Oopsie - Yellow Salvage

[Troo]

When the music stops playing will you be left holding the bag?

[Andreah]

A giant bag of yellow salvage, sooner or later, someone will!

 

Or maybe not. How much salvage is it even possible to store on a character? Even if a player managed to get ten+ billion worth of it, that's a million pieces of salvage, enough to fill half the market slots on a thousand alts. And we have folks here who could shrug and write that off as a bad Tuesday.

[EmperorSteele]

"For you, the day 'losing 2 billion inf' graced your village, was the most important day of your life.

 

But for me, it was a Tuesday!"

[kelika2]

I dunno, defeating 10-15 minions at 50 to buy a yellow doesnt seem that bad

[Troo]

oopsie

[Ironblade]

I expect it to come all the way back down eventually.  It's around 5000 now and I have my usual stacks of bids at 1400 just waiting.  I've still been buying, though.  Spending an extra 10,000 per yellow salvage is irrelevant when I'm selling the converted results for multiple millions.

[Troo]

.and 3,000

[Ironblade]

Just bought all the yellow salvage I wanted at 1600, just 200 inf over my traditional price.

[Troo]

and so concludes the 2022 yellow salvage wars?

[Lyrium]

It was entertaining, for sure 😄 

[tidge]

23 hours ago, Troo said:

and so concludes the 2022 yellow salvage wars?

 

If only the General Discussion threads didn't get locked, so we could at least get the whole "history is written by the winners" vibe. I find it tedious to track down the old "sky is falling" threads annually.

 

 

[Snarky]

On 7/16/2022 at 8:55 AM, Troo said:

and so concludes the 2022 yellow salvage wars?

The yellow salvage wars also led me to reconsider how much I post on the boards. Which led me to spend most of my gaming time in another mmorpg except for two weekly SG events.  Cosmic Council is just too chill to not stay connected.  But, for now, I am just burnt on most of it

Edited July 17, 2022 by Snarky

[Sovera]

On 7/10/2022 at 3:01 AM, Ironblade said:

I expect it to come all the way back down eventually.  It's around 5000 now and I have my usual stacks of bids at 1400 just waiting.  I've still been buying, though.  Spending an extra 10,000 per yellow salvage is irrelevant when I'm selling the converted results for multiple millions.

 

Joke's on you, I sole handedly (when I craft a handful of IOs once every two months) prop the yellow salvage prices by always buying for 5000 since I buy common for 500 and can't be arsed to do more than add or subtract a zero.

[Hedgefund]

The pendulum has done swung:

 

[tidge]

Oh look: first the market was going to raise prices, now if we don't take action it is going to catastrophically drop prices.

 

Economics, amiright? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

For those not following the linked thread from Beta, I'm not sure it is really worth having the "economics" discussion there as the proposed change ("Sorry boyo, you won't be able to convert Empyrean Merits to Reward Merits") has people scrambling to every corner of a room; and that room has corners where no one expected corners to exist. I think @Yomo Kimyata wrote it best (paraphrasing): "We don't even know what is motivating DevThink."

 

Of course, I have no insight into DevThink. The only coincidental (possible, planned) rollout that comes to mind is the name release policy... maybe the Devs have taken a deep look into the way players are using Homecoming and saw a few extreme methods of play that strike them as so peculiarly different than what was expected that they are drawing some lines. (*1)

 

As I (and a few other market regulars) have written in the Beta thread: I don't think eliminating the conversion of Empyrean Rewards to Merit Rewards is that big of a deal. Without a doubt, there is some number of players who only buy Enhancements/Recipes from Merit Reward Vendors... so some (tiny?) fraction of those people might be using Empyrean Rewards (farmed or otherwise)... but this defies (market) logic.

 

(*1) Random, unsubstantiated imagination of hypothetical player behavior motivating DevThink: Farming (XP, inf, drops) is clearly tolerated, and hasn't been a problem for the game or the market. It hadn't previously occurred to me (because of the effort involved to get a currency) that a multi-box player (even one adhering to limits on multi-boxing) might be also farming vet levels for Empyrean Merits. In hindsight: the static number of Empyrean Merit Rewards (for veteran levels) is a currently fungible asset that doesn't neatly scale with team size... so from that perspective I wouldn't at all be surprised if the fungibility was removed.

[Stormwalker]

4 hours ago, tidge said:

Oh look: first the market was going to raise prices, now if we don't take action it is going to catastrophically drop prices.

 

Economics, amiright? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

 

For those not following the linked thread from Beta, I'm not sure it is really worth having the "economics" discussion there as the proposed change ("Sorry boyo, you won't be able to convert Empyrean Merits to Reward Merits") has people scrambling to every corner of a room; and that room has corners where no one expected corners to exist. I think @Yomo Kimyata wrote it best (paraphrasing): "We don't even know what is motivating DevThink."

