A collapse in the market also lowers the game playability

[Diantane]

Correction:

 

Having no influence doesn't force me to play other games.

 

It allows me to play other games.

 

Have over 115 alts on Excelsior. Running out of ideas to try (looking for synergies). Last trial was a beast/FF MM. The wolves kept dying (a lot). Busted and abandoned at 19. Cost me 2 million.

[0th Power]

1 hour ago, cranebump said:

Yep. That's usually how I start a new character (though I just do AP and Echo:GC, once someone drops an Ouro portal). If you're just playing basic story arcs into the 30s, as the OP said they did, you should be able to do this same conversion (along with crafting/selling recipes and other valuable salvage [Prismatic Aether, for instance]) all through those levels, and have plenty of $$ to slot SO's/IO's (albeit not so much with sets, attuned or otherwise).

zone into RV and you can get your own ouro portal.

Edited April 17, 2023 by 0th Power

[SeraphimKensai]

@nihiliigave you some pretty good insight on starting a decent marketeer run.

 

I've done similar projects where I've taken a lvl 1 in atlas to Wentworth's and sat it there over a week or so until it was at the influence cap using only the inner inspiration power to start my nest egg.

 

I personally wouldn't recommend marketing with a lvl 1 and inventory room becomes an issue, but with a little bit of effort, it's not difficult to make enough to fully fund a character.

[Diantane]

22 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

@nihiliigave you some pretty good insight on starting a decent marketeer run.

 

I've done similar projects where I've taken a lvl 1 in atlas to Wentworth's and sat it there over a week or so until it was at the influence cap using only the inner inspiration power to start my nest egg.

 

I personally wouldn't recommend marketing with a lvl 1 and inventory room becomes an issue, but with a little bit of effort, it's not difficult to make enough to fully fund a character.

 

I was born in 1955 with three types of ADD. It was never cured because they didn't know what it was. This means that I cannot grind (doing the same thing over and over). COH was great for me as it allowed me to make a lot of character types. Unfortunately the max level is only 50. Other mmos go much higher, but have far less "classes". If COH had a higher max level (say 150) and that much content, it would be  wonderful.

 

My first mmo was Asherons Call. The max level is a whopping 275. Players grind to get that high as fast as possible. It took me 4 years, but I made 275 by doing quests.

Edited April 17, 2023 by Diantane

[Snarky]

7 hours ago, Diantane said:

Recently the auction price for an enhancement booster has dropped below a million influence each on Excelsior. That may sound like a bargain for buyers, but its a huge loss for the sellers. Selling these boosters provides me the revenue I need just to play the game. Of the approximately 8,900 boosters available on the Excelsior auction, about 6-7% belong to me and I can't sell them below one million each. So I'm forced to hold out with about 500-600 boosters in the bank.

 

When I start a new character it cost me 74,000 influence. I pay 24,000 to max out the amplifiers at 1,000 each for 8 hours. And 50,000 influence for a decent travel power until I train one in my teens. I play at double XP so there is no influence coming in. If I relied on the little money coming in from missions with no XP boost, I could not afford to buy more than 20% or less of the enhancements needed. Financing a character through level 40 costs between 7 to 12 million influence to upgrade the enhancements every five levels. It costs about 25 million for level 45 workbench IO's. If you use IO's during leveling, they don't expire, but then your percentage boost drops as you level (compared to the single origin counterparts). So you have to replace them too quickly which is expensive. I found that these workbench IO's only provide a few percentage points increase over buying level 50 SO's which are much cheaper.

 

I enjoy the storyline arcs in the game, but found that the high level arcs (level 40+) are mostly computer generated and boring. Playing them is just a grind which I do not enjoy. Have found that if I grind a level 50 doing these arcs, the influence coming in is decent, but again this is short lived unless the arc has a good storyline.

 

The bottom line is I'm holding out selling the boosters that I made from buying them with the merits I earned while playing the arcs. There will be a lull in the market until the price goes up. My funds have been disappearing and will be forced to play other games until the market collapse is gone.

Yeah.  What?

 

look I suck at making money in game.  Like, I suck at everything.  But still I am rich in game

 

I do not know what your strategy is for spending.  Do you just buy everything at buy it now prices?   
 

I have a base with maybe 700-800 enhancers in it.  When i build a toon i get 80% from there.  Then buy from market.  I buy cheap enhancements on market and convert if people are farming a niche.  I wont pay top dollar.  
 

I take recipes and craft convert sell.  Each nets me a few million+.  Free cash.  My converters are bought with merits from my endless gaming.  When i stay on a toon for a significant time it just generates tons of cash.  
 

What are you doing?  Constantly leveling new ideas and never playing a 50?   That is the only way I know to go broke in game

[0th Power]

1 minute ago, Snarky said:

What are you doing?  Constantly leveling new ideas and never playing a 50?   That is the only way I know to go broke in game

That's what I do, and I still have plenty of influence.

 

No reason to be broke in this game.

[Skyhawke]

1 hour ago, RCU7115 said:

That's sounds like a lot of wasted influence to start a toon. You definitely need a financial advisor. 

