Influence/Infamy

[Squeakerbox]

The amount of influence/infamy never matches the levels when you level up.  Like doing missions and you get to lvl 30 and your money is only around 100k even from selling items.  That does not make since.  You can barely buy the enhancements you need for the lvl your at.  No wonder players farm.  I believe Homecoming should put back the influence/infamy they had before.  This is crazy.  I can't even slot my lvl 50's yet because the game does not let you make enough money while you level from missions and task forces.  I really think this needs a fixing.  Also, the endurance and recovery ratio's are terrible.  It like one of the biggest problems with this game besides the money.

[Glacier Peak]

Yeah, dupin rares and gone to the Americas! 

[MoonSheep]

if you get a single rare salvage drop that’s an instant 500k. run a few TFs and use your merits to buy a miracle or LOTG and sell it for 5M+ 

 

plenty of inf available 

[Xiddo]

There's a guide knocking around the forum somewhere of how to make cash. Will edit if I can find it @Squeakerbox

[High_Beam]

Hi Squaeakerbox.  I don't know if you are just  a new poster or new player to CoH or just a returning CoH Player from days of live to Homecoming but to put it in the most helpful way, Homecoming is actually super easier to make influence/infamy than it was on live.  There are guides in the guides section that describe it in detail how you can easily make money in game through regular gameplay as well as through detailed techniques like marketeering and the like.  Farming is what it is but it isn't how everyone makes their wealth; I don't farm.

 

I am able to kit all of my alts easily, shifting cash around at the tens of millions level with ease (and I am a broke player compared to the billionaires).  As @MoonSheepsaid above, 500K for a single orange salvage is the norm not the exception.  Run TF's use merits to buy the ones that sell big (LotG, Panacea, Numina).  If you get a non-expensive one of those, use the enhancement converters that drop quite often and are relatively cheap to buy in bulk to roll conversions till you get the expensive one.  And that is just the start.

 

I played on live from beta to closure and it was much harder to earn cash there and farming was way harder to accomplish.  The fact is, there are no good old days with regards to making influence from live to Homecoming.

 

Market Guide

Edited December 14, 2022 by High_Beam

[srmalloy]

47 minutes ago, High_Beam said:

Homecoming is actually super easier to make influence/infamy than it was on live. 

I have to agree with this; back on Live, I would have to squeeze to buy a single 3M-inf IO for a character, and on Homecoming, I regularly spend 8-10M inf on five or six IOs in a set at once. And that's without playing "auction house arbitrage" to make inf; I'll use convertors to swap an IO that's only going for just over crafting cost for one that makes a profit, but I don't keep plugging at it until I get a maxed-out return.

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, Squeakerbox said:

The amount of influence/infamy never matches the levels when you level up.  Like doing missions and you get to lvl 30 and your money is only around 100k even from selling items.  That does not make since.  You can barely buy the enhancements you need for the lvl your at.  No wonder players farm.  I believe Homecoming should put back the influence/infamy they had before.  This is crazy.  I can't even slot my lvl 50's yet because the game does not let you make enough money while you level from missions and task forces.  I really think this needs a fixing.  Also, the endurance and recovery ratio's are terrible.  It like one of the biggest problems with this game besides the money.

Yeah. No

 

I truly feel your pain.  On live it was miserable.  Lack of endurance?  Try playing a Brute before inherent Fitness.  Or a Blaster with no inherent fitness and no sustain.  
 

Influence is already raining down on those who even try to make it.  Run a Posi 1 and use the merits to buy boosters or converters and sell those.  That is a decent chunk of change.  Or craft convert and sell your recipe drops.  
 

So while I feel your pain, at this point any pain you feel is sort of over dramatic and self inflicted.   Slot a Panacea and a Perf Shifter and use the market.   (Like all the other people who have found the solutions )

Edited December 14, 2022 by Snarky

[cranebump]

As far as gaining Inf solely through what you earn in mishes, then, yes, you really can't keep up at all (though I admit I haven't tried to get by in that manner since, well...sorta ever). So you have to get involved with the market some if you want to just chug along with DOs/SOs. In this case, it's pretty easy. As already mentioned, 500k from selling orange salvage. As for seed money, run the explore badges in AP (thus getting your LR transport), use the merits to buy converters, sell. You slip over to Galaxy Echo, rinse-repeat, you have over a mill before hitting the first mish. If you're a mission content first type of person, the in-game arcs will grant merits (in some cases, a nice chunk). You should be able to use these, plus selling salvage and drops, to easily run on DOs/DOs, pretty much all the way through.*

 

Now, if you want to get into incarnate stuff, that's another story...:-)

 

*Now that I think about it, this is exactly what my latest alt, Devil Bat, is doing (but that's because he's too dumb to figure out how to really profit from the market {or learn from his own mistakes...or learn from anything, really...he's not too bright...).

