Focused Feedback: Reward Merits

[Astralock]

2 hours ago, @Ghost said:

Catching back up, I'd still say it feels pretty mean if people were still sitting on piles of Emps for their flexibility (send em to alts for incarnate progress, convert to merits as needed for cash) to come back to the game later on and find their stockpile doesn't have a cash value anymore.

 

But maybe I'm alone in how I used them and the damage is way less than I'm thinking? I guess I just gotta go back and convert them while I still can, and anyone who doesn't pay attention to beta notes is just outta luck.

There is precedent for it.  Remember when level 53 Hami-O enhancements were added to the game in Page 1?  Quite a few people who were away while the page was in testing came back later to find billions of INF they had stashed away in the black market were gone.

[DarknessEternal]

3 hours ago, Astralock said:

There is precedent for it.  Remember when level 53 Hami-O enhancements were added to the game in Page 1?  Quite a few people who were away while the page was in testing came back later to find billions of INF they had stashed away in the black market were gone.

Doing something stupid in the past isn't a good reason to do it again.  It's a warning to not repeat it.

Edited July 30, 2022 by DarknessEternal

[Ukase]

14 hours ago, scottocamp said:

 

For what it is worth - I play the game one toon at a time.  Each new toon is seeded with 50 emps and all the needed enhancements as generated by the toon I was playing prior.  I craft all the yellow recipes the prior toon collected and use converters to acquire nearly all the enhancements needed for the new toon.  I don't sell all that many enhancements.  I will use reward merits accumulated by the prior toon to fill in purple and winter enhancements.  I have never converted an emp to merits, don't run AE missions, don't have any idea how to AFK farm and still have no problem acquiring everything I need.

 

So my question to you is - why do you feel the need to acquire such a vast amount of influence?  It seems wildly unnecessary.  Almost borderline ridiculous.  Perhaps you are a "Dragon" as Omega suggests.  But you seem like a dragon hoarding a mountain of wealth that you will never be able to use.  What am I missing?

 

 

It's not a short answer, but I'll try. 
The problem in my mind all started with the HC devs demonstrating their power by seeding salvage. No advance warning (that I was aware of, anyway), just logged in and saw that suddenly the salvage was seeded. I'd had hundreds of rares that I'd posted in whatever range they were going for. Suddenly, the salvage is seeded and I've got to pull them all back and relist. And for me, it wasn't so much that they made the move on the salvage, but that they can do whatever they want, to hell with how it impacts any player. For a time, and it may surprise some folks - catalysts used to sell for 4-5M!! So, I would convert my reward merits to those, and sell them. I remember making 500M one morning and just having a huge rush. I think it was an endorphin high, really. A bit dangerous. I used to gamble in Vegas, and it was very much like hitting a Royal. In my mind, I knew it was fake money, but in game, it doesn't feel fake. It spends just like in the real world. But there's no way to earn any interest, so if you want the pile to grow, you can let it trickle in and just play, or you can farm and market and watch it grow exponentially. 

 

I did my level best to make sure that no matter what the HC devs did, I'd have influence. Why so much? Honestly, it's more out of a consistent routine than anything else. A routine which I've dropped some time ago, because I do think 500B is enough - enough to kit out my next 2800 or so characters without having to sweat much of anything - except incarnate materials, because I can't buy those. To get those, I used to lead the odd Master of Underground, maybe a BAF here and there. But I quickly learned that this new player base has a small percentage of players that are illiterate, or for reasons that are just too stupid to accept, play with the chat window closed. It's this small percentage of players that just sucked the fun out of the experience, so unless it's one of two sets of players, I'm not likely to participate in any iTrial, (at least, on Excelsior) And it was that small percentage that drove me into AE to get my incarnate materials. 

 

I still do the odd Magisterium and Underground. Occasionally, I'll get "stuck" doing a TPN or Keyes, two iTrials that are as stupid as they can be with their repetitive nature. (Three reactors are two too many, and that TPN is just the worst task set in any iTrial. Go in this building, go in this other building, go back to that one, etc. Just stupid. I can't believe we let the original devs get away with that trash. If it's not in pursuit of a badge, I will never do an iTrial again. 