 

I recommend these guys.

 

[TheZag]

You need to liquidate some assets.  You have too much tied up in investments.  You have approximately 550 boosters on the AH and a similar amount in storage according to your post,  but spending 100k influence is problematic.  Right now you are investment poor with a billion in assets but hardly 2 inf to rub together.

 

Start by selling some overstock for a 'loss' (less than 1 million),  to regain some spending money.  Then diversify into converters, catalysts and unslotters as well.  I have to assume the boosters are purchased with merits and not from super packs or you would have all manner of goods to sell and not just 1 thing.  Overall i have seen a trend of rising prices but the day to day can fluctuate up and down.  Selling a variety of goods can help ensure a steady stream of sales as 1 item price may dip below your asking but the others would still be selling at your desired price.

 

Personally,  i dont enjoy spending time on the AH.  I do a single task force on a level 50 character and i will be rolling in inf.  It doesnt even have to be high level content,  just exemp down to low level content that you enjoy more on a lvl 50 and still earn tons of influence.

 

[JasperStone]

All prices seem to have dropped ...

[Skyhawke]

On a side note, I will be selling boosters in the parking lot behind the Auction House for 500k. No refunds.

[JasperStone]

42 minutes ago, Skyhawke said:

On a side note, I will be selling boosters in the parking lot behind the Auction House for 500k. No refunds.

New or used?

[Jiro Ito]

2 hours ago, Diantane said:

I've never done anything with the incarnates. Frankly its mostly because I could never afford it. Read that some players spend billions on their character and I thought workbench IO's were high.

 

Incarnates don't cost any inf at all.  You can only craft them from drops your character gets.  At most, you can email Emp Merits to alts on the same account.  Inf does nothing for incarnates.

 

I can't imagine spending billions of inf on a character; I never spend any inf at all.  Just playing the game gets me so many recipe drops and merits than I can turn into converters to turn those recipes into ones I can use; I never spend anything.

 

It sounds like maybe you should look through the many guides to marketing and crafting to see how you might improve your game experience.  They were very helpful to me when I came back to the game!

 

[MHertz]

My advice, as someone who doesn’t play the market much and still has plenty of money: turn off 2XP. From a profit perspective, running content at 2XP is a fool’s game.
 

Double XP means you defeat half the number of enemies to get to 50, which halves opportunity to earn drops of SOs, converters, salvage, and recipes. Going through the content at regular speed means not only do you earn more from defeats, you earn more by crafting the recipes you find. You spend less buying salvage to craft with.

And if you’re buying as you go (as opposed to say, joining an AE farm) you’re increasing your total outlay while cutting your income and potential sales. I hate to say it, but if you do that, your cashflow problems are on you. At a certain point it's cheaper to join a farm team and ignore your slots until level 50.

 

Approx. cost of SOs per every 5 levels*

12 — 394,749

17 — 691,843

22 — 1,045,598

27 — 1,503,118

32 — 2,152,913

37 — 2,916,547

42 — 3,794,036

47 — 4,785,376

Total spent by level 50: ~17,284,183

 

*Price of replacing all SOs at every 5th level, beginning with level 15 SOs and starting with 1 slot each in Sprint and Stamina. Cost per SO taken as weighted average, arbitrarily assuming Accuracy is 23% of slots, Damage/Healing is 31% of slots, Defense/Resist is 14% of slots, and Recharge is 9% of slots, with other SOs each weighted between 1-5% of remaining.

 

I will also point out that when you go through content using +4 enemies, you make the number of effective drop chances even worse, because drop rate per enemy does not scale with XP. Fighting +4 enemies over the lifetime of your toon gives you ~40% fewer opportunities for loot drops. Combine this with 2XP and you're speeding through the content but you're getting ... what, 15-20% of the normal drop chances?

 

It would only take a handful of good drops to fund your character with SOs or IOs, crafted from stuff the game basically gives you for free by playing the content at +0 level at 1*XP. If you want to maximize drops, go for -1/x8.

Edited April 17, 2023 by MHertz

[Skyhawke]

10 minutes ago, JasperStone said:

New or used?

 

No. Refunds. 😁

[Techwright]

7 hours ago, Luminara said:

 

'k.

 

This may just be the best Luminara sass ever.

[Diantane]

32 minutes ago, MHertz said:

My advice, as someone who doesn’t play the market much and still has plenty of money: turn off 2XP. From a profit perspective, running content at 2XP is a fool’s game.
 

Double XP means you defeat half the number of enemies to get to 50, which halves opportunity to earn drops of SOs, converters, salvage, and recipes. Going through the content at regular speed (and slotting as you go) means not only do you earn more from defeats, you earn more by crafting the recipes you find. You spend less buying salvage to craft with.

And if you’re buying as you go (as opposed to say, joining an AE farm) you’re increasing your total outlay while cutting your income and potential sales. I hate to say it, but if you do that, your cashflow problems are on you.

