A Case Study in Probability: Endgame

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

So what would I do if that happened!? I'd need to make about 300 more characters pretty damn quick! Not to mention, when you step away from a niche, things change! I just checked - PvP recipes are ALL selling for more than 2.5M, up from the usual 1.5-1.8M. And they're barely holding price on crafted IOs at 8m. Someone is being competitive, as @Yomo Kimyata likes to talk about. And he's right. It's good for the community for folks to get more for the recipes and for other folks to pay less for the crafted IOs. But I digress..
 

 

And here I was thinking that was you coming in to reclaim your space with a heavy hand!  Maybe I'll ease up on selling into the space...

[Ukase]

On 3/11/2022 at 2:47 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

And here I was thinking that was you coming in to reclaim your space with a heavy hand!  Maybe I'll ease up on selling into the space...

Nah, keep doing what you're doing. If my math is right, everybody wins. 

[iBot]

I never have been nor ever will be anywhere near the class of some here.  I just don't have the motivation.  I think I have liquid probably 1 bil across all 30ish of my toons and a stack of purples sitting in my main because for some reason at some point I was obsessed with collecting purple recipe drops.  Not buying.  Not crafting.  Just keeping what dropped for some reason.  Now that my in game time has taken a nose dive I'll probably never really get back into the groove unless major updates come in terms of both legal status and game content.  But for what it is worth it has certainly been enjoyable to get to play around in a fictional economic system that isn't always being upset by whims of the devs.

[PluckySidekick]

On 3/5/2022 at 12:22 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

You may draw your own conclusions from this.  I have to go ice my clicking finger.

 

1st post: 5/11/22

I thought about this for a hot minute and decided to see what would happen if I financed an entire build using this method.

 

My new Ice tank is currently at level 22 and has a constant flow of income by patiently clicking and converting for about 15 minutes before or after each session. My current liquid assets are at 55M but this is the remaining profit after buying 6 basic ATOs (50M total) and a single Winter IO (20M). I also have about a dozen freshly converted IO just waiting for their slots to show up in my build. In the end I plan on having about 9 purples to finance but I'm not so sure that's going to be a difficult thing at this point.

 

I'm generally one of those players that's flat broke because of my notorious lack of patience (or farming) in general. This is kind of fun. I'll give you an update when I get near 50 so we can see if this method is viable but so far it looks like it is.

 

Edit 1: 5/11/22 Making some numbers more accurate

 

Edit 2: 6/6/22

So, my tank is now at level 31. I wanted to do an update at 30 but hit 2 levels during a SF and well, that was that. I recently purchased 1 additional ATO and 2 more Winter IOs in the build, and have a stack of 15 other IOs waiting for slots to open up and 189M Inf liquid.

 

I actually find this to be a lot of fun because I really am a gambler. I'll write up my general strategy, perhaps in my own separate post here in the market forum. It's fairly simple and you guys have really done me a solid by pointing this out to me.

 

@Yomo Kimyata: Thanks for starting this thread, you've made my life much more entertaining game-wise and left me with more Inf than I would generally need to manage my builds. I'm going to do this with nearly every toon I make from here on out because it's easy and so much fun! 

Edited June 6, 2022 by PluckySidekick
All in same post so as not to threadjack

[Fractured]

On 3/5/2022 at 5:39 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

There are 9 categories that will guarantee a rare from an uncommon with one conversion.

Hello. Recently returned player mucking about in the Homecoming market for the first time. Where could I find a list of these 9? I tried to sort it myself from an old CoH wiki, and it looks like the travel powers might be four of them, but I could be wrong and I can’t find the other five even if I’m right. 
 

Thanks!

[Yomo Kimyata]

11 hours ago, Fractured said:

Hello. Recently returned player mucking about in the Homecoming market for the first time. Where could I find a list of these 9? I tried to sort it myself from an old CoH wiki, and it looks like the travel powers might be four of them, but I could be wrong and I can’t find the other five even if I’m right. 
 

Thanks!

 

You're on the right track!  Start here (https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Enhancement_Sets) as I suspect you already did.  Then check by category to see which sets only have one uncommon set at level 25.  I'd rather help you figure it out than to give it to you, but you are dead right that the travel powers are four of them.  Hint:  no damage powers.

 

Edited May 17, 2022 by Yomo Kimyata

[Fractured]

Thank you. I was actually looking at the archived Paragon Wiki. The Homecoming wiki was more complete/accurate/easy to read. Got ‘em. Thanks!

[Golden Azrael]

On 3/5/2022 at 8:22 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

What if I told you that there was a piece of salvage that could let you convert by rarity?  What if I told you there was one that would let you convert by category?  And what if I told you there was one that lets you convert in set?

 

 

Of course, all these things come from the same wonderful, magical animal that we know and love as the enhancement converter.

