Focused Feedback: Reward Merits

[tidge]

This is all about me: I do a LOT of solo, but I also join PUGs for TF/SF... less so for incarnate content and MSR, and I am about 50/50 on if I join a Hamidon League or not. I still find that Reward Merits flow like water, and I am never thirsty for Empyrean Merits. I cannot recall ever transferring merits (any type) between characters; enhancements, inf, catalysts, converters, yes... but never merits of any type. I can understand why... but what is the point of skipping low-level play... even if "I've done it a thousand times before"... just to get to incarnate play, that I'm guessing has been done an awful lot as well?

 

I should disclose: As a mostly solo player, I cannot bring myself to consider running certain content (e.g. Dark Astoria story arcs) as joyless grinds... even as I consider grinding them. As a test, I took a brand new level 50 (no incarnate powers, but fully built otherwise including most accolades) into DA, and ran the Heather Townshend arc twice. I had intended to run it at +0/x1 to time it, but the first mission I had left my difficulty turned up so that time was slightly longer than minimum at around 12 minutes... the second run took 9m 56s with a semi-favorable placement of glowies in mission 3. If this was all I was doing with the character, yes it would take a while to get those precious T4s... but 98% of my time with that character is playing non-Incarnate content anyway, generating threads, shards and vet levels.

 

I am confused about the economies of converting Empyrean merits to Reward merits to Recipes/ATOs.... or at least: confused about why take this path... I totally understand how this works, it's just that it seems so inefficient to me. Even rolling Empyrean -> Reward -> something else for AH sale doesn't seem as useful as it would be to just craft Incarnates and then run/play (Merit) reward-rich content (Hamidon Raid, Mothership Raids, TinPex, Weekly). I grok that these are different than an AE farm, but surely the extra farm rewards (occasional Empyrean merits) are either/both marginal or secondary.

 

If I was on my very first character, and I felt like I either wanted that character (or my very next one) to be near-instant 50(+3)... I guess I can almost imagine why I'd fret about some of the changes... but honestly the Empyrean -> Reward doesn't seem all that different than when the shift on Vanguard -> Reward happened... except of course that one might no longer exist.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

 

I am confused about the economies of converting Empyrean merits to Reward merits to Recipes/ATOs.... or at least: confused about why take this path... I totally understand how this works, it's just that it seems so inefficient to me. Even rolling Empyrean -> Reward -> something else for AH sale doesn't seem as useful as it would be to just craft Incarnates and then run/play (Merit) reward-rich content (Hamidon Raid, Mothership Raids, TinPex, Weekly). I grok that these are different than an AE farm, but surely the extra farm rewards (occasional Empyrean merits) are either/both marginal or secondary.

 

 

 

I'm guessing it's because you can set up your farming alts, go to sleep, wake up, claim all emerits, delete character, make new character, repeat.  It's not that it is the most enjoyable way to obtain goods and inf, but it certainly is the best return for the least amount of active effort.  Or at least that is my read on it.

[tidge]

31 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I'm guessing it's because you can set up your farming alts, go to sleep, wake up, claim all emerits, delete character, make new character, repeat.  It's not that it is the most enjoyable way to obtain goods and inf, but it certainly is the best return for the least amount of active effort.  Or at least that is my read on it.

 

This was my (best) guess as well, but this approach seems particularly pointless.... I understand that it could yield some Reward merits (via Empyrean conversion), but eventually whatever alt is benefiting from the farming must be collecting reward merits on their own. Everything else that is coming from the AE farm can also be used to fund/equip the alts.

 

I absolutely don't want to yuck in anyone's AE fun, but I'm going to call shenanigans on double- (or more)-boxing AE farming of Empyrean merits. This is judgemental as get-all: At the point at which a player feels they need to do this... I'm thinking maybe they should just play on the test server.

[arcane]

33 minutes ago, Krimson said:

Oh no, my main used those to make even more Tier 4s. 😄

Same, my main characters just don’t stop making Incarnates. I like having a full tray of extra alternate T4’s.

Edited July 24, 2022 by arcane

[Yomo Kimyata]

Part of the issue here is that we haven't (yet) heard what the devs are trying to accomplish.  I get that, so I try to back out what I *think* they want from the chain of events and the (so far) three things that have been put on the table.