 

Approx. cost of SOs per every 5 levels*

12 — 394,749

17 — 691,843

22 — 1,045,598

27 — 1,503,118

32 — 2,152,913

37 — 2,916,547

42 — 3,794,036

47 — 4,785,376

Total spent by level 50: ~17,284,183

 

*Price of replacing all SOs at every 5th level, beginning with level 15 SOS and starting with 1 slot each in Sprint and Stamina. Cost per SO taken as weighted average, arbitrarily assuming Accuracy is 23% of slots, Damage/Healing is 31% of slots, Defense/Resist is 14% of slots, and Recharge is 9% of slots, with other SOs each weighted between 1-5% of remaining.

 

It would only take a handful of good drops to fund your character with SOs or IOs, crafted from stuff the game basically gives you for free by playing the content. Why cut your chances in half?

 

Thought about that. My next character will be played old school. Was tired of seeing the character completed in a few days anyway. Going to do every Hollows arc (did this before by turning off my XP so I could bring others through these nostalgic arcs). Even before this, I will start with the arcs in city hall. Doing the ones that I have never done (still some left).

 

Only problem is, I always play a natural origin and the only enhancements that drop are magic in the beginning.

[Skyhawke]

43 minutes ago, JasperStone said:

New or used?

 

Or to put it another way:

 

[Luminara]

18 minutes ago, Techwright said:

 

This may just be the best Luminara sass ever.

[High_Beam]

5 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

You must pay the rent!

Why does Andie McDowell in Hudson Hawk come to mind here.

[lemming]

I don't market much, usually it's "hmm, none of my alts need this, but I think it sells"

I waste a ton of inf and merits doing converter roulette since I don't want to spend less on buy it now prices. 😛

 

I'm still able to completely outfit my characters with purple, winter, etc... since my 50s tend to just collect influence, recipes, etc...

My lower level characters pick up cheap recipes that once crafted make a decent return which more than pays for me buying them all the various prestige travel powers (TT & SG Portal...)   I don't tend to outfit them fully until they're 50, but they tend to have servicable IOs once they get to their 30s.

 

On the subject of market prices,  it does seem that most things are a bit cheaper than they were, but not sure if it's more supply or less demand. And it's not a heck of a lot of difference that I can tell as a casual marketer.

[BraveDecoy]

I'm that weird guy who pawns anything that I don't need on the market for 5 bucks.  Recipes, boosters, catalysts, salvage, doesn't matter; I still have more than enough to fully kit out any new character I take past 20.

[CaptA]

3 hours ago, Snarky said:

Yeah.  What?

 

look I suck at making money in game.  Like, I suck at everything.  But still I am rich in game

 

I do not know what your strategy is for spending.  Do you just buy everything at buy it now prices?   
 

I have a base with maybe 700-800 enhancers in it.  When i build a toon i get 80% from there.  Then buy from market.  I buy cheap enhancements on market and convert if people are farming a niche.  I wont pay top dollar.  
 

I take recipes and craft convert sell.  Each nets me a few million+.  Free cash.  My converters are bought with merits from my endless gaming.  When i stay on a toon for a significant time it just generates tons of cash.  
 

What are you doing?  Constantly leveling new ideas and never playing a 50?   That is the only way I know to go broke in game

 

 

I do this too. Several bases. Several hundred set IOs and the like. I am always amazed at how many players I've talked to that farm for influence so that they can buy all the stuff they need to set out their 50 build. I ask them, "Why don't you just craft the recipes you find and store it for characters later? You can change set IOs from one to another with converters and just build up a bank of sets you like to use."

Their answer is always the same: "I don't have time to craft."

But you have time to endlessly grind on farm missions? Ok. 

[Ironblade]

11 hours ago, Diantane said:

When I start a new character it cost me 74,000 influence.

When I start a new character, I immediately buy a bunch of powers from the P2W vendor costing around 14 million.

I have never sold a single enhancement booster.  Find another way to make money until that market rebounds.

[Snarky]

21 minutes ago, Ironblade said:

When I start a new character, I immediately buy a bunch of powers from the P2W vendor costing around 14 million.

I have never sold a single enhancement booster.  Find another way to make money until that market rebounds.

This.  Your "one way" of earning is performing below your expectations so you are ready to quit a game you like.  

[Mjolnerd]

5 hours ago, Diantane said:

Have over 115 alts on Excelsior. Running out of ideas to try (looking for synergies). Last trial was a beast/FF MM. The wolves kept dying (a lot). Busted and abandoned at 19. Cost me 2 million.

 

I made that much, before drops, this morning by soloing a single hero tip mission with one of my 50s, and earning inf wasn't even my goal at the time. It just sort of... happened as a result of other things I was doing. It was basically passive income. Took all of 20 minutes.

 

If I had been on my farmer playing a farm mission in AE or otherwise actually trying to maximize my earnings, I could have easily made 5 million in half that time. And again, that's before drops. Two orange salvage? That's another million(ish). Enhancement catalyst? Another 1-3 million depending on the day. As someone else already mentioned, generic white IO recipes at 50 sell to vendors for about 100,000 apiece, and those basically just fall out of the sky.

 

And I'm not even that good at this. You're making a mountain out of a molehill.