecoming became public, plus now with SO's being available from 1-21 its a bit different although early level enhancements are never as costly as high level ones.  I'd ballpark it out at yeah about 15-20 mil I bet.  

[Glacier Peak]

Generic Invention Origin enhancements are pretty cheap on the market. Recipes for them are even cheaper. 

[Snarky]

once you understand the game inf flows like a river.  so.....free

[Without_Pause]

15 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

Generic Invention Origin enhancements are pretty cheap on the market. Recipes for them are even cheaper. 

Depending on the IO, even uncommons can be had for cheap. If one skips out on the ATOs and certain one offs, the difference between SOs and uncommons really isn't that wide. A support AT could be done on the cheap since they are avoiding thing like defense and resists sets.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Without_Pause

[Wobegone]

This will only be a partial answer, but I documented a character leveling to the mid 30s and recorded the following:

At level 12 upgraded SOs for 192k

At level 17 upgraded SOs for 560k.

At level 22 upgrade SOs for 737k. 

 

Obviously this doesn't include the cost of the initial SOs(I think I bought them at level 7) nor does it include SOs I bought while leveling.  If I had to make a guess, I spent around 500k influence buying SOs.  The cost for upgrading will continue to increaese beyond level level 22, but at level 27 I switched to IOs.  I wish I had more data for you, but hope this gives you a good idea.

 

[Dazl]

Once you understand you can use a level 25 basic IO (which never needs to be upgraded) and is almost the same as a level 50 SO, you shouldn't use anything but basic and set IO's post level 22. Unless you like paying to upgrade all those SO's all the way to level 50.

[Greycat]

Guys, I don't think "you can use IOs" is actually.... relevant to the question. Or how easy it is to make INF.

 

It's like answering "What is the distance to the sun" with "You'd die before you reached it" and problems with designing a spacecraft to get there and survive.

---

 

As far as the OP, it depends on quite a bit, including what you're slotting and if you're actually slotting everything (prestige sprints, swift/hurdle/health/stamina.) SOs don't all cost the same. And yes, I'm pretty sure "are you upgrading every level or when they turn yellow" would enter into it.

 

... though, hmm. That's kind of an assumption on my part there. Think I'll go look... Updating this in a bit.

 

Edit: Yeah, quick look. Character from 1-4, hitting upgrade every level (which, yes, is a silly thing to do) is more expensive, since you're paying the upgrade cost each level - doesn't care what you're upgrading *from,* level wise, just a cost for a new set of "your level +3" SOs.  (In other words, creating a character, running to level 4, it didn't care that at 4, I had level 7 or level 5 SOs, it charged me the same 83k to do it. So your cumulative cost is more.)

Edited November 2, 2021 by Greycat

[ner879]

leave it infinite.. some time its work best to thinking and developing mind

[Snarky]

I find SOs very effective up until mid late 20s.  then I?O set bonuses and the number of slots available lead me into slotting more sets.  While running SOs on toons I do level them every time I level.  

 

Again, making money in game is trivially easy.  Once you understand it.  Farming 1 hour = tens of millions of Inf.  (Not my fav way to make cash, but i think its about 50-100 mil +drops, depending on style....?) 

 

Crafting, converting selling inventions.  Tedious.  Lucrative.

 

Using merits to buy Enhancement Converters, selling on Auction.  Average sale 70k per converter.  Not the highest income.  very fast.

 

There are MANY good guides on the boards on how to make cash.  Once you learn a system you like these questions really do become irrelavant.

[InvaderStych]

48 minutes ago, Snarky said:

There are MANY good guides on the boards on how to make cash.  Once you learn a system you like these questions really do become irrelavant.

 

This.  It doesn't take much to render sending 10-25mil over to a new toon a trival matter.  Merits -> Inf is plenty for my purposes, but it is far from the most lucrative.