Edited December 16, 2022 by cranebump

[Doomguide2005]

     Welcome to the game.  As High Beam said your join date (Dec  2, 2022) doesn't tell us if you're brand new to CoX or newly returned..  Either way poke @Yomo Kimyata and they can drop some coin on you.  It can be done as others have said in a variety of ways so unless you've got a self imposed restriction (no farms/farming, gifts, no marketing etc.) you should be able to earn sufficient inf.  Early on it can be more difficult but again that's mostly when you impose restrictions on how you do it.  And once you have your first 50 it gets even easier.

     Endurance usage is one of those things that depending on your AT, sets and build can be easy to a bit rough especially if Inf is an issue and doubly so if low level.  But again it's a learning curve on the many tools available to make them go away.

 

[biostem]

12 hours ago, Squeakerbox said:

The amount of influence/infamy never matches the levels when you level up.  Like doing missions and you get to lvl 30 and your money is only around 100k even from selling items.  That does not make since.  You can barely buy the enhancements you need for the lvl your at.  No wonder players farm.  I believe Homecoming should put back the influence/infamy they had before.  This is crazy.  I can't even slot my lvl 50's yet because the game does not let you make enough money while you level from missions and task forces.  I really think this needs a fixing.  Also, the endurance and recovery ratio's are terrible.  It like one of the biggest problems with this game besides the money.

It's not intended for you to always be fully kitted-out with the latest and greatest enhancements.  Especially early on, you need to prioritize what enhancements you buy, if you even buy any at all.  In general, I recommend trying to manage with just the drops you get from defeating enemies, then around level 22, start crafting and slotting level 25 generic IOs - those will never expire, and will be good enough to get you to 50, at which point the inf will come flooding in, and you can work on a 2nd build or start replacing those 25 IOs with better ones...

[tidge]

P2W offers a limited set of no-charge enhancements for powers.

 

The Auction House often has IO pieces at all levels available for cheap, as players seek badges (and associated rewards) for crafting IOs at all levels. The best rewards IMO are for crafting 25/30 and 45/50 IOs, so there should be no shortage of those. If you are playing a character on a "slow climb" (that is, no double-XP, just doing content at a relaxed solo pace) by the time you can slot level 25 IOs, you are practically at the point of maximum efficiency relative to the original game (modulo Enhancement Diversification), at least as far as you will be able to tell. Not every IO will be 5 Inf, but they should be completely affordable. Take the University courses and you can even get one (at level 10, 15 or 25) for free.

 

By level 30, you should have no problem doing the Summer Blockbuster event. One of the reward choices is an attuned "Universal Damage" Enhancement. These are a perfectly fine for one of your attacks, and also sell (in the auction house) for somewhere in the neighborhood of 9MInf if you don't want to use them yourself.

 

[InvaderStych]

On 12/14/2022 at 6:04 AM, Squeakerbox said:

The amount of influence/infamy never matches the levels when you level up.  Like doing missions and you get to lvl 30 and your money is only around 100k even from selling items.  That does not make since.

 

Collect Reward Merits from Arcs, Task Forces, heck, even collecting all the exploration badges in a single zone.

 

Go to a Merit Vendor and buy either Enhancement Converters or Enhancement Boosters from the Salvage menu.

 

Enter the command /ah into the chat interface.

 

Sell the Converters/Boosters on the market.

 

You should be averaging around 5 million less market fees and such for every 25 merits spent.  If converters are not getting you this net, then sell boosters.

 

The only drops you should be selling to (NPC) Vendors are common recipes, IO recipes with 0 bidders on the auction house (unless you are patient) and white/yellow salvage. Folks will get mad at that last one because it means I'm not feeding low tier salvage into the open market, but imo there's plenty of seeded white salvage on market - which makes it vendor trash to the rest of us. 😉

 

Never, Ever, Ever sell Rare (orange) salvage to a vendor. Those are +/- 500k on the auction house, a vendor will give you 1/100th of that. Always put these on the Market.