 

It may be worth adding that I work from home, and it's an easy thing for me to tab out, move a character and get back to work. Occasionally, after a work call, I might be able to do a mission. I've had solo Yin TFs last 8 hours because of having to tab out for work. Farming is just an easy thing to do while working remotely. 

Back to the inf - after a year or playing, I didn't really have much, maybe a couple billion. Thing is, if I did the "buy now", a lot of my builds with my affinity for Shield Walls could easily cost me 400-500 million. I still have a list of AT/powerset combos I've not tried, and variations of powerset combos I have tried that I've yet to create. 500B is the number. Any less, and I might have to farm again - and in my mind, given the way the HC devs have a propensity to enjoy things in game that I do not, I knew days of farming are numbered. In particular afk-farming. So, to me, it would have been setting myself up for failure if I didn't make as much as I could. In a way, I feel like I was productive enough to ensure I'd have enough regardless of what the devs did - unless they deliberately targeted me specifically. Thus far, I see no reason why they would do that. 

 

I have no regrets, because it's a delight to be able to pick and choose moments when I want to team, as opposed to having that urge to get incarnate materials, and balancing that with my desire to not deal with the percentage of players that are stupid. 
 

It is also quite a joy to be able to gift a pleasant leader with a sizable donation to match what they were giving for the kill shot on Hami or the drop ship. Or to simply give some winter sets to someone else who wants to farm. (When it's my idea to gift, not theirs! I can't stand a beggar. ) 

[Ukase]

11 hours ago, Dazl said:

It's not the “Farming” it’s the “AFK” that is the issue.

Please know that I don't wish to argue, only to provide a different perspective. 

 

Sorry, but I don't see it as an issue. What does it do? Provide some players with an alternative to mainstream content. It allows players to accumulate the resources for the items they want more quickly. I don't see those as an issue. It is literally a non-event that nobody would never even know is happening if folks weren't openly sharing how they do it in an effort to be helpful.
Nobody would have a clue it was going on if folks weren't looking to ride that gravy train. I don't think anyone would think there were any issues. But, since folks know about it, and it bothers some people for some reason, it's an issue. 

There really are no tangible negative consequences from what I see. 

I understand that when folks think about it, it can seem...unsavory, and insult their sensibilities a bit. But it's really no different when you're on a team and you go for a bio break while the team proceeds with the mission. You're getting rewards and doing nothing. Granted it's usually just a moment, compared to a longer term with the farmer, but where do we draw the line? It's may be slope that's more slippery than you think. 

[scottocamp]

43 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I do think 500B is enough - enough to kit out my next 2800 or so characters without having to sweat much of anything.

 

I can't tell if you are ribbing me or if you are serious.  :)

 

It takes me roughly a month to get a toon up to 50 with all the enhancements I want and all level 4 incarnates.  2800 toons would take me roughly 233 years. <lol>

 

Amazing.  Kudos!

[Ironblade]

4 minutes ago, scottocamp said:

I can't tell if you are ribbing me or if you are serious.  :)

He's serious about the half trillion influence.

As for 2800 characters, I haven't seen him play a lot of different characters so I don't think he actually plans to make that many.

He'll correct me if I'm mistaken.  😛

[arcane]

17 hours ago, Ukase said:

Man, you really nailed it! Those devs need to roll that damn change back. I have 5 characters that I need to respec out of Rune otherwise! There really wasn't a reason to change that! And if I'd known that change was coming, I'd have bitched about it, I guarantee it! 

The pool got a massive net buff in exchange for that slight uptime nerf. You can pry new and improved Sorcery from my cold dead hands 🙂 

[Luminara]

3 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Sorry, but I don't see it as an issue. What does it do?

 

Automates the acquisition of rewards by using bots and macros.  Which, if condoned by the developers, legitimizes bot farming, and therefore RMTs.  Even if they want to permit AFK farming without allowing bot farming and RMTs, the two go hand in hand because there's no way they can prevent one without preventing the other.  Tell players that they can AFK farm, but "only use X accounts", and the bot farmers will set up XXXX accounts with different IPs and e-mail addresses, use large-scale operations like zombies, and sidestep the politely phrased restriction.

