Couple of Market Newbie Questions

[Infinitum]

I know how the market works - to the ends of satisfying my build ambitions but never played the wealth game until recently.

 

Do you guys also track market wealth in terms of what your combined portfolio is worth on the mean?  Or is it just cold hard influence?

 

If the answer to the first part is yes, how do you calculate that? (i am guessing its a estimation?)

 

I currently have 40 decked out builds usually with Both ATOs and at least 2-3 Winter sets and more often than not 1+Shield Wall sets then top tier sets to fill the rest out.

 

Like i said i have been spending about as much time lately playing market games as the actual game just to shake things up a bit internally.  I currently have close to 4bn - goal is 80 bn - 2bn per maxed build.

 

If someone asked what would I tell them my portfolio was worth in game terms?

[AboveTheChemist]

7 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

Do you guys also track market wealth in terms of what your combined portfolio is worth on the mean?

I don't track it per se, but if I needed to quantify my total wealth, it would be inf plus any assets I could reasonably easily liquidate (slotted enhancements, reward merits, salvage, and the like). I'd just ballpark the asset values if I needed that info. I don't make many alts and am not a big spender when it comes to builds, so I don't spend much time thinking about my total wealth. I have been able to make far more inf than I will likely ever spend through quite casual marketeering, but I am probably an outlier, especially in this part of the forum.

[Ironblade]

Once a build is finished, I consider that inf (and whatever enhancements it bought) to be gone.  It's permanently installed on that character so it's no longer available.

 

I suppose I would count enhancements sitting in my base, although there's not many now.  I decided to have Ironblade on every shard so that was three purple sets and six Nucleolus Exposure for each.  Since Ironblade uses melee, melee AoE and ranged (and I converted all the trash purples), I just have a couple of Ragnarok sets left.  Ah, I remember the good old days on live.  I created a solo SG just to have an extra dozen or so enhancement tables for my stuff.  I engaged in pretty much every method of gaining inf, as a competition with myself to see how much I could get.  So tedious.

 

So, compared to live, I'm 'poor'.  Currently, I've been having new characters self fund by marketeering on just that character until they've bought everything they need.  I think my total inf is about 1.8 billion.  There's maybe 250 mill worth of stuff in my base.  Maybe more if Overwhelming Force sets are worth much.  I have some from running the SBB but have no idea what they cost.

[Andreah]

I keep a spreadsheet tally of all my characters, their inf, their marketable assets, their bids to buy, and their offers for sale. I mark the value of assets and offers to sell at the lesser of their listed prices and the long term prices I know they could sell instantly for (even if I expect to get more than that for them).  I keep some other non-market information in it too, like veteran levels, and etc.

 

I don't count the value of enhancements I have slotted or that I'm saving for future builds. I don't ever intend to sell those. 

 

I also track the inf I've given away to friends, to new players, and to fund contests so that I don't go crazy with those.

 

I update this spreadsheet roughly monthly and watch the bottom line.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I suspect you are going to get a variety of opinions.  Here's mine:

 

First, at a certain point, and it's a low bar, we can all be fabulously wealthy.  I would peg that at a level where you can buy whatever you want for a character in short order.  2bn cash inf per active character is at or well above that level in my mind, so you'll be rich!  Rich!!!  One could argue you already are!  It's not a contest.

 

Second, if it *were* a contest, I would only consider straight cash inf, not inventories in base or in the AH, not slotted enhancements on your built-out characters.  Under "mark-to-market" rules for accounting and finance, it is generally accepted practice to value things where you could sell them right now.  Finance desks blow up all the time when they need to sell their holdings that are valued at 100 for one unit and then they need to sell a million units and there are no buyers.  There is a person/persons who has been accumulating purple recipes for a long time now.  I presume that she is crafting them and putting them in storage, maybe selling them.  I don't know how many, ten thousand?  fifty thousand?  a hundred thousand?  And it is tempting to value each one of those at 17mm or whatever the going price is, but the truth is that if you need to sell a hundred thousand purples in a week, you are going to realize pennies on the dollar.  So I only count my net worth in terms of how I have already converted into inf.  I measure my wealth by how many bids I have in for Iron Will inspirations -- I can cancel those bids at any time and I've got cash inf.  @Ukase measures his by inf stored in emails.  I'd have a lot more wealth if I were willing to flush out all my inventory, or to strip lvl 53 hami os from 50s I don't play.  But I'm not willing to do so (So.  Much.  Effort!), and that is probably why my opinion is what it is!