 

Of course, I have no insight into DevThink. The only coincidental (possible, planned) rollout that comes to mind is the name release policy... maybe the Devs have taken a deep look into the way players are using Homecoming and saw a few extreme methods of play that strike them as so peculiarly different than what was expected that they are drawing some lines. (*1)

 

As I (and a few other market regulars) have written in the Beta thread: I don't think eliminating the conversion of Empyrean Rewards to Merit Rewards is that big of a deal. Without a doubt, there is some number of players who only buy Enhancements/Recipes from Merit Reward Vendors... so some (tiny?) fraction of those people might be using Empyrean Rewards (farmed or otherwise)... but this defies (market) logic.

 

(*1) Random, unsubstantiated imagination of hypothetical player behavior motivating DevThink: Farming (XP, inf, drops) is clearly tolerated, and hasn't been a problem for the game or the market. It hadn't previously occurred to me (because of the effort involved to get a currency) that a multi-box player (even one adhering to limits on multi-boxing) might be also farming vet levels for Empyrean Merits. In hindsight: the static number of Empyrean Merit Rewards (for veteran levels) is a currently fungible asset that doesn't neatly scale with team size... so from that perspective I wouldn't at all be surprised if the fungibility was removed.

 

For what it's worth, I didn't say anyone was actually going to DO it.  I just said that someone potentially having the ability to do it is a Bad Thing.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I used to subscribe to one of two views regarding the dev team.

 

1.  They are a well organized team with strong communication skills and the ability to manage a few thousand people.  They have significant amounts of data that they are able to analyze in real time and make well informed decisions about how to improve the playing experience of all.

 

2.  It's just one dude eating cheetos in their shorts making unilateral decisions because that's what he or she felt like at the time.

 

It's probably somewhere between these two, and it doesn't feel like it is consistent over time. 

 

I'm a trouble shooter.  I shoot trouble.  (Don't worry; it's non-lethal.  I use sedatives and release trouble someplace far away from me and ideally near the backyard of one of my enemies.)  I'm actually quite good at it.  I cannot make the assumption anymore that the folks running the show are going to make good decisions or ones that have been simulated or sufficiently tested.  I don't worry about who they are in real life, and don't worry if they are also regular posters under different names.  And I'm ok with that because I have to be.  Because the alternative is spinning up my own server and I have zero interest in that.

[Stormwalker]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I used to subscribe to one of two views regarding the dev team.

 

1.  They are a well organized team with strong communication skills and the ability to manage a few thousand people.  They have significant amounts of data that they are able to analyze in real time and make well informed decisions about how to improve the playing experience of all.

 

2.  It's just one dude eating cheetos in their shorts making unilateral decisions because that's what he or she felt like at the time.

 

It's probably somewhere between these two, and it doesn't feel like it is consistent over time. 

 

I'm a trouble shooter.  I shoot trouble.  (Don't worry; it's non-lethal.  I use sedatives and release trouble someplace far away from me and ideally near the backyard of one of my enemies.)  I'm actually quite good at it.  I cannot make the assumption anymore that the folks running the show are going to make good decisions or ones that have been simulated or sufficiently tested.  I don't worry about who they are in real life, and don't worry if they are also regular posters under different names.  And I'm ok with that because I have to be.  Because the alternative is spinning up my own server and I have zero interest in that.

 

Yep.  When you have a volunteer dev team, who presumably have day jobs that consume most of their time, you pretty much have to accept that they won't - and can't - be as thorough as a team that is getting paid to do it as their full-time jobs.

 

For that matter, all of us have seen from CoH Live and other games, even the teams that are getting paid to do it don't always consider everything that they should or completely understand how everything works - even when they built it to begin with.

 

My take is this:

• The devs are trying their best to do it right. 
  • If I don't trust them with at least that much, I'm wasting my time being here at all.
  • That said, I do trust them with that.  I've seen no evidence to the contrary.
• There's a lot of disagreement on exactly what "doing it right" is, and they can't make everyone happy.
  • I would rather they follow their own vision than just do whatever the playerbase wants.
    • I work in software development.  One of the first things you learn in software development is that the customer is often wrong.
  • Sometimes I will be the person they choose not to make happy.  C'est la vie. 
    • If I want everything my way, I should make my own server and that is way the hell too much work, so I have to accept that everything will not be my way.
  • That said, they have done a lot of things that do make me happy.
• The devs will make mistakes
  • They are human and therefore imperfect.
  • There are significant challenges inherent in trying to maintain and improve a game they didn't design in the first place).
• They need quality feedback (and not whining or tantrums)  to help them get it right.
  • This means when I think they're making (or have made) a mistake, I say so
  • I should always seek to be dispassionate, analytical, and constructive about it rather than letting my emotions get the better of me.
  • This isn't always easy for me, I'm a pretty passionate, emotional person.  But getting all riled up over a game does nobody any good.
• I should be thankful for the work they're doing even when I don't necessarily agree with every decision they make.