Edited December 15, 2022 by InvaderStych

[Ukase]

On 12/14/2022 at 8:04 AM, Squeakerbox said:

The amount of influence/infamy never matches the levels when you level up.  Like doing missions and you get to lvl 30 and your money is only around 100k even from selling items.  That does not make since.  You can barely buy the enhancements you need for the lvl your at.  No wonder players farm.  I believe Homecoming should put back the influence/infamy they had before.  This is crazy.  I can't even slot my lvl 50's yet because the game does not let you make enough money while you level from missions and task forces.  I really think this needs a fixing.  Also, the endurance and recovery ratio's are terrible.  It like one of the biggest problems with this game besides the money.

Remember when we used to be nostalgic? 
Sorry - pun intended. 

Anyways...Back on live, I have clear memories of hitting a given level, heading to Pandora's Box and only being able to buy maybe half of the SOs I needed to make each SO in each slot current/not red. This happened to me at every level, and at that time, there were no invention origin enhancements to set and carry until you could afford more. It's why a lot of respec tfs failed, as not only were builds sub-par, but many of the enhancement slots were empty, or they'd gone red/invalid. 

Today, HC, despite the somewhat controversial changes (depending on who you ask), has allowed people to level faster with the 2xp/no inf buff. A lot of players use this, and are completely surprised when they recognize what the "no inf" part means. Did this happen to you? 

And for those of us that have all the inf we'll ever need - I promise you, even if you never use the 2xp/no inf option, you'll have troubles getting the inf you need for SOs or IOs if you do not get a gift from another player of the enhancements or the inf to buy them, OR market or farm a bit, unless you're in the habit of turning off XP in order to "catch-up" inf wise. 

It's one of the more puzzling features in game to a new player - and even myself when I try to go at it without support from my alts with a new character. I aim specifically for the enhancement drops I can use. Hellions are supposedly "magic" or "arcane", and yet, they'll drop any old dual enhancement - most a magic origin character might be able to use, but some you can't. Same with every other faction. 

On gold side, it's a bit different - they seem to drop whatever origin you are, at least anecdotally. And I think that's the way it should be for all content, but it isn't. Those drops if they were origin appropriate could solve a lot of issues for newer players, I would think. 

Endurance Management has historically been...well, awful. Even the original devs reached that conclusion and made what used to be the Fitness pool an inherent pool, allowing players to now choose one additional power pool, because we can only pick 4. Now, if only they made the fight pool and leadership pool inherent as well...right? No? Yikes. Simmer down. 

In any event, with proper planning, endurance recovery can be managed fairly well. 
1. Remember to turn off travel powers when fighting. 
2. Take a note of your toggles and see which ones are using the most endurance and slot an end reduction enhancement in there. 
3. Take a look at your attacks and see which are using the most endurance and take out the recharge enhancement and replace with an end reduction. Or just wait until you level and add the end reduction. 
4. Don't get hasten until you have your endurance issues resolved. Or get it, but don't auto-fire it, and only use it when fighting tough bosses. 
5. Look into saving for some procs that may be pricey to you now, but in time will seem like a drop in the bucket. Buy a level 20 invention set recipe as cheaply as you can, but ensure you can afford the salvage to craft it. Then use converters to change it to the +end perf shifter. If that is confusing to you, you can either sift through the guides that explain it, or just try to buy the crafted version. It will cost a bit, but over time, as you level, the cost won't seem as high. 

For some players, it may seem odd to come to a game and have to do all these tedious things to enjoy your character. But, the game was set up to get people to work for what they wanted. It's kind of like life. You're always a rookie, of sorts. 
You go to elementary school, and wish you could be taller. You age a bit, get taller, and then you're in middle school and see even bigger kids. Then you're a freshman in high school and want to be a senior. Then, when you finally get to be a senior, you graduate, and then you're either back to being a freshman in college, or you're a rookie in the work place. 

Even as life goes on, there's some obstacle you need to overcome, whether it's taxes, or the expense of weddings for your twin daughters, who both seem to think a live band, and vegan, vegetarian and keto options should have a place on the menu, regardless of the cost. 
Seems crazy to play a game that would always have us working for the next thing, given that's how most of our lives are - but this is the game we're in, so we make the best of it. 

[Jiro Ito]

On 12/14/2022 at 7:16 AM, Glacier Peak said:

Yeah, dupin rares and gone to the Americas! 

How was the Market Crash badge not called "Dupin Rares" ??

[WumpusRat]

On 12/14/2022 at 6:04 AM, Squeakerbox said:

The amount of influence/infamy never matches the levels when you level up.  Like doing missions and you get to lvl 30 and your money is only around 100k even from selling items.  That does not make since.  You can barely buy the enhancements you need for the lvl your at.  No wonder players farm.  I believe Homecoming should put back the influence/infamy they had before.  This is crazy.  I can't even slot my lvl 50's yet because the game does not let you make enough money while you level from missions and task forces.  I really think this needs a fixing.  Also, the endurance and recovery ratio's are terrible.  It like one of the biggest problems with this game besides the money.