 

1.  Status quo.  Clearly this is not acceptable to those guiding the game.  Ok.  Let's try to figure out why.

 

2.  Players (specifically lvl 50 players) cannot receive veteran levels and veteran rewards (Emerits) from AE missions.  Ok.  This specifically works against level 50 players who use the AE specifically to gain vet levels and Emerits.  So I assume that the devs want to curb that behavior for various reasons.  Personally, I like that, but that is because I am not one of those people, so I recognize my bias.

 

3.  #2 comes off the table for various reasons, and now Emerits can only be used for incarnate awards.  Ok.  Now I read the focus is not on people farming AE, but on how people spend their Emerits.  It's a *much* broader mandate saying:  incarnates are incarnates and inf is inf and one shalt not be used for the other.  Personally, I dislike this because it affects me personally, although not greatly.  I may or may not want to use Emerits for incarnate powers rather than items.

 

What confuses me (and I may be blinded by my bias) is #2 and #3 seem to be targeting two different behaviors, and that 3 is more onerous on a much much larger group of people.  Is the point to discourage the farming of Emerits for the purpose of turning them into other currency, or is it to remedy the interaction between incarnate activity and "the economy"?  Or something else entirely.

 

I'm looking forward to the Dev Diary when it comes.

[Stormwalker]

19 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

I'm looking forward to the Dev Diary when it comes.

 

Yeah, I think we're stuck in a useless cycle of endless speculation until it happens.

 

Because what the right answer is really depends on what they are trying to accomplish.  And while i think many of us think we know what they are trying to accomplish, that's not the same as actually knowing.

[lemming]

1 hour ago, Krimson said:

It is. You have any idea how many times you would have to run an AFK map to get a toon to vet level 24, just to harvest Emps and then delete? Using the troll cave map and units that are all patrols, about 20-22 runs AFTER it is already level 50, which takes about 40 minutes per on an ACTIVE farmer, let alone AFK.

 

It would be easier just to play the 50.

I suspect there's some economy of scale going on.  Technically two alts, but occasionally I've seen groups of over that who are all named similar and in the same costume going into a mission.   I don't see the point either.

 

And there was someone who said that they're method was to pump an alt up to vet 50, strip, repeat.  (Did not say how many alts at a time)

Edited July 24, 2022 by lemming
slight more info

[Yomo Kimyata]

10 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

 

Yeah, I think we're stuck in a useless cycle of endless speculation until it happens.

 

Because what the right answer is really depends on what they are trying to accomplish.  And while i think many of us think we know what they are trying to accomplish, that's not the same as actually knowing.

 

Totes, but without context, many of us (myself included) make assumptions that may or may not be true, like "OMFG the devs listen to those two whiners and make changes that are worse for everyone else!"

 

And we will never, ever know if it's true or not!  (I really hope it isn't!)

 

It's a fine line between telegraphing moves (and therefore people try to game the system) and sharing information.  The US Federal Reserve is in a similar predicament (and they TOTALLY listen to whiners!).

[Stormwalker]

12 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Totes, but without context, many of us (myself included) make assumptions that may or may not be true, like "OMFG the devs listen to those two whiners and make changes that are worse for everyone else!"

 

And we will never, ever know if it's true or not!  (I really hope it isn't!)

 

It's a fine line between telegraphing moves (and therefore people try to game the system) and sharing information.  The US Federal Reserve is in a similar predicament (and they TOTALLY listen to whiners!).

 

Yeah, on the RL point, I am personally of the opinion that the Federal Reserve meddles too much and sometimes causes more problems than they solve.  Economics is complex and sometimes difficult to predict (because human behavior is not always logical) and the government trying to meddle in it is usually (but not always) a bad thing in the long-term... but that's off-topic, so I won't rant on it.

 

And while I think many of us are assuming the thing  that the devs are trying to address is mass farming/converting of Emp Merits in AE (because this is the one thing I can think of that both of their moves so far would actually address), it's entirely possible that there is some other problem or possibly an exploit we don't know about that needs addressing (and if it is an exploit we don't know about, I can understand their reticence to talk about it until the plan to fix it is in place).

