Where's my Super Pack: Lords of Winter Sale?

[Snarky]

14 minutes ago, BitCook said:

Of course the counter argument to this is that you can play and have fun with SOs too 🙂  For which you don't need to do really anything other than play.

But, again, I don't really care, lower the prices, leave them alone, it doesn't really matter.  Making inf is trivial and doesn't take away time from game play really.

 

for me it is a significant investment in time and change of play structure to earn.

 

but you may be selling Winter packs you bought two years ago for 10mil a pop for 24 mil a pop.  That would make it a lot easier.

 

 

[Grouchybeast]

22 hours ago, Glacier Peak said:

What I don't understand is that the population of Homecoming across all servers have declined since the three and a half year high back in 2019, yet the prices of everything are pretty well the same. Back in 2019, converters ran for about 90,000 on high, 80,000 on low. It's basically the same right now. 

 

Supply has fallen, but so has demand, so there's been no real pressure on prices either way.  Converter roulette constantly moves supply from less-desirable to more-desirable IOs, so the market stays liquid.   The devs have tweaked the inf:drops ratio a couple of times, which has kept inflation in check.  It all adds up to keep the market pretty level.

[Glacier Peak]

3 minutes ago, Grouchybeast said:

Supply has fallen, but so has demand, so there's been no real pressure on prices either way.  Converter roulette constantly moves supply from less-desirable to more-desirable IOs, so the market stays liquid.   The devs have tweaked the inf:drops ratio a couple of times, which has kept inflation in check.  It all adds up to keep the market pretty level.

Wise observation! I am glad someone pays attention to these things or else I'd just be dooped! 

[Grouchybeast]

3 minutes ago, Glacier Peak said:

Wise observation! I am glad someone pays attention to these things or else I'd just be dooped! 

 

Dooped, jerked hacked, and gone to the Americans!!!

[UltraAlt]

7 hours ago, lemming said:

Oh right.  I think you got a few packs from other things as well, maybe it was in the veteran stuff. First one's free, etc...

 

Yes. I could make a reference to other things that use this tactic, but it breaks the CoC.

 

7 hours ago, lemming said:

Oh hey! Never tried that, thanks!  Of course, looks like once you do that, you'll have it in either those orders, but since it's either that or leaving it in the order they came in, I'll pick alpha order.

 

I'm glad that helps. I stumbled onto that entirely by accident.

 

The reverse order usually only helps if you are trying to look at stuff at the end of the list and are being lazy and don't want to scroll all the way to the bottom.

 

6 hours ago, BitCook said:

When did making INF become hard?

 

I agree. 

Making influence as a non-tank or non-damage dealer in the early issues of the game was hard (pre-Wentworths).

As soon as there was a Wentworths, those same guys were the ones funding my mid-teens squishies that didn't have enough influence to slot training enhances so that they could memorize crafting IO's and slot with IO's.

 

I did get a seed amount of loot from a generous inhabitant from the prior multiverse when I first started. 

Yomo is willing to spot any player a seed big enough to start marketing.

 

That is more than enough to get the ball rolling.

 

The problem may be that most people are never taught how to handle their real world influence ...

 

6 hours ago, BitCook said:

The market is really set by the conversion of merits to inf.

 

I don't really think this is true.

 

I don't think most players bother with merits most of the time.

I don't run WST - or any task forces for that matter - for Merits. I rarely spend merits for anything. (I have a huge surplus of them from card packs)

 

I will even go so far as to say that most players may end up buying cheaper IO set items for slotting with merits versus going for high-end items for market turn-over.

 

 

 

[BitCook]

14 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

I don't really think this is true.

 

I don't think most players bother with merits most of the time.

I don't run WST - or any task forces for that matter - for Merits. I rarely spend merits for anything. (I have a huge surplus of them from card packs)

 

I will even go so far as to say that most players may end up buying cheaper IO set items for slotting with merits versus going for high-end items for market turn-over.

 

It's not true for everything, but it certainly is for Purple drops.  I do think that a lot of people look for alternatives when things become too expensive.  It's not a coincidence that purples sell for around 20 million.  Consider 60k to 70k per converter, 100 merits for each purple.  300 converters for 100 merits and... 300 * 60k = 18,000,000 or 300 * 70k = 21,000,000.  That's pretty spot on.  Fluxuate a little for convenience and yeah... I think those two are tied to merits pretty tightly.