 

Third, it's still not a contest, so if someone asks you can tell them smugly, "Oh, I'm comfortable!"

 

 

[Andreah]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Under "mark-to-market" rules for accounting and finance, it is generally accepted practice to value things where you could sell them right now.  Finance desks blow up all the time when they need to sell their holdings that are valued at 100 for one unit and then they need to sell a million units and there are no buyers.

This is a critical point people need to keep in mind.

 

There's a time horizon on wealth. Cash is immediately liquid. Assets take time to liquidate, and the more quickly one needs to liquidate, the less they're worth. There's even a time horizon on the value of cash itself. If you're willing to spend it slowly, you can realize full value for it; but if you try to buy things quickly, the same amount buys less.

 

I keep three bottom line measures in my spreadsheet:

1. Actual cash; in inf on characters, in emails, and cancelable bids to buy.
2. Market listings I expect to sell soon-ish
3. Inventory of things I have not listed for sale yet, but intend to.

 

So I can say that as of the last time I updated my sheet, April 15th, I have 92.88% in cash, 1.78% in listings, and 5.36% in inventory.

 

I considered tallying up the things that could in principle be sold even though I don't intend to, but haven't done that because of the tedium required, and the horizon on selling such things would be pretty long. 

 

Finally, there's the value of things you cannot sell, but that represent avoidable future expenses. I keep track of the numbers of these but I don't assign values to them. This category would include amplifiers and such from super packs, free-specs, free tailor sessions, and so forth. They have value, but even though you could save a million in tailor fees using a free tailor session token, it's a hard sell to me to say it's worth the same in notional discretionary cost avoidance. I wish I could list these for sale though. :D

 

 

[Andreah]

16 hours ago, Infinitum said:

I currently have 40 decked out builds usually with Both ATOs and at least 2-3 Winter sets and more often than not 1+Shield Wall sets then top tier sets to fill the rest out.

I once put together a quickie-model of what my builds cost.  I separated the IO's into a few categories:

• SO's
• Common IO's
• Common IO+5's
• Unique IO's
• ATO's
• Regular Purples
• Purple+5's
• HO/etc's

 

I assigned a WAG (Wild Assessment Guess) cost to each, and counted how many of each kind were on a build; multiple and sum for an estimate.

 

The problem is, what one spends on making a build is not the value of liquidating the build; nor is the spending cost going to be very stable over time or in terms of how fast you collect all the pieces.

 

If one has a specific build in mind, and preps a shopping list and carefully puts in low bids for items, or even better, skillfully uses converters to produce them, the total spend is going to be significantly lower than if one were to go to the Auction and start "Buy It Now!"-ing the pieces quickly. Perhaps two thirds, or only half as much.

 

So the patient and skillful consumer's 1 Billion is probably worth more than the impatient novice purchaser's 2 Billion. And this is why when someone says "My character has a 500 Million inf build" I roll my eyes. You could literally spend that on one piece, but it would not be something to brag about. I am more impressed by (and interested to know) how little someone can spend on a specific build.

 

[Ukase]

I keep a spreadsheet as well. Or, at least I did. I haven't opened it in a few months. 

Many players will keep surplus influence on the AH, on bids that presumably will never fill. Like, bidding 5M on a hero pack, when the going rate is 10m, and have never gone on sale and are not likely to do so. 

I do not do this. Why? Because then, that character is the one with access to the influence. You'd have to log it in, make sure the character has room to pull the inf out and then do with it whatever it is you wanted to do. I can concede to the argument that inf stored in this way is surplus; you are not likely to ever need it, so what's the big deal. Fair point, but for me, I want any of my alts to access any of my loot. 