 

(And for what it's worth, I didn't really care if people were farming/converting massive amount of Emp Merits in AE to begin with, until it was pointed out that someone could potentially crash the value of Reward Merits that way, and that really would be a problem - for almost everyone.  For the most part, I don't really care what other people do in the game.  I don't care how rich they are.  I don't care if they have 100 characters who are more powerful than any of mine.  It just doesn't matter to me, because it doesn't affect my ability to enjoy the game.  But one person even potentially having the power to wreck the game economy by themselves is bad for everyone. and does need to be addressed!)

[SwitchFade]

11 hours ago, DarknessEternal said:

I'm a solo player, so reward merits don't flow like water to me.

 

I will just farm incarnate salvage the usual ways, and if I need empyreans, choose those instead.  This is all assuming they stop screwing the solo player, but we'll see about that.

If you want to know how to,

 

Earn 100 merits in 25 minutes,

Convert that 100 into 300 converters,

 

Turn those 300 converters into 80 million inf in 20 minutes...

 

Let me know.

 

Actually using empyrean for merits is really one of the least effective uses for them. And as @Myrmidonmentioned, I and will speculate further, that more uses for empyrean are on the way.

[arthurh35353]

I don't really understand the removal of the added mechanic to allow you convert (one way) Empyrians and such, after they added it.

 

One of the things I really dislike is the addition of 'new currency' for new rewards. Video games (and MMOs in particular) seem to be really horrible at this. I'm sure some of this boils down to the fact that they didn't want you to buy tons of Incarnate powers with hoarded merits when they came out, but the addition of converting Emps into Merits seems to have been added so that you could more easily buy Merit Rewards (Ie. special salvage and purple/PvP enhancements) after the game was closed down.

 

This change seems like it is just to make things more annoying for the casual player to get rewards or INF to get rewards and, well frankly, seems to be targeted to make the marketers have to go a couple more steps in their ever conquering way to more zeroes on their INF calculator.

 

I've never had that much INF or resources, even though I'm not objectively 'poor'. But my latest re-make of a sentinel is schlubbing along and not fully kitted out yet because I've been too apathetic to farm farm farm inf/drops whatever.

 

I'm kind of surprised they just haven't mathed out the awards for 1-50 in merits via playing, then to vet26 for 'rewards' to give you enough Merits and Emps/threads to fairly thoroughly  buy all the Enhancements and Incarnate Powers.

 

But I'd probably be crazy and change any award of 5 merits into 1 enhancement purchase (yes, even the ones that cost 100 merits right now).

[DarknessEternal]

50 minutes ago, SwitchFade said:

Actually using empyrean for merits is really one of the least effective uses for them. And as @Myrmidonmentioned, I and will speculate further, that more uses for empyrean are on the way.

Then why remove it.

 

And please explain 100 RM in 25 minutes completely solo.

[Stormwalker]

21 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

This change seems like it is just to make things more annoying for the casual player to get rewards or INF to get rewards and, well frankly, seems to be targeted to make the marketers have to go a couple more steps in their ever conquering way to more zeroes on their INF calculator.

.

 

10 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

Then why remove it.

 

 

I am guessing that you didn't read the comment earlier in this thread that explained how someone could AFK farm so many Empyrean Merits in a fairly short amount of time that, by converting them to Reward Merits, they could flood the market with items purchased with Reward Merits to the point that they crashed the value of all those items, and the result of this would be that Reward Merits would essentially lose all their value in terms of inf?

 

Because that would be a very bad thing.  For everyone. 

 

Reward Merits are currently (assuming you spend them wisely) one of the most efficient ways to make influence in the game.  Even for those of us who don't put any effort into playing the market, just buying  enhancement converters with Merits and selling them on Wentworth's will net you ~2.1 million inf (more, if you're willing to list high and wait for them to sell) for just 10 Reward Merits.  If you DO play the market, you can make a whole lot more than that for your Reward Merits, by taking those converters, buying cheap enhancements (or cheap recipes, and crafting them), and converting them to much more valuable enhancements to sell for much higher prices.   