Which is to say, thank you, HC devs, for all the work that you do.  And when I do get riled up about something, please understand that it's because I love the game and I want it to be as great as possible.  And I know that you do, too, even if we don't always agree on how to accomplish it.  In the end, I don't get everything I want, but I do get to play City of Heroes, and a better version of City of Heroes than we had on Live (which is an impressive accomplishment in and of itself).

[Yomo Kimyata]

100% agree.  Very well said.  Top to bottom.

[ScrewlooseCohh]

5 hours ago, Krimson said:

I've said before that the Auction House is the best PvP in the game. Anyone can participate and you don't need a special build. 

 

I often say that the Auction House is all PvP, but what people don't often realise is that Sellers aren't mostly competing with Buyers, they are competing with other Sellers.

[huang3721]

10 hours ago, Krimson said:

Anyone can participate and you don't need a special build.

I am not sure. As this thread has shown, anyone with astronomical inf can play the market. Other players with lesser inf simply has to bend to their will, ie. Waiting until the price stabilizes. It's not a PvP match if you can't fight back.

 

Edit

I guess, market is technically a PvP, albeit a very unbalanced one. I've seen many other better PvPs.

 

Edited July 26, 2022 by huang3721
Additional thought

[Andreah]

16 hours ago, tidge said:

Without a doubt, there is some number of players who only buy Enhancements/Recipes from Merit Reward Vendors... so some (tiny?) fraction of those people might be using Empyrean Rewards (farmed or otherwise)... but this defies (market) logic

Up until recently, I would have agreed with you. But I've asked around and a surprising number of players seem to do this. Sometimes I wonder if we're so attuned to the market and our (market) logic we lose connection to non-attuned players approach things. 

 

I'm still aghast at how many people buy recipes with reward merits. I never even stopped to think they might be getting those merits by converting their spare emps.  And some of them don't dig hard into the incarnate system, and a few not at all. 

 

Maybe the Devs have some analytics for insight into that. If so, then I would trust they know how many people who don't farm but do use veteran Emps for reward merits to buy recipes and who'll be impacted by this change, and there really aren't many.

 

Or maybe this has caught them from left field as much as it does me, and they don't even have metrics for it, or even any good way to collect them.

[Stormwalker]

31 minutes ago, Andreah said:

Up until recently, I would have agreed with you. But I've asked around and a surprising number of players seem to do this. Sometimes I wonder if we're so attuned to the market and our (market) logic we lose connection to non-attuned players approach things. 

 

I'm still aghast at how many people buy recipes with reward merits. I never even stopped to think they might be getting those merits by converting their spare emps.  And some of them don't dig hard into the incarnate system, and a few not at all. 

 

Maybe the Devs have some analytics for insight into that. If so, then I would trust they know how many people who don't farm but do use veteran Emps for reward merits to buy recipes and who'll be impacted by this change, and there really aren't many.

 

Or maybe this has caught them from left field as much as it does me, and they don't even have metrics for it, or even any good way to collect them.

 

I'm starting to think that some players view "the market" as some kind of evil cult that if they get involved with it, it will corrupt their pure gaming experience.  Or else some kind of arcane mystery that takes hours of investment to understand, perhaps.

 

I mean, I totally understand reluctance to actually put work into the market - I don't put work into the market, because it takes time and I'd rather spend my time running missions.  But I am at least willing to take the bare minimum steps to ensure I don't get the worst possible return for my Merits.

Edited July 26, 2022 by Stormwalker

[tidge]

I can only write about my own feelings and motivated behavior: I'm frivolous with my own use of merit rewards, to the point (and beyond) of inefficiencies. Even so, I still only burn Empyrean Merits on Incarnate powers... that is, when I remember to craft Incarnate powers. I am sure that I have occasionally bought Super Inspirations to help with an iTrial. If I had to rank how I burn Reward Merits, it's pretty much:

1. Converters (especially on new characters building up their own wallet)
2. Boosters (level 50s, obviously? Precise scaling of enhancement bonuses for specific PVP zones isn't my game)
3. ATO/Very Rare Recipes (I almost never use Winters) from the vendor
4. Unslotters (because I'm too lazy to pull them out of mail!)

The third one is incredibly rare, and it has literally been because I simply didn't feel like marketing for a single, specific piece NAO. I'd simply be lying if I said I hadn't done it.

 

I've been out of the League of Ebil Marketers for a long time... yet I still market my drops (crafted, converted), essentially so each character can "pay it forward" to future builds. This is basically second nature for me, so like others I am surprised to read about bad attitudes towards the Auction House. While I try to be open-mided... I remain surprised that there would be any significant overlap of players who (a) despise the marketplace (b) farm (multi-box?) Empyrean Merits (c) participate on the forums and (d) remain ignorant of alternate means to "get the good stuff".

[Andreah]

My reward merits go exclusively into boosters and converters. Most times to sell, occasionally to use. I never convert emps to reward merits. My emps go exclusively towards incarnating 50's, and get emailed forward to new ones.

 

If I need ATOs or Winter-O's, I buy a few packs, convert to what I need, and then sell everything else for a net profit.