 

For Oranges, I think the cost of Rare salvage AND the cost of converters probably has more to do with their price point than anything else... you can buy a yellow for cheap (10-20k).  Then convert it to your category with a 1/26 chance to get the category you want (1.5mil average cost).  Inside of there, you usually have a 1/6 chance of getting the enhancement you want at 3 converters per chance (1m average cost) = 2.5mil average cost on Oranges just from a merit conversion price... which again, isn't far off what we see in the market.  I doubt too many people are doing this, mostly because 2mil is nothing to most characters, most like people convert to rare, which is a far lower cost, then maybe bounce it a few times to get a more expensive version.  However, I still think there is correlation there although I'm not going to go any further to prove it out 🙂

Now for the things out of Super Packs, they have their own market caps.  Yes, I can spend 100 merits to get a ATO.  But... 10million is the cost of the pack and you get 1.2 ATOs per pack.  So around 8 million becomes the cap that people will pay before trundling off to open the packs as opposed to using anything else to get them.  (consider you have to spend an average of 1m in converters to get to the ATO set you want as well.)  Winter sets are more expensive because the cost of the pack is more expensive although it will never really go much beyond 18-21mil for extended periods of time since you can just get them with Merits instead at that point.  Which... 1.2 Winter sets per pack... 25 million = 20.1mil.  Again pretty close in value to the cost of converters.

 

So is it solely based the cost of a converter?  No... probably not a hard number, but I think it's still pretty closely tied to merits/purple for nearly everything.

 

Edit: Included the 1m it costs to convert ATOs to the set you wanted.  Which is a factor in the cost.

Edited January 3, 2023 by BitCook

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, BitCook said:

It's not true for everything, but it certainly is for Purple drops.  I do think that a lot of people look for alternatives when things become too expensive.

 

Things don't become too expensive for me. If I want something, I'll generally craft or buy/sell enough so that I'm essentially making a profit before slotting one of that type.

 

My point is that I don't even think they they bother to know the system well enough to realize what merits can be used for.

 

I don't play level 50's. When I get a character to level 50, they are pretty much in the closet "for a rainy day" .... which is becoming ever rarer these days.

 

But you are kind of making my point in indicating the purples as I stated the real return on Merits would be to use them on the highest price items. I do believe that I indicated in order to sell them (but since I don't use them, that would be my use for purchasing purples if I did ... I do okay enough in the market, that I don't use merit to do this sort of activity) but that doesn't negate the same goes for buying purples with merits and slotting them on your own characters (not necessarily by the character that is spending merits to by them).

 

1 hour ago, BitCook said:

For Oranges, I think the cost of Rare salvage AND the cost of converters probably has more to do with their price point than anything else... you can buy a yellow for cheap (10-20k).

 

I don't bother with converting so I can't comment on that.

 

1 hour ago, BitCook said:

Now for the things out of Super Packs, they have their own market caps.  Yes, I can spend 100 merits to get a ATO.  But... 10million is the cost of the pack and you get 1.2 ATOs per pack.  So around 8 million becomes the cap that people will pay before trundling off to open the packs as opposed to using anything else to get them. 

 

You aren't watching all the ATO market prices apparently.

 

1 hour ago, BitCook said:

Winter sets are more expensive because the cost of the pack is more expensive although it will never really go much beyond 18-21mil for extended periods of time since you can just get them with Merits instead at that point.  Which... 1.2 Winter sets per pack... 25 million = 20.1mil.  Again pretty close in value to the cost of converters.

 

I haven't sold any of my Winter Stash. I keep them for when one of my characters or teammates' characters have ice powers ... I'm a character concept player and do a lot of alt-jumping so I'm always planning ahead ... often times quite far into the future.

 

 

Edited January 3, 2023 by UltraAlt

[BitCook]

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

Things don't become too expensive for me. If I want something, I'll generally craft or buy/sell enough so that I'm essentially making a profit before slotting one of that type.

 

My point is that I don't even think they they bother to know the system well enough to realize what merits can be used for.

 

Yeah, I would agree with that.  But, I would say that there are enough people who do, that the general market price is dictated by this conversion cost.  At least that's my opinion... which, I'm not an economist and only looked at it enough to kind of verify what I thought was happening.  Fully admit that it's not a hard line, but more of a loose correlation that I think regulates prices for the whole market.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

I don't play level 50's. When I get a character to level 50, they are pretty much in the closet "for a rainy day" .... which is becoming ever rarer these days.

 

That's a shame.  It's fun to let loose with all of your powers now and again.  Although I would agree that the best TEAM experience is from say 30 to 44.  Take incarnates out and the game has a much better team dynamic because people still have needs that they can't easily cover up.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

 

But you are kind of making my point in indicating the purples as I stated the real return on Merits would be to use them on the highest price items. I do believe that I indicated in order to sell them (but since I don't use them, that would be my use for purchasing purples if I did ... I do okay enough in the market, that I don't use merit to do this sort of activity) but that doesn't negate the same goes for buying purples with merits and slotting them on your own characters (not necessarily by the character that is spending merits to by them).