 

Truth be told, if more people actually put the effort into converting enhancements, the value of converters would be much higher, because the profit margin on converting enhancements is huge if you are smart about it (of course, if more people did it, the profit margins would decrease somewhat as there would be more competition selling valuable enhancements and the prices would drop, but even then the profit margin would still be pretty large, and the increased demand for converters would drive prices up).   That said, it's a pain in the rear end, mostly because you have to do some research into which conversions will yield the most profit, so lots of players aren't willing to do it even when the rewards for doing so are enormous.  Admittedly, I'm one of those players.  I know I'd make tons more inf that way, but I'd rather spend my time actually running missions even if the rewards are less.  Fun is its own reward, after all.

 

But if someone floods the market with converters (and catalysts, and unslotters, and the other valuable items you can buy with Reward Merits) so that the supply vastly outstrips the demand and those items lose their value, one of the best ways for even a casual player to make inf vanishes.  This hurts everyone.  In the long term, it would even hurt the player who did it, which is probably why nobody has actually done it yet (well, that, and the fact that doing it would take an enormous amount of effort way out of proportion to the reward you'd get for doing it).  But we can't just assume that someone won't do it, because people do stupid things for stupid reasons (like pure and simple spite) sometimes.  

 

This is the sort of thing that even the potential that someone could do it - even if it seems unlikely that they actually would - is very bad and needs to be fixed.  And yet, we don't even know that this is why they're considering these changes.  It's merely one possibility (albeit a fairly likely one).  It's possible the devs have discovered an even worse (or at least equally bad) problem that they haven't told us about yet.

 

Point being, these changes are being considered for a reason.  And it's probably a pretty good reason.  Now, we can argue over the side effects of these changes, and what change might address the problem while causing the least side effects (any change to address the problem mentioned above is going to have side effects, the question is how to minimize them), though until the devs actually tell us what their objective for these changes is, we are stuck speculating about it.

 

What isn't really arguable is that some change is needed.  It's merely a question of how to solve the problem while causing the least amount of adverse impact to the player base as a whole.

[golstat2003]

6 hours ago, tidge said:

This is all about me: I do a LOT of solo, but I also join PUGs for TF/SF... less so for incarnate content and MSR, and I am about 50/50 on if I join a Hamidon League or not. I still find that Reward Merits flow like water, and I am never thirsty for Empyrean Merits. I cannot recall ever transferring merits (any type) between characters; enhancements, inf, catalysts, converters, yes... but never merits of any type. I can understand why... but what is the point of skipping low-level play... even if "I've done it a thousand times before"... just to get to incarnate play, that I'm guessing has been done an awful lot as well?

 

I should disclose: As a mostly solo player, I cannot bring myself to consider running certain content (e.g. Dark Astoria story arcs) as joyless grinds... even as I consider grinding them. As a test, I took a brand new level 50 (no incarnate powers, but fully built otherwise including most accolades) into DA, and ran the Heather Townshend arc twice. I had intended to run it at +0/x1 to time it, but the first mission I had left my difficulty turned up so that time was slightly longer than minimum at around 12 minutes... the second run took 9m 56s with a semi-favorable placement of glowies in mission 3. If this was all I was doing with the character, yes it would take a while to get those precious T4s... but 98% of my time with that character is playing non-Incarnate content anyway, generating threads, shards and vet levels.

 

I am confused about the economies of converting Empyrean merits to Reward merits to Recipes/ATOs.... or at least: confused about why take this path... I totally understand how this works, it's just that it seems so inefficient to me. Even rolling Empyrean -> Reward -> something else for AH sale doesn't seem as useful as it would be to just craft Incarnates and then run/play (Merit) reward-rich content (Hamidon Raid, Mothership Raids, TinPex, Weekly). I grok that these are different than an AE farm, but surely the extra farm rewards (occasional Empyrean merits) are either/both marginal or secondary.

 

If I was on my very first character, and I felt like I either wanted that character (or my very next one) to be near-instant 50(+3)... I guess I can almost imagine why I'd fret about some of the changes... but honestly the Empyrean -> Reward doesn't seem all that different than when the shift on Vanguard -> Reward happened... except of course that one might no longer exist.

Actually converting EMPs to Reward Merits to Converters, then playing the converter game off uncommon IOS, after you have tier 3’d, is actually very VERY efficient and profitable. I say this as someone who has been able to use this method to make billions of inf over the past two years.

 

EDIT: And I got those EMPs from regular +4 x8 play and the occasional farming the first three vet levels. Ofcourse this requires patience with the AH, which I’d argue a majority of players don’t have, which is why I made billions off folks paying “buy it now” prices.

