Upgrading SO's 1-50: Ballpark cost?

[Yomo Kimyata]

33 minutes ago, GATE-keeper said:

 

 

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....

 

 

 

You will be cash-inf negative for a long while, but by lvl 50 you would be way ahead of the game.

[AboveTheChemist]

36 minutes ago, GATE-keeper said:

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.

You made me check, and you are incorrect. While I couldn't buy any enhancements (of any kind) as a level 1, I could buy SOs as a level 2 on up to level 50. I checked base vendors as well as open world vendors in Paragon City, the Rogue Isles, and Praetoria, and could buy SOs at normal prices in all places I checked.

[GATE-keeper]

10 minutes ago, AboveTheChemist said:

You made me check, and you are incorrect. While I couldn't buy any enhancements (of any kind) as a level 1, I could buy SOs as a level 2 on up to level 50. I checked base vendors as well as open world vendors in Paragon City, the Rogue Isles, and Praetoria, and could buy SOs at normal prices in all places I checked.

 

Yoiks, lol.  You're right, sorry about that. 

[Erratic1]

 

1 hour ago, GATE-keeper said:

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?

 

Unslotters? Respec pulls every enhancement out of your sockets for free.

 

I do that when swapping to a set IO build and save the basic IOs for my next few characters.

 

Edited November 3, 2021 by Erratic1

[Arbegla]

If you're leveling up normally, and not really paying attention to the market, the character itself will lag behind in Inf as you're doing story arcs, especially if you team.

If you turn off XP so you can run all the content in a certain level range, you'll earn more than enough to hit the magic Upgrade button every 5 levels, or even more often. But you'll also be at that level for quite some time, and the extra inf you earn more than makes up for it.

 

I'm currently doing both, I have a character I only team with my girlfriend with, and because she doesn't know the game much, neither of us are running the market, and just selling our drops as they come, and we're pretty low on inf around level 12. Enhancements are white/yellow, with some blank spots.

[Without_Pause]

15 hours ago, Erratic1 said:

 

 

Unslotters? Respec pulls every enhancement out of your sockets for free.

 

I do that when swapping to a set IO build and save the basic IOs for my next few characters.

 

I accidently slotted an IO incorrectly recently so I went and used an unslotter. I'm not doing a respec for that.

[Without_Pause]

19 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

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.

Billionaires give their info out for free. Not much research to do. 

 

Earn merits to gain converters or just buy the converters. Place stacks of bids on level 41 Doctored Wounds. Convert to a heal at the cost of 2 converters. Sell at "2 mill" a pop since it converts to a rare. Rinse repeat. Start up cost is what? 200k to do it one time, and then multiply from there? I did this for a time as a way to fund builds. I would literally IO out full builds with no restrictions in terms of costs and not even play the character until the new build was done so no farming either. I can log in the morning and in a few minutes do everything I need to do while eating breakfast. I hadn't done anything this morning so I did a lunchtime check-in. From log-in to log-out a character dealing with level 50 common recipes. 1 min. My main. 4 minutes, but almost nothing really had happened, so it was mostly me dragging my feet and trying to see how long it might take to mimic if I had a busier day. I can't imagine taking more than 5 minutes.

 

I'm roughly a 9 year vet. I want to play to, which is why I handle my market stuff outside of what I consider regular gaming and can be done in a literal few minutes during downtime.

 

P.S. Crushing Impact, Thunderstrike, Red Fortune, Titanium Coating and other sets should also follow the same conversion pattern from uncommon to rare within the same type of sets at level 41 with various amounts of profit. You can absolutely do different recipes at different level ranges, but you will likely need to convert more than once which likely means possibly using more converters overall and more time although more potential for currency. 

[GATE-keeper]

22 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

You will be cash-inf negative for a long while, but by lvl 50 you would be way ahead of the game.

 

5 hours ago, Arbegla said:

If you're leveling up normally, and not really paying attention to the market, the character itself will lag behind in Inf as you're doing story arcs, especially if you team.
 

 

 

Well, I did as suggested and created a toon on Beta, Upgrading every 5 levels.  It only cost about 16.8 mil.  I'm confident that the Merits earned (don't forget the easy merits just for exploring a new zone) will be enough to cover 16.8 mil.