 

Oh, yeah.  I like using merits to buy Winter sets for when I need them.  The rest I use for converters... but I don't sell them.  I use them to craft yellows that I get from playing, convert to rares and sell them.  For say 5 converters, I usually can make a 2+ million profit for very little work.  I just make things I have the salvage too and don't really spend much time marketing.

 

1 hour ago, UltraAlt said:

You aren't watching all the ATO market prices apparently.

 

I bought a couple sets over the past month and didn't pay more than 8mil a piece, but then again, I am patient... so I might be getting deals by just waiting a bit with bids in the system.  Fully admit that I don't keep very close tabs on it.

 

[Erratic1]

35 minutes ago, BitCook said:

That's a shame.  It's fun to let loose with all of your powers now and again.  Although I would agree that the best TEAM experience is from say 30 to 44.  Take incarnates out and the game has a much better team dynamic because people still have needs that they can't easily cover up.

 

There is also that for people who don't easily buy what they want (say when the character is level 20) there is a process unfolding even at level 50 where you acquire the sets/incarnate abilities where the character is still growing. So you experience content which is not just pushover easy.

 

Guess that is a perk of not being fantastically wealthy.

 

Edit: Adding to the above, yesterday I was working on my New Year's resolution to make greater effort towards my existing 50s final builds and purchasing sets. My sentinel needed Preventive Medicine and I noticed that while most enhancements from the set were in the 3 million range, one was down towards 1.2 million. So I bought six of those thinking I could run some number through the conversion process and sell back what duplicates I had when I reached the limit of how many convertors I was willing to commit. The first four conversions each yielded a different result within set, putting me at 5 of 6 pieces of the set. Yesterday converters were running 55K, so that cost me (because I restocked) 66,000 influence. Total investment then was 6*1.2 million + 660,000 = 7,860,000. Le t's say I sell that last copy I have and buy the final one from AH and the cost ends up coming up to 9,600,000 or an average of 1,600,000 each. I will have saved 14.6 million over just buying them. Small change to the whales but for us poor people it made the day glorious.

Edited January 3, 2023 by Erratic1

[Snarky]

Yeah. I needed three enhancers yesterday.  All “the special ones” from their sets.  It was so much cheaper each time to buy the crap regular one and convert to the one i needed.  All three times.  I was amazed that the price difference was extreme enough to make me care.    A few million?   

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, BitCook said:

That's a shame.  It's fun to let loose with all of your powers now and again.  Although I would agree that the best TEAM experience is from say 30 to 44. 

 

It isn't a shame.

I don't enjoy the level 50+ content nor so-called "let loose with all of your powers" game behavior.

My characters get to "loose with all of your powers" any time I'm not exemplar'ed down.

 

I'm all about the teaming. I don't solo that often.

And I mean a team that works together as a team instead of just being a bunch of independent characters running around doing their own thing that just happen to be on a team together.

 

1 hour ago, BitCook said:

I bought a couple sets over the past month and didn't pay more than 8mil a piece, but then again, I am patient... so I might be getting deals by just waiting a bit with bids in the system.  Fully admit that I don't keep very close tabs on it.

 

Thanks for making ATO purchases. I appreciate the profits even at 8 million. Some people will pay even over 11 million for some of them.

 

And, yes, for many ....

 

 

[BitCook]

48 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

It isn't a shame.

I don't enjoy the level 50+ content nor so-called "let loose with all of your powers" game behavior.

My characters get to "loose with all of your powers" any time I'm not exemplar'ed down.

 

I would say it is just for the fact that you are working to get to 50 for an amount of time and to have no real payoff at the end is a shame.  I get what you are saying, I just think it's sad that it's the case.

 

48 minutes ago, UltraAlt said:

Thanks for making ATO purchases. I appreciate the profits even at 8 million. Some people will pay even over 11 million for some of them.

 

No problem.  I do market stuff and most of my toons have close to 2bil inf on them.  However, I don't do shenanigans.  I'm happy to pay market price.  I'm happy to list at just under market price.  Making inf is so easy I don't need to cheat or gouge anyone.  As long as you list at values you're happy to sell at and I'm fine with buying at market price, then the system is working just fine 🙂

 

[BitCook]

1 hour ago, Snarky said:

Yeah. I needed three enhancers yesterday.  All “the special ones” from their sets.  It was so much cheaper each time to buy the crap regular one and convert to the one i needed.  All three times.  I was amazed that the price difference was extreme enough to make me care.    A few million?   

 

In most cases there are 1-2 enhancements that are high value in a set.