 

Also don’t ask me how many converters I have burned through converting IOS over the last two years. LOL

Edited July 24, 2022 by golstat2003

[SwitchFade]

20 minutes ago, DarknessEternal said:

Then why remove it.

 

And please explain 100 RM in 25 minutes completely solo.

I do it solo weekly. When you're in game, I'll show you, it's quite easy.

[Stormwalker]

9 minutes ago, golstat2003 said:

Actually converting EMPs to Reward Merits to Converters, then playing the converter game off uncommon IOS, after you have tier 3’d, is actually very VERY efficient and profitable. I say this as someone who has been able to use this method to make billions of inf over the past two years.

 

I think the point that tidge is trying to make is that getting Reward Merits is easy enough by other means that it's more efficient to earn your Reward Merits for this sort of market activity directly rather than converting Emp Merits for it, and to use your Emp Merits for other things (though I suppose that this depends somewhat on your playstyle).

[arthurh35353]

22 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

Even for those of us who don't put any effort into playing the market, just buying  enhancement converters with Merits and selling them on Wentworth's will net you ~2.1 million inf (more, if you're willing to list high and wait for them to sell) for just 10 Reward Merits. 

I think you have a very different definition of 'no effort'. No effort would mean you only use the market as little as possible and don't buy things to flip to make more money.

 

Your "don't put any effort" into playing the market is, in fact, putting effort into it.

[Stormwalker]

Just now, arthurh35353 said:

I think you have a very different definition of 'no effort'. No effort would mean you only use the market as little as possible and don't buy things to flip to make more money.

 

Your "don't put any effort" into playing the market is, in fact, putting effort into it.

 

I don't consider a straight conversion of Reward Merits to inf with one intermediary step (converters) to be actual effort or "playing the market".  Buying a stack of converters and listing them on the AH takes literally seconds.

 

When I talk about "playing the market", I mean activities that require actually doing market research, which I don't hace the patience to do.

[arthurh35353]

Just now, Stormwalker said:

 

I don't consider a straight conversion of Reward Merits to inf with one intermediary step (converters) to be actual effort or "playing the market".  Buying a stack of converters and listing them on the AH takes literally seconds.

 

When I talk about "playing the market", I mean activities that require actually doing market research, which I don't hace the patience to do.

And yet, my counter and rebuttal states otherwise. You may think that is no effort and is probably lower effort for people, but it is not 'no effort'. And some of us hate what the market has become.

 

I don't play City of Heroes to also play "City of Accountants".

[Stormwalker]

27 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

And yet, my counter and rebuttal states otherwise. You may think that is no effort and is probably lower effort for people, but it is not 'no effort'. And some of us hate what the market has become.

 

I don't play City of Heroes to also play "City of Accountants".

 

Excuse me, Captain Pedantic.  Fine, it takes a trivial amount of effort.

 

1). Go to Merit Vendor (which you have to do to spend your Reward Merits on anything, regardless of what you do with it).

2). Buy converters.

3). Open Salvage Window (one click)

4). Open AH window (type /ah in chat)

5). Drag converters from Salvage Window to AH window.

6).  Drag slider to "10".

7).  Click OK.

8). Type "75000" in price window. (Yes, I always sell them at the same price.  Always.  I did say I wasn't willing to invest effort in the market, didn't I?  I don't even bother to check what the last 5 prices were!)

9). Click "Post"

10). Repeat steps 5, 7, and 9 two more times (because it saves the quantity and price, so I don't even have to repeat Steps 6 and 8).

11. ??? (go do something else, anything else, run missions, log in another alt, it doesn't matter, until converters sell.)

12). Profit!

 

What part of this is "City of Accountants?"  Good freakin' grief.   It took me more time to type up this comment than it does to sell a dozen stacks of converters!

 

None of this has anything to do with the actual point of my original comment, anyway, and I should have just ignored your response to begin with because it's not relevant to the discussion at hand.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Stormwalker

[tidge]

50 minutes ago, arthurh35353 said:

I think you have a very different definition of 'no effort'. No effort would mean you only use the market as little as possible and don't buy things to flip to make more money.

 

Your "don't put any effort" into playing the market is, in fact, putting effort into it.