That would lead to heavily trafficked servers, but no real change in active players.  Servers would crash more frequently, lag would be persistent even for people with high bandwidth connections and fast computers, and long queues would be common.  The economy would go haywire and end up right back where it was on the original servers.  And, eventually, the day would come when the servers were always full, but not a single active player was on any of them, they'd all be filled with bots (a phenomenon i have personally witnessed in another game).  Homecoming would be dead, for all intents and purposes.

 

Your gut reaction is that this game is old and relatively unknown outside of fans, so "that couldn't happen here".  Wrong.  Some will do it because they can.  Some will do it because they'll make just a tiny bit of money.  Some will do it as a learning experience so they can go on to larger and better populated games and set up bot farms there.  Some will do it to be malicious.  But make no mistake, the instant bot farming is condoned and one person starts, word will spread and they'll descend on these servers like a pack of starving wolves on a fawn.  Because why wouldn't they, if they can get a few cents a day for zero work, or a few chuckles, or learn more about managing bots and integrating them into a game environment, or see how many they can run simultaneously from each computer they've hijacked?

 

The developers don't give a damn what you do with your three accounts.  They do care about the potential for thousands of botted accounts.  As well they should.

[SwitchFade]

1 hour ago, Ukase said:

It's not a short answer, but I'll try. 
The problem in my mind all started with the HC devs demonstrating their power by seeding salvage. No advance warning (that I was aware of, anyway), just logged in and saw that suddenly the salvage was seeded. I'd had hundreds of rares that I'd posted in whatever range they were going for. Suddenly, the salvage is seeded and I've got to pull them all back and relist. And for me, it wasn't so much that they made the move on the salvage, but that they can do whatever they want, to hell with how it impacts any player. For a time, and it may surprise some folks - catalysts used to sell for 4-5M!! So, I would convert my reward merits to those, and sell them. I remember making 500M one morning and just having a huge rush. I think it was an endorphin high, really. A bit dangerous. I used to gamble in Vegas, and it was very much like hitting a Royal. In my mind, I knew it was fake money, but in game, it doesn't feel fake. It spends just like in the real world. But there's no way to earn any interest, so if you want the pile to grow, you can let it trickle in and just play, or you can farm and market and watch it grow exponentially. 

 

I did my level best to make sure that no matter what the HC devs did, I'd have influence. Why so much? Honestly, it's more out of a consistent routine than anything else. A routine which I've dropped some time ago, because I do think 500B is enough - enough to kit out my next 2800 or so characters without having to sweat much of anything - except incarnate materials, because I can't buy those. To get those, I used to lead the odd Master of Underground, maybe a BAF here and there. But I quickly learned that this new player base has a small percentage of players that are illiterate, or for reasons that are just too stupid to accept, play with the chat window closed. It's this small percentage of players that just sucked the fun out of the experience, so unless it's one of two sets of players, I'm not likely to participate in any iTrial, (at least, on Excelsior) And it was that small percentage that drove me into AE to get my incarnate materials. 

 

I still do the odd Magisterium and Underground. Occasionally, I'll get "stuck" doing a TPN or Keyes, two iTrials that are as stupid as they can be with their repetitive nature. (Three reactors are two too many, and that TPN is just the worst task set in any iTrial. Go in this building, go in this other building, go back to that one, etc. Just stupid. I can't believe we let the original devs get away with that trash. If it's not in pursuit of a badge, I will never do an iTrial again. 

 

It may be worth adding that I work from home, and it's an easy thing for me to tab out, move a character and get back to work. Occasionally, after a work call, I might be able to do a mission. I've had solo Yin TFs last 8 hours because of having to tab out for work. Farming is just an easy thing to do while working remotely. 

Back to the inf - after a year or playing, I didn't really have much, maybe a couple billion. Thing is, if I did the "buy now", a lot of my builds with my affinity for Shield Walls could easily cost me 400-500 million. I still have a list of AT/powerset combos I've not tried, and variations of powerset combos I have tried that I've yet to create. 500B is the number. Any less, and I might have to farm again - and in my mind, given the way the HC devs have a propensity to enjoy things in game that I do not, I knew days of farming are numbered. In particular afk-farming. So, to me, it would have been setting myself up for failure if I didn't make as much as I could. In a way, I feel like I was productive enough to ensure I'd have enough regardless of what the devs did - unless they deliberately targeted me specifically. Thus far, I see no reason why they would do that. 