[Arbegla]

7 minutes ago, GATE-keeper said:

 

 

 

Well, I did as suggested and created a toon on Beta, Upgrading every 5 levels.  It only cost about 16.8 mil.  I'm confident that the Merits earned (don't forget the easy merits just for exploring a new zone) will be enough to cover 16.8 mil.

 

Now do this every level 😉

[Erratic1]

7 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

I accidently slotted an IO incorrectly recently so I went and used an unslotter. I'm not doing a respec for that.

 

The line I quoted in my post spoke about doing considerably more than one.

 

Quote

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?

 

[Ironblade]

On 11/2/2021 at 6:44 PM, GATE-keeper said:

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?

Unslotters?  Feh!

 

I start slotting IO sets in the low 30's and add higher level ones to the additional slots and powers I gain as I level.  I don't unslot or remove anything.  By about level 40, I will have bought and crafted every IO that the character will need.  Any power that is going to have a purple set just gets SO's until I hit level 50.

[RogerWilco]

On 11/2/2021 at 11:44 PM, GATE-keeper said:

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....

 

I don't think that before level 50, you can easily earn the inf needed to upgrade  everything, if you have only SO's slotted. I know I can't, but I don't focus on getting inf when I'm levelling. Unless I donate inf to my toons/alts, they have nowhere near the inf needed to just "push the button".

 

I have a few racks with stacks of common salvage in the SG base, and some storage with all of the more common generic IO's of all levels. My characters just pick what they need, and I have one crafter with all generic IOs memorized, who crafts some new ones if we run out. All characters dump their salvage in the base and that's usually enough to keep everything topped up, except for Boresights, Human Blood Samples and Luck Charms. I spend a few minutes restocking ever month or so.

 

I use SO's when I get them and can use them, and don't worry about slotting everything as I level (certainly below level 30), except for Accuracy. I find that as long as you have enough Accuracy, the rest doesn't matter much while levelling, at least at +0 x0. I am in no hurry to get to 50, I like the stories and the missions.

 

I store the more frequently used SOs in the base if I have space. (Accuracy, Health, Recharge, End. Mod., Damage) with the pile of crafted IO's that I keep in stock.

 

I really don't find the common generic IOs much of a hassle with my set up, my base more-or-less functions as a vendor, I just have to restock occasionally. I use SOs if I have them below level 30-35, above that level, I think IOs have the math in their favour any way, and the prices go up, and levelling slows down.

Edited November 4, 2021 by RogerWilco

[GATE-keeper]

6 hours ago, RogerWilco said:

 

I don't think that before level 50, you can easily earn the inf needed to upgrade  everything, if you have only SO's slotted. I know I can't, but I don't focus on getting inf when I'm levelling.

 

Respectfully disagree, see my post yesterday.  On beta it took me only 16.8 mil to buy SO's and Upgrade every 5 levels (7, 12, 17, etc) to 50.

 

Doing just the TFC task forces alone gets you 212 merits.  That's 636 converters.  At SELL IT NAO price of $65,000 per converter that's over $41 mil.

 

Edit:

If you start in Praetoria (which doesn't really have TF's like the TFC TF's): just doing a Storyline from start to finish (ie Crusader or Warden, etc) gets you 80 merits (Loyalist) or 81 merits (Resistance).

 

80 merits gives you 240 converters.  At SELL IT NAO price of $65,000 per converter that's about $15.6mil.  By level 20. 

 

Exploring the three zones will get you another 15 merits or about another $2.9 mil. 

 

So by Level 20 in Praetoria, you should have enough to buy SO's and hit the Upgrade button every 5 levels until 50.

 

 

Edited November 4, 2021 by GATE-keeper
Added Prae

[DoctorDitko]

As others have mentioned, the Upgrade button is a luxury item, meant for folks with more inf than time.

 

I played with it on and off, and now I use it purely as a mid-mission buff. That extra percentage boost in powers can be a real bargain, especially on a TF or similar.

 

Otherwise, especially every level, it is an inf sink to help the economy along. Good on ya for doing it, but don't expect it to be a net win.

[Haijinx]

On 11/2/2021 at 11:01 AM, Sovera said:

 

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.

 

If you do this same basic idea,

 

You can solo every arc 0 to 50 at +0,×1 and earn over 500 million.