Do you run story arcs, TFs, SFs, trials, kill giant monsters when people call for groups for them, etc? Because all of those will give you merits. Precious, precious merits. Heck, even just running around grabbing the exploration badges nets you merits.

 

Merits can be turned into cash VERY easily. Use your merits to buy enhancement converters or enhancement boosters. 5 merits gets you 1 booster, or 1 merit gets you 3 converters. Converters tend to sell from 50-70k each, and boosters sell for 1-1.2 mil each. I tend to use boosters because the price doesn't fluctuate as much. 

 

Generally my goal by 50th level is to have gotten 1000+ merits. Because that turns into 200 million or so. Which, if you're being frugal and using some converters to switch things around and craft some of your own stuff, is enough to put together a decent set-based build at 50th level. You won't have all the fancy bells and whistles like 5 LotG procs, full superior ATO sets, purple sets, etc, but that's something you can work towards. Though with some canny converting you can turn random recipe drops into really nice stuff, too. 

[Shred Monkey]

I miss the fact that turning off XP doubled the influence.  I understand that was being exploited, but sometimes I play toons where I'm level 12 or 13 and  I'm wanting to lock out my XP and gain influence the old fashioned way to pay for those upgraded SOs (without just getting the money off an alt).  I can still turn off XP, but I might as well keep earning XP, since there's no boost to income.

[Rishidian]

Why does the OP sound like he's trolling?

[Xaddy]

This game is odd, in a way. The drops I get are hit or miss. I get a nice +1 SO, but it's the wrong origin. I can only guess it does that so I'll sell it and someone else can sell the stuff they can't use. Still, it's pretty annoying. I'm not real sure why the game doesn't just recognize my origin and drop stuff I can use. 

I'd rather get one thing I can use than 5 things I can't. They could reduce the drop rate to make that happen. 

But, I get that for some folks, inf is so easy to get, it doesn't matter. But for those starting out, there is a learning curve. If it weren't for Ukase literally answering my zillions of questions about enhancements, merits, converters, and a slew of other stuff, I'd be lost. 

Dude even gave a two full sets of ATOs for my blaster, for free, and 10 winter packs! It's a nice thing when someone will spend an hour answering stupid questions! 

[WumpusRat]

4 hours ago, Xaddy said:

This game is odd, in a way. The drops I get are hit or miss. I get a nice +1 SO, but it's the wrong origin. I can only guess it does that so I'll sell it and someone else can sell the stuff they can't use. Still, it's pretty annoying. I'm not real sure why the game doesn't just recognize my origin and drop stuff I can use. 

I'd rather get one thing I can use than 5 things I can't. They could reduce the drop rate to make that happen. 

You can actually predict what sort of drops you'll get, when it comes to enhancements and salvage.

 

Enemies drop stuff based on what sort of group they are. To a degree, at least. There's still a little bit of randomness involved, as well as some overlap.

 

But for the most part, if you want (say) magical enhancements, fight groups that are oriented around magic. Circle of Thorns, Tsoo, Cimerorans, the various Croatoa factions, etc.

For tech, you can fight people like Freakshow, Council, Goldbrickers, Malta, etc.

For natural, it would be Warriors, Family, Arachnos, Longbow, Luddites, PPD, and the like.

For science, Crey, Devouring Earth, Clockwork, The Lost, etc.

And for mutation, Infected, Coralax, Snakes, The Lost (overlap a bit with science), Outcasts, etc.

 

So if your blaster is a tech-based origin, hunt a lot of Council and Freakshow, and you should get mostly tech enhancement drops. You'll also get tech salvage.

 

Recipe drops are still random though.

 

 

[SaintD]

The "I don't want to think about this" solution to cash in Homecoming is to spend every last one of your Merits on enhancement converters and list them on the Auction House for 1 inf. They will sell immediately.

Most efficient? No. Pile of money with zero thought or effort? Yes.

Doing so also makes the people who spend their time meticulously crafting recipes and converting them into more valuable rare enhancements very happy. You will then be buying those enhancements later, so the happier those people are, the more they poop rare enhancements into the market for us to buy with lower prices.

Edited December 20, 2022 by SaintD
Because I like editing.