 

I have no regrets, because it's a delight to be able to pick and choose moments when I want to team, as opposed to having that urge to get incarnate materials, and balancing that with my desire to not deal with the percentage of players that are stupid. 
 

It is also quite a joy to be able to gift a pleasant leader with a sizable donation to match what they were giving for the kill shot on Hami or the drop ship. Or to simply give some winter sets to someone else who wants to farm. (When it's my idea to gift, not theirs! I can't stand a beggar. ) 

Disclaimer: I'm not opposed to your opinions and preferences and generally believe you have not been disrespectful, so please don't view this as personal...

 

Hi sorry, but this entire post is a shining example for what can go disastrously wrong in an economy.

 

Actively stating that one would like to passively generate egregious amounts of income to stockpile is the literal definition of inflation. Leaving aside the argument of fun or risk for now.

 

Units of currency in an economy must remain stable, else a dramatic devaluation of each said unit of currency occurs. This happened on live and was happening here just a year ago, before changes that curbed it. The reason you don't see rampant inflation is several factors, chief among them the fact that the devs turned off a massive generator of currency. 500 billion inf sitting, if every player had this, would nuke the economy, as it did on live.

 

The error on live was, the devs acted too late, and the currency existed. Here, the devs acted very early to balance creation vs destruction, assuring that we wouldn't end up at the same place, further assuring that they would be proactive in continuing that balance.

 

Now, farming, afk farming, story content or otherwise, I'm not really concerned with the mode of creation, moreso the amount created vs destroyed, as this is the measure of inflation in THIS economy.

 

No build costs more than 1.1billion inf and most of that can be generated along the way. The desire to passively create cast sums of currency outside of the currency generated while playing that toon is double the currency, not even speaking to the rate at which AE or reward merit from emp conversion occurs.

 

AE having the exact same reward structure as all content, within an acceptable standard deviation about the median and the elimination of vast (read: 500billion) stockpiles of currency on all toons would assure economic health and longevity.

[ShardWarrior]

20 minutes ago, Krimson said:

How many players are actually doing this? I mean, I do see some farmers who seem to do nothing but farm with their alts, and I wonder what the motivation is. But it's usually just a few players and their alts. Certainly figuring out all their accounts could be an issue with code, but someone with a pair of eyes armed with /getglobalname could figure it out in the AE building itself. 

 

My guess would be less than a handful, if that.  The better question is, who cares?  Let them farm trillions of influence and billions of reward merits if they want.  The tools used to detect gold farmers should be a help here and anyone abusing the rule should get a permanent ban.  Ultimately, you simply are not going to be able to stop anyone from farming like that short of turning off the game.

[Luminara]

2 hours ago, Krimson said:

How many players are actually doing this?

 

Presumably, all of our players are decent folk who willingly abide by the requests of the developers and keep to the honor system, zero.

 

Also presumably, the moon has a gooey chocolate center.

[Bionic_Flea]

30 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Presumably, all of our players are decent folk who willingly abide by the requests of the developers and keep to the honor system, zero.

 

Also presumably, the moon has a gooey chocolate center.

Methinks thou dost presume too much.

[Ukase]

3 hours ago, Luminara said:

Automates the acquisition of rewards by using bots and macros.

If this is happening, it's news to me. Further, if it is happening, how would any of us know about it? We don't have access to what's going on in someone's mission, unless we're in the mission with them. So..what's the real story here? 

I would like to think I am only a few days to a week behind, before I learn of the latest and greatest way to milk a new strategy. Troo mentioned this as well, and where there's smoke, maybe there is some fire. 

If this is the case, then yes, it should be addressed, but I do not for a moment think this is why the devs are looking to add this change. Where's the evidence of that? 
Converter prices and numbers are stable on the market. The only real change I can see is the price of LotG 7.5% has dropped about 500k - 1M. (selling for less than 7M instead of the usual 7-8M ) And that's a good thing, I would think. 