I track a few things for each character - inf on hand, vet levels and emp merits. Recently, I took the time and just ensured that no character had any emp merits left, and all were emailed to one character who would be able to distribute the transcendent merits to new characters with as little fuss as possible. It's not nearly as many emp merits as I would like, I'll tell you that. 

I track vet levels to see how much time it would take to get the next set of free emps. Each character when their t-4s are done will email all influence over 1B to the global email, and to have room for the emailing of emps & transcendents, each account is capped at 90 emails at 999,999,999. I made a 4th account just to have a place to keep the emails. Recently, had to make a 5th. 

Like Ironblade, once an IO is in a build, it has zero value because it's not for sale. I also don't count the well over 1000 purples I have in my base, nor the thousands of winter packs I've yet to open. I also don't count the ...now less than 100 luck of the gambler 7.5% I have in base storage, the PVP IOs, nor all the ATOs that are in my email, nor the tens of thousands of converters, as none of those things are for sale. 
 

If I did count them - the price of purples would likely have to drop in order for me to get rid of them all. Same with ATOs, PvP IOs, Winter-Os. 

Nobody is likely to ask how much you have. The more you have, the more you'll likely either boast about it as if it mattered to anyone, or never bring it up because telling them you have far more than they ever could want doesn't really win friends or influence people. And yet - marketing is tedious for some and can often require a sacrifice of actual game play. Sometimes letting people know you've endured such things to gift them that winter set or 50M or whatever is the only satisfaction you'll get. Personalities are different and varied. Where some person would rather be hush-hush about donations, other folks would shout at the rooftops how generous they are. Other folks just depends on their mood. 

Now, I must hurry and sell my 19,000 Iron Will inspirations and steal @Yomo Kimyata's inf reserves! 

[Ukase]

29 minutes ago, Andreah said:

So the patient and skillful consumer's 1 Billion is probably worth more than the impatient novice purchaser's 2 Billion. And this is why when someone says "My character has a 500 Million inf build" I roll my eyes. You could literally spend that on one piece, but it would not be something to brag about. I am more impressed by (and interested to know) how little someone can spend on a specific build.

 

I once held a contest for my SG - each contestant was to be level 1, in Praetoria and see how many badges they could collect in ..I think it was 30 minutes. 
The prize was the build of their choice. The winner did their level best to really stick it to me. I made a ruling prior to the contest that I would not provide any boosters, as 1) I wasn't going to spend the time to boost all those IOs (prior to the speedier way to do them now), and if I just handed them over in a trade, it'd be too easy for the winner to just sell them. I also said no Hami-Os, as the market simply wouldn't allow me to produce those with any degree of certainty. I think there was only one level 53 Cyto at the time, and maybe a couple of level 50's. Not enough supply to produce what may have been requested. 

It gave me an idea, though. What if a player just didn't want to take the time to get all the enhancements required and was willing to just fork over a sum to cover what they thought it would cost them? 
These guys that think a build costs 1 billion - I promise you, there are NO builds that would cost a billion if I'm the one procuring the items. You'd have to be so damned impatient to spend that much. I mean, I can probably use "buy it NOW" prices for 99% of the builds and not go over 500M. I just can't see it. 

So, um, yeah. Anyone who thinks their build will cost 1 Billion - you pay me 750M, I'll get you that build you want - not including Hami-Os. I don't do enough hami raids to gather Cytos and Micros, and even if I did, I'd always take the merits. And, in all likelihood, I'll have it within an hour, unless I have to take a call or make time to eat a meal or something. 

[Infinitum]

Great responses and great ideas.  This is almost as fun as the gameplay.  Wish i had started sooner.

 

You guys are awesome!

[Andreah]

23 minutes ago, Infinitum said:

This is almost as fun as the gameplay

The joy of the marketeer; finding clever ways to store inf, discovering patterns in how other people list and bid, learning about how to convert IO's from cheap to pricey, managing the UI to minimize hand strain, and that magical moment when someone buys your one piece of salvage for 500 Million.