 

70K inf x 30 Enhancement Converters = 2.1 MInf. No flipping.

[Astralock]

52 minutes ago, Stormwalker said:

 

I think the point that tidge is trying to make is that getting Reward Merits is easy enough by other means that it's more efficient to earn your Reward Merits for this sort of market activity directly rather than converting Emp Merits for it, and to use your Emp Merits for other things (though I suppose that this depends somewhat on your playstyle).

 

Any other method is less efficient compared to setting up a couple of farming characters, three or more "sitter" characters, and use macros to rotate AFK farming missions every ten to twenty minutes while you're working or reading a book or what have you.  The only effort expended is to strip the "sitter" characters when they reach veteran level 51 - 75 and remake them.

 

Sure, it's against the ToS and I strongly advise against doing it.  But is it being done?  Absolutely, by quite a few.  The issue is that it's very difficult to monitor for, unless you want the GMs (who are volunteering their time), to peer in everyone's missions.  You can't even use IP address logs, as there are a few different ways around that.  That's why I still advocate that the original solution of removing veteran levels from AE is the better solution to the issue.  It hurts people who use AE at level 50, sure.  This solution though impacts everyone.  "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

[Stormwalker]

1 minute ago, Astralock said:

 

Any other method is less efficient compared to setting up a couple of farming characters, three or more "sitter" characters, and use macros to rotate AFK farming missions every ten to twenty minutes while you're working or reading a book or what have you.  The only effort expended is to strip the "sitter" characters when they reach veteran level 51 - 75 and remake them.

 

Sure, it's against the ToS and I strongly advise against doing it.  But is it being done?  Absolutely, by quite a few.  The issue is that it's very difficult to monitor for, unless you want the GMs (who are volunteering their time), to peer in everyone's missions.  You can't even use IP address logs, as there are a few different ways around that.  That's why I still advocate that the original solution of removing veteran levels from AE is the better solution to the issue.  It hurts people who use AE at level 50, sure.  This solution though impacts everyone.  "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."

 

For what it's worth, I actually agree with you., even though I've never done an Emp Merit -> Reward Merit conversion, and probably won't be doing one anytime soon.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Stormwalker

[Stormwalker]

3 minutes ago, tidge said:

 

70K inf x 30 Enhancement Converters = 2.1 MInf. No flipping.

 

Exactly.

 

"Flipping" would be the higher-effort solution I talked about.  The one that makes you lots more inf but I don't have the patience to do the market research required to do it effectively.

[Stormwalker]

33 minutes ago, Krimson said:

You want to know what feels unnatural? Using Enhancement Converters as a form of currency to the point that no one even questions it. I hear repeatedly that AE was not intended for farming, but it's okay to game the Auction House? I don't want to do that for the exact same reason I don't AFK farm. I want my actions to have some Agency. I want my knowledge of math to be filtered through powers and enhancement sets. All I do is craft and dump enhancements on the market at bargain prices, because I happen to have the recipe and the salvage.

 

I don't think this is actually "gaming" the AH.   This is the very nature of an auction house.  It's the way an auction house works and the way it's intended to be used.

 

Converters are an extremely high-demand item.   They can be bought with Merits.  They can be sold for inf.  The devs who made the design decisions to make Converters exist, be purchasable with merits, and be sellable on the Auction House fully intended for them to be used as a means of converting Merits to Inf.  If they didn't, they would have made Converters account-bound rather than making them sellable.  These market forces are not mysterious; they're at play in both the real world and in every other MMO that has ever had an auction house, and they are well-documented.  I promise you, the devs knew that these items would be used for currency exchange when they created them.

 

EDIT: I should add, this exchange is largely beneficial to the player base, because the ready availability of Converters drives down the prices of the most expensive enhancements by providing more ways to generate them than simply from drops.

 

EDIT 2: To expand on this:  Converters were made tradeable as an anti-scarcity measure.  Private servers will inevitably have lower population than Live did.  This tends to lead to problems with scarcity of rare items.  Making them tradeable specifically enables their use as a means of currency exchange, and thus ensures their wide availability to those who are willing to spend the time converting and reselling, thus ensuring the most valuable enhancements are continually available even at lower server populations.  This is working precisely as intended.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Stormwalker