 

At this point in our program I decided to try to answer the question that nobody is asking:  how many licks does it take to can I make all of my IOs into Luck of the Gambler +rech and make a profit?

 

To begin, I put in bids on level 25 uncommon recipes at 5 inf each, hoping to be able to pick up a hundred of them within a week.  Why level 25?  Well, I figured that was probably the sweet spot where the number of uncommon/rare defense IOs had the highest ratio when compared to the entire pool, and it was the lowest level so therefore the cheapest crafting cost.  Why uncommon?  Didn't want to pony up for the rare salvage.  Now, I know that there probably aren't many/any recipes just sitting around for sale there, so I put in bids of 5 on blocks of ten in likely areas.  I think it took a day or two to get filled, which was the first lesson:  people continue to dump their stuff on the /AH for the sake of convenience.  I also found a few recipes that converted directly into rares at that level, and I put those aside for other purposes.

 

I bought all my salvage at vendor levels, so 250 inf each for two commons and 1000 for one uncommon.  Tack on the crafting fee of 37,400 and my all-in cost basis of each IO was 38,905.  To be honest, this number isn't really that important.  But it adds up.

 

Next, I wanted to develop a crafting strategy.  I decided to eyeball it instead of actually crunching the numbers because I felt pretty confident that it was a good method that would minimize the number of converters used.  The procedure was as follows:

 

1.  Start with a level 25 uncommon IO.

2.  Convert by rarity (so "uncommon") until either:

  a.  I rolled an uncommon defense IO (Karma, Serendipity, Red Fortune); or

  b.  I rolled an uncommon that was guaranteed to convert to a rare if converted by category.

3.  If a. then convert by category ("defense") until Luck of the Gambler, then if necessary convert in set until the +recharge piece.  End.

4.  If b. then convert once by category to get a rare IO.

5.  Convert by rarity ("rare") until rolling a rare defense IO (Kismet, Gift of the Ancients, Reactive Defenses, Luck of the Gambler).

6.  If not LotG, convert by category ("defense") until Luck of the Gambler, then if necessary convert in set until the +rech.  End.

 

Honestly, I could have made a Monte Carlo process to simulate this, because the probabilities are relatively straightforward, but I'm a glutton for punishment.  So I loaded up with 100 uncommon IOs and went to town.

 

Much clicking ensued.

 

At the end of the day, I ended with a data set that I will share with you here:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Trial		Conversions	Conversion	Conversions	Conversion	Conversion		Total
		by uncommon (1)	to rare (2)	by rare (1)	by defense (2)	in set (3)		Converters
1		4	1	20	3	0		32
2		1	1	14	0	8		41
3		1	1	22	6	3		46
4		8	1	2	6	0		24
5		2	1	3	2	6		29
6		7	1	25	5	5		59
7		1	1	1	2	0		8
8		8	1	16	0	17		77
9		7	1	5	6	3		35
10		3	1	2	1	4		21
11		1	0	0	2	0		5
12		2	1	5	3	7		36
13		4	0	0	14	12		68
14		3	1	1	3	0		12
15		3	1	14	1	8		45
16		6	1	11	0	1		22
17		4	0	0	3	9		37
18		3	1	5	0	3		19
19		9	0	0	3	3		24
20		1	1	5	0	5		23
21		2	1	36	1	2		48
22		6	1	2	8	0		26
23		2	1	2	8	1		25
24		2	1	26	2	2		40
25		6	1	21	5	6		57
26		4	0	0	7	9		45
27		8	1	15	5	7		56
28		2	1	95	10	0		119
29		4	1	35	0	6		59
30		5	0	0	3	7		32
31		1	1	68	2	2		81
32		10	1	1	5	7		44
33		1	1	6	6	14		63
34		10	1	12	0	3		33
35		3	1	8	6	1		28
36		1	1	9	1	1		17
37		6	1	1	7	8		47
38		3	1	11	1	0		18
39		2	1	9	0	3		22
40		2	1	15	5	10		59
41		2	1	1	4	5		28
42		1	0	0	7	6		33
43		11	1	1	5	6		42
44		6	1	4	0	2		18
45		1	0	0	7	4		27
46		9	1	12	0	10		53
47		1	1	1	15	5		49
48		8	1	15	2	13		68
49		5	0	0	4	1		16
50		17	1	22	14	1		72
51		3	1	8	9	11		64
52		1	0	0	1	2		9
53		4	1	8	2	2		24
54		1	0	0	2	5		20
55		7	1	9	19	2		62
56		5	1	4	10	1		34
57		1	1	14	0	11		50
58		4	1	43	2	20		113
59		1	1	72	0	3		84
60		3	1	11	1	3		27
61		1	0	0	9	5		34
62		10	1	7	0	2		25
63		1	1	18	17	1		58
64		1	0	0	1	1		6
65		11	1	27	52	11		177
66		16	1	13	1	1		36
67		1	1	47	5	3		69
68		2	1	1	2	3		18
69		3	0	0	1	2		11
70		5	1	47	2	8		82
71		9	1	48	0	2		65
72		3	1	12	0	6		35
73		2	1	3	3	8		37
74		7	1	2	8	8		51
75		2	1	16	3	1		29
76		11	1	6	0	1		22
77		2	1	9	3	1		22
78		2	0	0	9	1		23
79		13	1	24	3	2		51
80		9	1	29	16	0		72
81		1	0	0	3	4		19
82		13	1	9	2	6		46
83		5	1	6	2	2		23
84		2	0	0	6	2		20
85		3	1	3	1	3		19
86		5	0	0	10	1		28
87		2	1	29	4	4		53
88		1	1	5	1	2		16
89		5	0	0	2	10		39
90		2	0	0	22	4		58
91		5	0	0	4	3		22
92		5	0	0	2	0		9
93		4	1	3	5	6		37
94		1	1	37	2	2		50
95		1	1	3	0	0		6
96		5	1	27	2	0		38
97		6	1	6	0	0		14
98		3	1	14	5	2		35
99		4	1	19	6	1		40
100		1	1	6	10	9		56