[Bionic_Flea]

I don't count stuff that is slotted or stored in base or character email/hero pack stuff either.  I also don't keep a spreadsheet, or keep a bunch of inf stored on e-mails.  I know I have more than 30 billion, but I don't know exactly how much.  I do know that have more than I can spend.

 

I have about 40 level 50s and each has what I consider to be a top-tier build.  Each one of them got 200-300 mil in starter cash as well as access to the base storage.  By the time they get to 50, or shortly thereafter, they have made back all that initial investment and by the time they get to +3 most have about 500 mill in cash.  They get there just by playing, crafting, converting and selling their drops. 

 

Older characters have more because once I consider them "finished" I have them put in a bunch of lowball bids and then craft, convert, and sell that stuff when I periodically log them in every few months or so to collect sales & purchases, then restock and move them to a new dayjob location.  I might even play them for a few missions or TFs before parking them and going on to the next.  When anyone gets close to 2 billion, then I do send an email with that 200-300mill starter fund for the next project to collect.

Edited May 3, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[iBot]

OK... so after I picked my jaw up off the floor after going WHAAAAA???????  All I'm going to say is "I'm not worthy."  Spreadsheets?!???

 

@Andreah Most impressive.  You win.

@Yomo Kimyata You are why I have the inf and builds I have.  The bumbling, stumbling, rambling approach to 1 billion inf guide was spot on.

@Ukase Another solid source of inf generating goodness.

@Bionic_Flea Don't you have a dev to pester??? 🤪

 

As for OP: well all I can say is that I don't do anywhere near what these titans of industry do.  Much like you, all I did was earn enough to fund whatever alts I wanted.  The last dozen or so (I only have 33ish total) have been totally self funded by judiciously using reward merits and playing converter roulette.  I did at one point fire farm but that was only to build that fire farm toon from scratch to prove it could be done.  Never flipped.  Never really marketed.  Can't say that I did any more than the bare minimum to reach my goals.  But I've got those 32 toons at 50 with full builds (none worth more than ~1.2 bn) along with the 1 toon that has languished at around level 33 ish since my in game time has taken a nose dive.  And I certainly don't consider myself even in the same sport as the others let alone ballpark.

[tidge]

I simply think in terms of Inf... I went to put a third build on certain character, and AT that has no real business needing a third build mind you... it was just something to check some ideas/interactions and I found I already had three builds on that character, each with what some folks would casually describe as a "spendy" suite of enhancements. The SG tables have gotten to the point where I pull things out of them for use on the AH when I forget to have Inf stored in email.

 

Some of the characters are sitting with so many merits, so many packs, so many catalysts, I've used merit conversion to "buy it now" just because I was too lazy to change to another character to see if they had packs or recipes I wanted for a new build.... anyway, Inf is the great equalizer, everything else offers varying means of market inefficiency. I can't buy Plasmatic Tasers with merits!

 

 

[UltraAlt]

On 5/2/2022 at 7:01 PM, Infinitum said:

Do you guys also track market wealth in terms of what your combined portfolio is worth on the mean?  Or is it just cold hard influence?

 

Once one of my characters is fully loaded with stuff (bids for supplies, holding (for whatever reason), and sales), it's all about the returns on influence that I skim off for various uses. Various uses includes emailing myself influence so that it can be easily moved to other characters.

 

100m is easily enough to get a character setup with all the P2W vender stuff that I want for a character and enough extra to put their foot into the market.

 

[I forgot to to put a Disclaimer in here - so here it is]

DISCLAIMER

I am an alt jumper. Alting is my game.

I rarely play above level 50. I don't farm nor do I intentionally power level. I will get into situations where I want to team up, but there are only 45-50 level teams at the time and I intentionally limit myself to 5 levels of gain in those situations.

I mostly play the game (below level 50) versus endgame (post 50 gameplay).