 

I'll also run SOs while leveling a toon; the number of them slotted does start to taper off after about level 22 though as more unique/global pieces become available, or if I know I'm chasing a specific set for an eventual build.  I'll grab the ATO proc pieces early if they are valuable (scrappers!), but the rest depends on how early I decide I want to keep the alt.

 

After a certain point it starts getting into the 1.2-1.5mil mark per upgrade, and that is a bit much.  At low levels, if I were not gifting new toons with coin I would probably do things differently.

 

Ballpark estimate?  Starting slotting at level 3 or so, I probably dropped about 15mil (maybe 20) fake money units in total on SOs to level 50 on a scrapper with a mix of solo/team/tf play and intermittent use of 2XP buff.  When it hit 50, probably about half SOs and half IOs/sets.

 

FWIW: Before the "Upgrade" Button, common IOs were the go-to.  The problem is that I find crafting tedious (I know, it's just me, no value judgements, I just don't have the attention span) and searching around for an available common can be frustrating at certain levels.  I recall trying to find IOs at 30, and having to settle for 15s as the only ones on market, nothing rare, recharge, acc, etc.  SO's are more expensive during leveling, beyond a doubt, but so much less tedious, imo, than dealing with Commons.

Edited November 2, 2021 by InvaderStych
increased estimate

[Without_Pause]

There was a time when I didn't touch slotting until level 22. I still tend to do that when I'm uncertain how much I like a build. Now that I have a built up supply of currency and attuned IOs, I can slot starting at level 7 in some cases. I might slot some lesser IOs(common, uncommon) until I hit 27 so I can slot level 30 IOs from certain sets as those are more likely to end up in my final build. If I was starting over, building up a stash of attuned IOs would be goal #1.

 

An anyone can do starter kit to get a few million going.

1. Do the tutorial in the game.

2. Keep the inspirs.

3. Once you leave the tutorial, use /ah in chat to open the auction house. Sell the inspirs.

5. Find common salvage in the auction house and put as many stacks of bids as you can for say 100 currency.
6. Sell the ones you get to the vendor for 250. Rinse, repeat.

7. Eventually move to level 50 common IO recipes and sell those. What happens after that is up to you. I need less than a mill to mimic what I do now. 

8. Add in doing content arcs and TFs to gain merits. Outside of the merits, TFs drop better recipes as a reward.

9. Grab the Inner Inspiration power from the P2W. Every 20 minutes you get three free inspirs. Sell or use the better ones.

10. If you are really that hard up for currency, skip the 2x booster. Leveling twice as fast with getting even less funds isn't what you are looking for. Hell, I know how to use the market, and I don't grab the 2x booster as I find the leveling process more enjoyable. I find builds which I got to 50 using 2x boosters need more time for me to feel them out.

 

Bonus. Keep playing your level 50s. No character has better access to gaining currency than a level 50. A single night of gaming can get you more than what you gained in repeating steps 1-7.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Without_Pause

[Yomo Kimyata]

13 hours ago, GATE-keeper said:

Does anyone know how much roughly it costs to outfit a toon using just SO's from 1-50?  I know it's a nearly impossible question to answer, there being billions of possible powerset/powers/slotting combinations.  But what's a ballpark figure?  $5 mil?  $10 mil?  $20 mil?

 

Also, is there a cost difference in using the magic Upgrade button every level versus every other level?  I know back in the old days before the magic Upgrade button, we would only replace SO's at Lv 12, 17, 22, etc when they turned yellow.  What's the optimum now?

 

If you are going to upgrade every level, I'd say the ballpark figure is something north of $100mm.  Probably less than $500mm.  I'm basing that on my limited experience with SOs from levels up to about 20, then extrapolating on an increasing number of slots and an increasing cost of upgrade.

[Triumphant]

I don't know why you would spend the time and money to upgrade SO's EVERY level.  You can upgrade them every 5 or so levels and that should be sufficient.

[Without_Pause]

I just checked. I don't think there is a level 25 common IO which can't be had for 50K or under. Some easily under that, lets say 15k. This says nothing of having the crafting badge for that level so all you need is 2 common salvage and the reduced cost of crafting.