 

 

But I anticipate that this graph may prove more informative:

 

 

The mean was 40.3, median of 35.0, standard deviation of 26.0.

 

You may draw your own conclusions from this.  I have to go ice my clicking finger.

 

 

 

I'm relatively new to 'playing' the market.  I used to 'just' sell the 'junk' I got farming Council maps (recipes) and sell for '1' on the auction house or vendor it.  Before I realised that this was giving other people money.  It takes a 'modicum' of time to craft.  (And then convert.)  You get far more for you LOTG recipes when you craft them (go figure, eh?)

 

I find you can plough through quite a few Convertors on Uncommon to get anything decent.  (But I'll try to follow your tip and see if it is more efficient than 'simply' what I'm doing below.

 

Back on Live.  It was 'simple.'  Use Hero Merit to buy a Miracle Unique and sell for serious tens of millions.

 

I'll have to look at L25s Uncommon.  But the L15 Uncommons seem to be going for 'COIN' and availability is poor.

 

Sure.  I seem to have had more luck on Rare.  The Uncommon eat up the convertors more so before you get something that will drop that you can sell for 'a million' (not worth the 20 convertors it took to get it?)

 

Maybe I need more practice.

 

Free drops.  Craft.  (Rares I find better odds on getting something 'decent')  Convert.  Sell.

 

'Student of the Market.'

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

On 5/16/2022 at 5:25 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

You're on the right track!  Start here (https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Enhancement_Sets) as I suspect you already did.  Then check by category to see which sets only have one uncommon set at level 25.  I'd rather help you figure it out than to give it to you, but you are dead right that the travel powers are four of them.  Hint:  no damage powers.

 

 

That link was handy.

 

It puts in a nice 'easy to understand' chart.

 

Azrael.

[Golden Azrael]

On 3/14/2022 at 2:44 PM, iBot said:

I never have been nor ever will be anywhere near the class of some here.  I just don't have the motivation.  I think I have liquid probably 1 bil across all 30ish of my toons and a stack of purples sitting in my main because for some reason at some point I was obsessed with collecting purple recipe drops.  Not buying.  Not crafting.  Just keeping what dropped for some reason.  Now that my in game time has taken a nose dive I'll probably never really get back into the groove unless major updates come in terms of both legal status and game content.  But for what it is worth it has certainly been enjoyable to get to play around in a fictional economic system that isn't always being upset by whims of the devs.

 

I held all my alts upside down and waited for the change to fall from their pockets.  Looked 'down behind the sofa.'  Tens of millions in influence, reward merits, orange salvage and purple recipes.  

 

I'd collected well over 100 Purple recipes.  I just didn't have any use for them.  

 

I've finally made a base.  1.3 billion in influence.  80+ Rares in Storage.  80+ purples in storage.  50+ Orange Salvage.  100+ Catalysts.  13 Hero Merits.  680 Merits.

 

Instead of selling recipes for peanuts ('1' on the A' House...) I now take a moment to craft.  If it's above what I need to save in the SG for future use?  I sell it for 10-15% below market price.  My influence pile is slowly growing through osmosis of play. 

 

(Though I still maintain the best way of getting influence  for new players is to get a L50 who can rinse Council Maps on +3x8 and sell Orange Salvage and Ordinary IOs (100K a pop at the vendor plus you get the influence ticking along in real time as you play.  L50.  Play it.  Before rushing onto the next alt.  You'll be at 100 million in a week pootling along.)

 

Invited all alts to join the SG.  Self invite.  

 

They're all 'on the same team' working toward the 'next' build regardless of what I choose to play.  Like some hero support network.  A 'fictional eco-system.'

 

It's nice to now have a game by the fans for the fans.

 

Azrael.