People talk, word gets around, people hear things. But, this is the internet. I believe none of what I read, and only half of what I see. If this is going on, let's cite some sources. If you'd rather not state things in here, send me a dm, I'll happily back off if this is going on - to a point. I'll be wanting to know how they did it so I can suggest how to prevent it. But at the same time, I don't want to know, because I don't wish to be grouped in with the folks that are doing such things. 

And to be clear - I've no issue with macros. I use them all the time, when I actively play. I can't auto-fire an macro, so I wouldn't be able to do so in my afk farm. As for a bot? That's way beyond me. 

[@Ghost]

8 hours ago, Astralock said:

There is precedent for it.  Remember when level 53 Hami-O enhancements were added to the game in Page 1?  Quite a few people who were away while the page was in testing came back later to find billions of INF they had stashed away in the black market were gone.

 

I think there's a significant difference in one being an item which you already know will have a fluctuating value, and one being a currency with multiple purchasing options.

 

I've run pretty casual Hamis where you do 2 back to back and would always take the Emps option when it's available and bank them up for alts, because hey, what's the harm? Running it twice would give you 40 reward merits, which is the same as taking the 4 Emps -- except those just give you more options. The conversion's meant it's an equivalent reward currency and I don't think I've seen any acknowledgement from devs about nullifying stockpiles of resources for people not paying attention to the beta notes.

[Ukase]

21 hours ago, Omega-202 said:

My guy...you're really not seeing that YOU are exactly the person that this kind of fix is meant to address.  You are the problem and the vulnerability of the market, not the solution.  The answer to a dragon hoarding loot is not to hope a different dragon swoops in to help the villagers by taking the other dragon's loot.  The answer is to address the dragon problem.  

 

You have a bad case of "selfaware wolf" going on.  I don't want to tell you how to have your fun, but the fact that you are sitting on a mountain of goods and currency and don't think there's a problem IS THE PROBLEM.

I am not perfect. And it is fair to say I can be obtuse. But to label my success as a marketer as a problem is just silly. Why is it a problem? Because I carry a billion inf on every character, except for a few challenge characters who've yet to earn it? 

I see no problem with it. I see it as a successful solution to the problem the game presented me with. 
Problem: Not enough loot to buy what I want. 
Problem solved. 

 

What is it that is a problem about me having influence? How does that impact the game in any way? Because I might go postal and buy some IOs that people want to sell? I can't buy what they don't list. And I have never bought a bunch of one IO to relist it. I don't roll like that. I wouldn't appreciate that as a newer player trying to buy something, so I wouldn't do it to someone else. Further, I would offer the argument that the players with the most influence are the ones who are the most generous with it. That could be because they have it, or it could be because they're somewhat responsible for how they use it. 

Opinions vary, and it is quite clear my opinion is very different from yours. Give me some facts. Something I can look at, so I can better be objective. Right now, it seems like an attack because I'm successful at doing what any 6 year old could do, but many of you don't want to, so I'm a "problem". 

 

[Bionic_Flea]

My understanding, as I have never checked myself, is the daily numbers everyday between 8:30 am and 9:30 am.  And especially in Pocket D and other zones with AE buildings.  There is a noticeable difference on Tuesdays when the servers go offline.  Presumably there are a number of AFk farmers that get booted and don't come back until they wake up, come back from work, whatever.

 

@Ukase Here's a chart from HC Discord.

Edited July 30, 2022 by Bionic_Flea

[Ukase]

4 minutes ago, Bionic_Flea said:

My understanding, as I have never checked myself, is the daily numbers everyday between 8:30 am and 9:30 am.  And especially in Pocket D and other zones with AE buildings.  There is a noticeable difference on Tuesdays when the servers go offline.  Presumably there are a number of AFk farmers that get booted and don't come back until they wake up, come back from work, whatever.

I'll have to take a peek at those numbers this Tuesday; I hope I remember!

[Ukase]

I do want to take a moment to remind myself and everyone else - get on Test and try somethings out. 
And while some of us may have different opinions, I think we all want a healthy CoH, even if what we might think that looks like may differ. 