[Yomo Kimyata]

22 minutes ago, Triumphant said:

I don't know why you would spend the time and money to upgrade SO's EVERY level.  You can upgrade them every 5 or so levels and that should be sufficient.

 

Money, yes that's a real issue, but time?  It's just pressing a single button?  which is part of what makes it such an insidious inf sink!

 

Also, there's a *big* difference between a -3 SO (23.33% enhancement, between a lvl 15 and lvl 20 IO) and a +3 SO (38.33% enhancement, between a lvl 35 and lvl 40 IO).  I upgrade to +3 every level, but yes that is very expensive over time.  Then again, I'm usually on an IO only build by about lvl 25-30.

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

If you are going to upgrade every level, I'd say the ballpark figure is something north of $100mm.  Probably less than $500mm.  I'm basing that on my limited experience with SOs from levels up to about 20, then extrapolating on an increasing number of slots and an increasing cost of upgrade.

 

To put this in perspective, @GATE-keeper, doing Posi 1 and 2 and level 8 and 11, which makes around 3-4 million. With around 1.5 to 2 million we can slot a full character worth of generic IOs bought from the AH.

 

Some people might even go further and say that by crafting IOs we can save up!!! ...and they would be right. We might save up something like 500k or something. Then we do Synapse and earn something like 13 million.

 

Don't sweat the small stuff I say.

[Without_Pause]

13 million as a level 50 doing Synapse? That doesn't sound right for someone still leveling or at level 50.

[Sovera]

2 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

13 million as a level 50 doing Synapse? That doesn't sound right for someone still leveling or at level 50.

 

Doing Synapse gives 56 merits. Then defeating Babbage another 6. Rounding it up it's 60 merits. 60 merits turns into 180 converters. 180 converters at 75k each makes 13.5 million. I shaved 500k off for AH fees.

 

More than that if level 50 and not under the 100% XP-but-not-inf. I think I made 3-4 mill as a 50 doing it but was paying zero attention so don't quote me.

Edited November 2, 2021 by Sovera

[Without_Pause]

Well, I use converters to do actual converting, so I wasn't even thinking of that aspect. I mean, why get 70K when you can get millions with a bit of leg work?

Edited November 2, 2021 by Without_Pause

[Ironblade]

15 hours ago, GATE-keeper said:

Does anyone know how much roughly it costs to outfit a toon using just SO's from 1-50?  I know it's a nearly impossible question to answer, there being billions of possible powerset/powers/slotting combinations.  But what's a ballpark figure?  $5 mil?  $10 mil?  $20 mil?

 

Also, is there a cost difference in using the magic Upgrade button every level versus every other level?

Well, I just checked one character to get some actual data.  I have a level 45 who still has 15 SO's in his build and it said it would be 795K to upgrade.

If he had no IO's, he would be upgrading 83 SO's so that would cost 4.4M inf.

 

I normally upgrade SO's every 3rd or 4th level (i.e. waiting until they turn white or yellow).  His are all still green.  If I was using SO's to 50, then I'd have two upgrades on the way to 50 so that would cost about 10M.  Figure about 12-14 upgrades on the way to 45 with the lower ones costing far less.  I'd estimate a total cost in the range of 35-40M inf assuming you upgrade at the rate I do; every 3-4 levels.

 

And yes, there would be a huge cost difference upgrading every level.  Each time you upgrade, you're buying a new set of +3 enhancements.  Doing that every level would cost you approximately double compared to upgrade every other level.  I would estimate upgrading every level would cost about 140-150M inf.  HUGE waste of money, considering I have fully IO'd some characters for less than that.

 

 

[AboveTheChemist]

16 hours ago, GATE-keeper said:

Does anyone know how much roughly it costs to outfit a toon using just SO's from 1-50?  I know it's a nearly impossible question to answer, there being billions of possible powerset/powers/slotting combinations.  But what's a ballpark figure?  $5 mil?  $10 mil?  $20 mil?