Because of that, I'm not chasing purples nor am I needing to plunk down some huge amount of influence on a character all at one time (after that initial seed of 100m ... which I understand may seem to be substantial depending on your Ebil Marketing status.) Each character builds their own wealth to supply themselves with what the need during their own leveling process for the most part (I do transfer enhances around through base storage and emails)

 

On 5/2/2022 at 7:01 PM, Infinitum said:

f the answer to the first part is yes, how do you calculate that? (i am guessing its a estimation?)

 

I don't bother keeping track of it.

 

 

On 5/2/2022 at 7:01 PM, Infinitum said:

If someone asked what would I tell them my portfolio was worth in game terms?

 

No idea.

I'm too busy with other stuff.

 

 

 

Edited May 4, 2022 by UltraAlt

[Troo]

Cash on hand and in email.

 

 

I've got pretty large sums in bids but don't count that.

Base storage is 8 bins full or close. not counting that.

Merits, not counting them.

Lots of packs, not counting those.

Salvage & Convertors, not counting those.

Would need to liquidate the assets above to figure them into current amount of infamy, which I stopped counting.

 

Remember, the first billion is the hardest.

[EmperorSteele]

I concur with the "cash on hand", though I'll make an exception for Reward Merits. With enough of those, you can get pretty much anything you need. Granted, you're ripping yourself off if you're buying purple recipes at 100 merits a pop, but if you don't have the patience to sell 300 converters instead, well, good news, I guess!

[Ura Hero]

My influence is spread over both my wife's and my accounts along with two bases worth of storage so adding it all up would be a slog.  I barely keep track of what I have liquid which is usually around 6-10 billion or so.  

 

I applaud those who can keep track of such things.  I just don't have the need or drive to do so.  I pay for my builds as I level so I'm happy, unlike Live where I could barely keep my builds funded.  I am so glad that Homecoming took the effort to keep the market somewhat stable.  Good job to the Devs!

[Ironblade]

12 hours ago, Troo said:

Merits, not counting them.

 

4 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

I concur with the "cash on hand", though I'll make an exception for Reward Merits. With enough of those, you can get pretty much anything you need. Granted, you're ripping yourself off if you're buying purple recipes at 100 merits a pop, but if you don't have the patience to sell 300 converters instead, well, good news, I guess!

 

I don't count my merits in my 'wealth' estimates.  I track them, and I have about 35,000 sitting around, but I wasn't including them in my estimates.

And I do sometimes buy purples or ATO's outright using merits because it's faster and easier.  🙂

[Andreah]

10 hours ago, EmperorSteele said:

if you don't have the patience to sell 300 converters

Then one might try selling 20 Boosters. They're about equivalent Inf/Merit, and there's 15x less clicking. YMMV.

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 5/3/2022 at 1:30 PM, Andreah said:

The joy of the marketeer; finding clever ways to store inf, discovering patterns in how other people list and bid, learning about how to convert IO's from cheap to pricey, managing the UI to minimize hand strain, and that magical moment when someone buys your one piece of salvage for 500 Million.

 

It's a gigantic puzzle box, and it's very satisfying.

[UltraAlt]

On 5/3/2022 at 1:30 PM, Andreah said:

The joy of the marketeer; finding clever ways to store inf, discovering patterns in how other people list and bid, learning about how to convert IO's from cheap to pricey, managing the UI to minimize hand strain, and that magical moment when someone buys your one piece of salvage for 500 Million.

 

The Market is the BEST PVP in City of Heroes.

[Troo]

being rewarded for patience is so very yummy.

 

nearly everyday there is something like:

 

 

 

sure i use a very wide net over multiple characters, but patience is the real key.

Edited May 5, 2022 by Troo

[Bionic_Flea]

COUNTER-BIDS!

 

[Golden Azrael]

On 5/5/2022 at 4:32 PM, Troo said:

being rewarded for patience is so very yummy.

 

nearly everyday there is something like:

 

 

 

sure i use a very wide net over multiple characters, but patience is the real key.

 

A good visual lesson in supply and demand.

 

And patience.

 

Azrael.