Like say, defense sets.  There's always the rech/end enhancement that seems to be cheaper while the def or def/end one is way more expensive.  At long as the price difference is over a million which is the average price to convert to exactly what you need in a set, then you're better off converting.   Procs are usually the same.  Hold damage procs especially so!

 

But yeah, it's a great way to save inf if you care about doing so!

Edited January 3, 2023 by BitCook

[UltraAlt]

3 hours ago, BitCook said:

I would say it is just for the fact that you are working to get to 50 for an amount of time and to have no real payoff at the end is a shame.  I get what you are saying, I just think it's sad that it's the case.

 

The fun for me is in playing the game.

I'm happy to play the game with a character as a superhero and enjoy the journey along the way.

I have well over 100 characters so it isn't like I'm lacking gaming experiences.

I don't feel sad when a character reaches 50. I have plenty of other characters to play that had to wait while that one was getting to 50.

The only ones that get to 50 are those that I'm playing as a duo with a friend in a leveling-pact sort of situation.

 

I simply have more fun playing the game than the end-game.

 

3 hours ago, BitCook said:

Making inf is so easy I don't need to cheat or gouge anyone. 

 

It isn't gouging or cheating anyone if they want to buy something immediately and can't wait, that's their choice.

If they can't wait until I stock at my normal price, they will have to pay my high-end price. It's really that simple.

Sometimes you have pay extra for speedy delivery.

 

 

 

[Snarky]

Just now, UltraAlt said:

 

 

If they can't wait until I stock at my normal price, they will have to pay my high-end price. It's really that simple.

 

The world does not revolve around you.  We have a community.  Of people who enjoy the game.  

[Seed22]

15 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

t isn't gouging or cheating anyone if they want to buy something immediately and can't wait, that's their choice.

If they can't wait until I stock at my normal price, they will have to pay my high-end price. It's really that simple.

Sometimes you have pay extra for speedy delivery.

I  almost never agree with UA.

 

But sadly, this time I break that rule.

 

Unfortunately, this is technically true. Good thing is though I HIGHLY doubt people like UA  have the INF to corner a market niche of any major significance, so this type of practice doesn't lead to long-term hyper inflation like preshutdown days.

 

Now if I ever see prices like 20m for [insert ATIO here] persist for more than a few hours, I'll be a bit scared about where the AH is going.

 

But yeah, it's just basic business to sell at a maximum price for minimum cost. May not be a liked principle, but it's still true. Good thing is in CoH, you can be filthy rich in mere hours of inconsistent play. I'm literal proof of this. Well, 2019 me was. I've been coasting for years >.> <.<

[BitCook]

1 hour ago, Seed22 said:

But yeah, it's just basic business to sell at a maximum price for minimum cost. May not be a liked principle, but it's still true. Good thing is in CoH, you can be filthy rich in mere hours of inconsistent play. I'm literal proof of this. Well, 2019 me was. I've been coasting for years >.> <.<

 

If this were a business I'd totally agree!

But... it's not.  Yes, buy low, sell high.  But do you really need to sell over the going rate for stuff?  Or buy up all the lower priced things and then sell them at a higher than market rate?  No.

This is a community, and treating people as friends rather than marks or customers should be a goal.

Make money on the market.  Don't do shenanigans just to make a little more inf.

That's my theory.  I know everyone doesn't share it, but it's how I like to play.

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, BitCook said:

This is a community, and treating people as friends rather than marks or customers should be a goal.

Make money on the market.  Don't do shenanigans just to make a little more inf.

That's my theory.  I know everyone doesn't share it, but it's how I like to play.

 

Definitely, not the mantra of an Ebil Marketer.

[TheMoncrief]

On 1/2/2023 at 7:02 PM, Grouchybeast said:

 

Supply has fallen, but so has demand, so there's been no real pressure on prices either way.  Converter roulette constantly moves supply from less-desirable to more-desirable IOs, so the market stays liquid.   The devs have tweaked the inf:drops ratio a couple of times, which has kept inflation in check.  It all adds up to keep the market pretty level.

And let's all be thankful that they're doing such a good job of it. Keeping inflation in check is not easy, and MMO's with full (and more than full) staff rosters of paid professionals typically do a much worse job of it than the Homecoming devs have done. I'm honestly really impressed, which is part of the reason I choose not to quibble too much with things that I personally wish were different. Like, I'd love a Winter Pack sale, but the devs are doing enough right with the economy that I'm not inclined to complain all that much.

[BitCook]

Totally agreed.

Also, with the merit drops of Hami and TinPlex, you can get 2 Winter IOs for merits every night by running those (which most servers have daily runs).  Full set in three days with no marketing needed take a lot of the sting of the 25mil pack away.