If I've rubbed some of you the wrong way, it's not my intent. 

My only real desire right now is to hear from the dev team which explains their reasoning, and what they expect to accomplish. Conjecture is fun, but right now, until we hear from them, that's all it is. 

That's not to say I must hear from them. I just want to. It's their game, I'm just a guest. 

[Ukase]

3 hours ago, SwitchFade said:

Actively stating that one would like to passively generate egregious amounts of income to stockpile is the literal definition of inflation. 

Not to nitpick, but that is not the literal definition of inflation. I do understand that for some folks, having a huge stockpile may cause them to spend more, as the value seems to be worth less, since they have so much. But, I'm the son of an economist. I know full well what utils of satisfaction are, and I believe I know the influence value for a given IO, because I know how to make them. Or, alternatively, convert something into a specific one. 

The literal definition of inflation is a rate of increase in prices over time. Funny, the more influence I make, the cheaper things in the AH seem to get. So, no, while I can understand a stack of inf like mine could be problematic for a day or two in the hands of a savvy, but ill-intentioned marketeer, any disruption would be short-lived due to actions by other marketers. 

Now, if you take away the emp merit to reward merit conversion, you're just leaving the casual player at the mercy of the more sinister, selfish player. 

It's a bad move. In fact, it's a horrible move and will not resolve any issues with the alleged bot/macro players that do not exist as far as I know. 

A better move would be to list emp merits for sale on the AH, or better yet, as an inf sink at the merit vendor. Then I don't think I'd ever farm again, and finally have something to spend my influence on. 

[SwitchFade]

3 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Not to nitpick, but that is not the literal definition of inflation. I do understand that for some folks, having a huge stockpile may cause them to spend more, as the value seems to be worth less, since they have so much. But, I'm the son of an economist. I know full well what utils of satisfaction are, and I believe I know the influence value for a given IO, because I know how to make them. Or, alternatively, convert something into a specific one. 

The literal definition of inflation is a rate of increase in prices over time. Funny, the more influence I make, the cheaper things in the AH seem to get. So, no, while I can understand a stack of inf like mine could be problematic for a day or two in the hands of a savvy, but ill-intentioned marketeer, any disruption would be short-lived due to actions by other marketers. 

Now, if you take away the emp merit to reward merit conversion, you're just leaving the casual player at the mercy of the more sinister, selfish player. 

It's a bad move. In fact, it's a horrible move and will not resolve any issues with the alleged bot/macro players that do not exist as far as I know. 

A better move would be to list emp merits for sale on the AH, or better yet, as an inf sink at the merit vendor. Then I don't think I'd ever farm again, and finally have something to spend my influence on. 

economics

a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing value of money:

 

That's the literal definition, where simple Price increases over time are not necessarily inflation, they may have many causes, such as demand increase of a articular good, even in a deflating economy.

 

Price increases here are largely driven by the devaluation of each unit of currency, as more units are being created, be ause the units of currency are not fixed, they must be balanced between creation and destruction.

 

A person stockpiling vast amounts of currency, if they are the only one, is not the issue, it's that everyone can do that, creating so much that it rapidly causes hyperinflation if the rate of creation is too high. Such is the case with emp conversion to merits.

 

This happened before here on HC. For example, LoTG 7.5s were climbing from 4mill to 10-11mill.

 

The inf faucet was shut off post 50, and it reduced and stabilized at 7mill for a time.

 

It's now creeping up again. Why? That creation of wealth continues at a rate that is too high vs destruction. Equilibrium price is climbing.

 

The difference between creation and destruction is still too high, though not as high as before the post 50 change, and it took a bit of time to shift equilibrium prices up again.

 

This change will bring the ratio to a more reasonable level.

 

That said I don't think removing emp to merit conversion is best; best would be a lockout timer, 1 emp every 48 hour limit, or maybe even longer.

 

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, SwitchFade said:

 

This happened before here on HC. For example, LoTG 7.5s were climbing from 4mill to 10-11mill.

 

The inf faucet was shut off post 50, and it reduced and stabilized at 7mill for a time.