[Mjolnerd]

18 hours ago, Xaddy said:

I get a nice +1 SO, but it's the wrong origin. I can only guess it does that so I'll sell it and someone else can sell the stuff they can't use. Still, it's pretty annoying. I'm not real sure why the game doesn't just recognize my origin and drop stuff I can use.

That's exactly how it's intended to work -- not every drop is supposed to be perfectly tailored to the person picking it up.

 

If every enhancement you found automatically matched your origin, there would be no reason to even have enhancements of different origin types. This is, like, the one thing that origin does in the game.

 

Besides that, it helps to make better enhancements that work for you specifically harder to find -- training/no-origin enhancements are weak, but anyone can slot them, so 100% of them are usable by any given character (assuming they have a power that takes enhancements of that type). Dual-origin enhancements are better but you're only going to be able to use about 40% of the ones you find because the rest will be for a different origin. Single-origin enhancements are even better than that, but only about 20% will work for any given character. "Better numbers = harder to get" is MMO Drops 101. And also, admittedly, it's all a holdover from earlier in the game's lifetime when the whole Invention system didn't exist, and you literally couldn't get SOs before level 22 or DOs before 12, and stores weren't even marked on the map because Jack Emmert wanted players to run across them by accident and their locations to spread via word of mouth. But it's still a deliberate design choice that made sense at the time.

 

Edited December 20, 2022 by Mjolnerd

[Clave Dark 5]

2 hours ago, Mjolnerd said:

That's exactly how it's intended to work -- not every drop is supposed to be perfectly tailored to the person picking it up.

 

If every enhancement you found automatically matched your origin, there would be no reason to even have enhancements of different origin types. This is, like, the one thing that origin does in the game.

 

Besides that, it helps to make better enhancements that work for you specifically harder to find -- training/no-origin enhancements are weak, but anyone can slot them, so 100% of them are usable by any given character (assuming they have a power that takes enhancements of that type). Dual-origin enhancements are better but you're only going to be able to use about 40% of the ones you find because the rest will be for a different origin. Single-origin enhancements are even better than that, but only about 20% will work for any given character. "Better numbers = harder to get" is MMO Drops 101. And also, admittedly, it's all a holdover from earlier in the game's lifetime when the whole Invention system didn't exist, and you literally couldn't get SOs before level 22 or DOs before 12, and stores weren't even marked on the map because Jack Emmert wanted players to run across them by accident and their locations to spear via word of mouth. But it's still a deliberate design choice that made sense at the time.

This.  The game wasn't originally designed to give you everything you wanted, it was designed to make you feel you needed to keep working towards what you wanted - "that means you'll maintain your subscription."  Always striving, rarely achieving.

 

HC has come along and thrown open the parts store for us in so many ways, and isn't charging us a nickel to take away enough high-end parts to build a monstrously OP fighter jet if we feel the yen.  Back on Liv,e I don't think I have one single IOed-out toon (usually they were frankenslotted with drops and SOs, at best).  I can have any number of them now.

[Clave Dark 5]

3 hours ago, SaintD said:

so the happier those people are, the more they poop rare enhancements into the market

... Every one of my toons needs to go take an hour-long shower now...

[SaintD]

4 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

... Every one of my toons needs to go take an hour-long shower now...

You slot them directly into yourself. Showering does nothing.

[Mjolnerd]

7 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

This.  The game wasn't originally designed to give you everything you wanted, it was designed to make you feel you needed to keep working towards what you wanted - "that means you'll maintain your subscription."  Always striving, rarely achieving.

 

And it's worth mentioning that while money/business is no longer the motivation to insert systems into the game which keep players feeling like they need to come back and try again tomorrow, there's still a reason for Homecoming to cultivate that "maintain your subscription" mentality, and for us as players to want them cultivating that mentality -- because it keeps the servers populated. If too many players ever feel like they're "finished," they'll play something else instead because there's nothing more for them to do here. And that means fewer teams for the rest of us to join, fewer Incarnate trials, fewer people selling things on the market, fewer people in the chat, less activity on the forums and Discord and social media, and generally just a drop in player investment across the board. Which only leads to more people leaving due to that lack of interaction, whether it's a deliberate decision ("this game is dying, I'm going to look for something else") or just a general, passive lack of interest ("there's nothing I need right now, I don't think I'll bother logging on today"). And that, in turn, leads to more people leaving, and so on, and so on, and eventually you end up with Ghost Town of Heroes.

 

The idea is to provide players with goals. Games like this are a delicate balancing act between too much and too little -- an exercise in giving players enough that they always feel like they're accomplishing something, but never letting them feel like they've accomplished everything.