 

Also, is there a cost difference in using the magic Upgrade button every level versus every other level?  I know back in the old days before the magic Upgrade button, we would only replace SO's at Lv 12, 17, 22, etc when they turned yellow.  What's the optimum now?

One could answer this question reasonably accurately with a little time investment on Brainstorm (the beta server). Create a character there and use the freebies menu to grant 1 billion inf and level 50. As each level is trained, purchase new SOs to fill empty slots, use the Upgrade button to upgrade existing slots, and record the amount of remaining inf before training to the next level. Upon reaching level 50, compute the level-by-level cost by subtracting the difference in inf remaining between levels. Sum those individually for the total cost, or sum every other level (or every third, or whatever interval you wish) to estimate the cost for upgrading at intervals other than every level.

 

As noted, it won't be exact for every powerset/power/slotting combo, but it will give you a rough idea of what the different upgrade scenarios might cost.

[Arbegla]

Another thing to consider, if you care enough, is using drops that you get while leveling up. If you fight enemies that match your origin, you can easily get most of your enhancements from drops, without having to spend a dime.

 

Granted, I turn off XP every 5 levels so I can do all of the available content, and I try my best to do my origin first, so by the time I'm on the last contact, I have +3 SOs in everything that I don't have an IO for (I don't wanna use common IOs for a build where I plan on using Purples, but I can't slot purples until level 50)

[Sovera]

4 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Well, I use converters to do actual converting, so I wasn't even thinking of that aspect. I mean, why get 70K when you can get millions with a bit of leg work?

 

It's just the lowest estimate. Not everyone, especially not a newbie still thinking in SO terms, is going to be into digging through guides and spending half an hour puttering with things. Even if eventually it goes down to 10 minutes. A new player wants to play.

[GATE-keeper]

13 hours ago, Greycat said:

Guys, I don't think "you can use IOs" is actually.... relevant to the question. Or how easy it is to make INF.

 

It's like answering "What is the distance to the sun" with "You'd die before you reached it" and problems with designing a spacecraft to get there and survive.

Thanks!

 

6 hours ago, AboveTheChemist said:

One could answer this question reasonably accurately with a little time investment on Brainstorm (the beta server). Create a character there and use the freebies menu to grant 1 billion inf and level 50. As each level is trained, purchase new SOs to fill empty slots, use the Upgrade button to upgrade existing slots, and record the amount of remaining inf before training to the next level.

Great thinking! Unfortunately, that won't work b/c stores on Beta don't actually sell enhancements so no way to "buy" SO's since they're free.

 

 

8 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Money, yes that's a real issue, but time?  It's just pressing a single button?  which is part of what makes it such an insidious inf sink!

This, so much this.  Which kind of leads into why I asked the question. 

I've got plenty of Inf.  Every toon that I want billion dollar-builds on has them, plus a billion or so Inf just sitting around doing nothing.

But what I'm short on is time.  Try as I might I can't buy time.  I can sell time, we all sell time, most of us sell 40 hours a week.  Just can't buy any.

 

So when my SO's turn yellow, do I really want to spend 15-20 minutes shopping for salvage and recipes then crafting recipes into IO's, then slotting the IO's into powers - oh and buying unslotters for when I'm ready to replace those with higher ones later?

 

Or do I want to just hit the magic Upgrade button and spend that 15-20 minutes playing?  That 15-20 minutes is a few story arcs.  Or a Posi or a Penny. Or a Posi AND a Penny.  Which brings me Merits that I can use to buy Converters which I can sell on the market for funds to keep pushing the magic Upgrade button.

 

So I guess what I really should have asked was: is it viable to just vendor everything

 

EXCEPT Orange Salvage and Special Salvage (Converters, Catalysts, Unslotters, etc) and the occasional high selling recipe - which is actually worth selling on the AH.

 

Would THAT strategy earn enough to keep pushing the Upgrade button every 5 levels or so?

 

Yes, I know it's wasting INF.  But that's what INF is for....