 

It's now creeping up again.

 

It's not my intent to nitpick, but I keep tabs on certain IOs - not really routinely checking the prices, but literally listing 3 specific IOs at a price just above where they're selling at to see if the price is creeping up. For over 30 days, I've had the same 3 LotG 7.5% listed at 6,777,777. 

They haven't sold. The prices of these are not creeping up, or, if they are, it's not by enough to meet a noticeable threshold. Otherwise, these would have sold by now. They have not. In 27 days, they've not sold. And, frankly, I'm glad, as it means prices (for this anyway) are lower than they have been, and so far, are remaining lower. 

There is no inflation issue on HC that I can tell, except I do see an upward push, which I always see on the weekends of: 
Kismet Accuracy, Steadfast Protection 3%, Achille's Heel Chance for resistance debuff, and few others, that are not generally dropped on level 50 farmers. 

Once a month or so, when I farmed more often, I would run for tickets to pursue these and list them. But, since the last patch, there's been more to do, so I've farmed less, and well frankly, farming is tedious sometimes. (all that converting can be time-consuming!) 

You may think there is, and you're entitled to believe it. But I've seen no evidence of it. Prices for me have been the same for just about the past year or so, since they nerfed the 2xinf/noXP. 

 

 

[SwitchFade]

49 minutes ago, Ukase said:

It's not my intent to nitpick, but I keep tabs on certain IOs - not really routinely checking the prices, but literally listing 3 specific IOs at a price just above where they're selling at to see if the price is creeping up. For over 30 days, I've had the same 3 LotG 7.5% listed at 6,777,777. 

They haven't sold. The prices of these are not creeping up, or, if they are, it's not by enough to meet a noticeable threshold. Otherwise, these would have sold by now. They have not. In 27 days, they've not sold. And, frankly, I'm glad, as it means prices (for this anyway) are lower than they have been, and so far, are remaining lower. 

There is no inflation issue on HC that I can tell, except I do see an upward push, which I always see on the weekends of: 
Kismet Accuracy, Steadfast Protection 3%, Achille's Heel Chance for resistance debuff, and few others, that are not generally dropped on level 50 farmers. 

Once a month or so, when I farmed more often, I would run for tickets to pursue these and list them. But, since the last patch, there's been more to do, so I've farmed less, and well frankly, farming is tedious sometimes. (all that converting can be time-consuming!) 

You may think there is, and you're entitled to believe it. But I've seen no evidence of it. Prices for me have been the same for just about the past year or so, since they nerfed the 2xinf/noXP. 

 

 

The last 4 I have sold all went for between 7 and 8 million million, I listed them at 6. Granted this was in June, but that is pretty recent. Haven't played new toons since then, always on 50s looking for exemp lowbies to help, so no marketing since then.

[kingsmidgens]

We don't know the reason for the change but if it's to reduce rewards for farmers to reduce prices... think about how farmers get inf from merits, in theory.  They're doing it by stocking the market.  They may be using inf to buy stuff too, sure, but if they're unloading their merits into converters for said inf, they're helping to reduce the prices on what it is they're buying by increasing supply since converters are more than likely being used to produce those enhancements to begin with.

IMO stuff is SUPER cheap right now.  I craft/convert enhancements essentially just to stock the market but it's not really "worth" the effort that I put into it compared to the raw inf I earn for farming, in or out of AE.  Making this change will cause prices to increase if it is in fact "problematic" that farmers are getting too many reward merits.

I use inf as inf, I use merits for what they're "supposed" to be used for - if I actually use any - but I have to reiterate that I feel this change will directly and in a roundabout way further impact newer players and those that aren't established to the degree that others may be since it is one less avenue they can utilize to build out characters.

It's been 3 years of a generous system, I feel it's a bit late to squeeze this genie back in the box.

If the idea is to coax people out of AE, which is the feeling I'm getting, a better way would be to introduce new content and leave existing systems alone.

[ZacKing]

Where's the dev diary that was mentioned telling us why this was necessary?

[Excraft]

34 minutes ago, ZacKing said:

Where's the dev diary that was mentioned telling us why this was necessary?

 

Good question