A collapse in the market also lowers the game playability

[roleki]

Man.  These cheap-ass boosters are delicious.  

[DrunkFlux]

Sometimes converters are better, sometimes boosters are better, other times you have enhancement recipes that could be crafted and rerolled to something stronger.  OR you can bank the merits and wait a little.

 

At least people earn recipes in AE, otherwise yeah, we'd have the broken economy of live with influence meaning nothing at all.

[srmalloy]

57 minutes ago, Shred Monkey said:

Also this strategy saves on base storage space, too, since the only standard IO's I'm keeping are level 25, and not a mix of 30s, 35s, etc.  

I've accumulated a random mix from unslotting commons when I replace them with sets; normally, the only commons I buy any more are for the corner cases — slow, confuse, to-hit debuff — the power aspects I don't have enough characters using to have built up a reserve.

[High_Beam]

Just like my man at First Command says; you gotta diversify your investments.

 

Some gold bars from a defeated enemy in the Iran/Iraq AOR, a little property that might have been signed over under duress, perhaps some "missing" pieces of art from a random war to spice things up, you know, no big deal right?

 

Seriously, I sell almost everything on the market at the 5 INF mark unless I know I can get bigger cash for it by converting or or its something I use a lot of.  Then I craft and wait to slot, or convert to Attuned, saves me buckets with regards to things like Miracle, Numina, LotG.  That way I spend my money on the things that I don't get often that I do need (I am glaring angrily at you Shield Wall)

[DrunkFlux]

Honestly it's appreciable how you can diversify your financial income and items you sell in this game, AND it's not all tied to an easily hyper-inflatable currency.  I noticed influence in CoH isn't hyper-inflating, there seems to be a lot of resilience so it's much closer to a natural rate of inflation, where even just earning influence your still earning something.  Contrast to live where prices for say, purple IO's went from 20m to 100m to 500m in a ridiculous short time span.

 

 

Or like STO where dilithium got so horribly devalued that everything has become completely inaccessible.  Compared to CoH homecoming where there are multiple means to obtain everything you'd purchase with influence, not just exclusively influence.  Not to mention some items serve as sinks the way they set everything up, like the hero packs.

Edited April 18, 2023 by DrunkFlux

[DanaDark]

OP should invest in using Invention Enhancements at lvl 25, can slot them at 22 and are a terrific bang for your buck. Other options would be to actively participate in fire farms to speed them along and thus move the income along as well. Additionally, there are more items that are valuable to players than boosters that can be purchased with merits. Finally, capitalism plays here. Perhaps your flooding of the market has caused a price drop in the item? If I see you selling so many for 1M ea and I want ANY chance to sell, I am going to have to undersell you.

Complaining that other people are moving in on your sole market gig isn't going to endear you to the player base or make us sympathize with you.

[Paladin-6]

On 4/18/2023 at 8:14 AM, srmalloy said:

I've accumulated a random mix from unslotting commons when I replace them with sets; normally, the only commons I buy any more are for the corner cases — slow, confuse, to-hit debuff — the power aspects I don't have enough characters using to have built up a reserve.

I have searched the Forums for "Unslotting/Unslot" and although I have found several threads discuss Why to Unslot. I haven't found HOW to Unslot.

 

I don't want to Respec my Toon (only level 11. However, I put one of the P2P Enhancements into the wrong Power. I messed around trying to figure out how to remove or move the Enhancement. Nor could I delete it while it is slotted. If I could delete it, I can just get another from the P2P Vendor in AP.

 

I have only been on Homecoming for about a week (although I played CoH/CoX from 2004 to 2012). I have a LOT of things to Learn/(Re)Learn. I am fiddling around at lower levels (below 20) to get a feel of the game (again) and the changes. So, I would prefer to figure out how to Unslot, if that is possible without wasting a Respec.

 

Any advice would be appreciated!

 

BTW: I have spent nearly as much time in the Forums (and a bit on the Wiki) to refresh my memories, and to (Re)Learn as much as possible. However, I also Need to Play the game to get (back) in the Swing of Things. I have been looking over suggested builds, and tinkering with my own. I am an Alt-a-Holic, and made 13 Toons on my first day back. SO, if I can Unslot, it will help me experiment with a variety of Toons, and share various DO/SO, and eventually IOs between them. (I know the P2P Enhancements cannot be shared; I just want to change what Power currently has a P2P ENH.) Thanks!

[srmalloy]

6 minutes ago, Paladin-6 said:

I have searched the Forums for "Unslotting/Unslot" and although I have found several threads discuss Why to Unslot. I haven't found HOW to Unslot.

It's simple. When you're on the enhancement screen, you can drag any enhancement out of the power slot it's in. Normally, when you do this, you can only drag it to the trash can in the lower-left corner of the screen; this destroys the enhancement, just like slotting another enhancement on top of one that's slotted. If you have unslotters in your salvage inventory, however, you can drag the enhancement to your enhancement tray.

[tidge]

A note of caution, regarding 'unslotting' at low levels (below 20). The non-set (i.e. inherent) bonuses from enhancements at low levels are not particularly strong, and can be somewhat obscured by Beginner's Luck and/or any bonuses from early mission arcs like Death from Below. I usually only use unslotters on characters below level 25 when:

• The Enhancement is 'valuable' (a very subjective adjective) and I want to keep it (that is, not clobber it with a new slotting choice)
• It is a piece that provides some sort of global (e.g. Kismet +ToHit) that is simply in a 'wrong power' (e.g. moving it from a Click/Toggle to an Auto power)
• It is some sort of %proc that isn't 'paying off' in the power (many %proc don't offer as much 'bang-for-the-slot' at lower levels, many powers are simply bad choices for %procs)

Often I'll find it is useful to do a respec in the mid-20s, just to move slots around in powers. All the enhancements become unslotted during the respec.

[Paladin-6]

On 4/17/2023 at 9:06 AM, nihilii said:

I started a new character last week. I decided to start with 0 inf and no help whatsoever, as I do every once in a while. Although I should know a lot about the market, I'm not as skilled as many nor do I have the patience to do things right or even remember how things work. So I figure it out as I go, and it always seems to work out.

Which is to say anyone should be able to replicate my results easily, by following the same patterns. Here's what I did last week:

 

1) get the 3 inspirations P2W power.
This will be your seed money, medium insps always sell for a little bit on the auction house. You defeat a couple lvl 1 mobs to have more than 0 inf, so you can put the insps for sale.

2) select recipes, filter by "rare" and lvl "50-50" (min and max, just lvl 50 recipes)

Look for recipes where there's many for sale and hardly any bidder. Last sale price must be under 10k, ideally around 5k. Put bids on these.
When the bids fill, you turn around and sell these to NPC vendors. Doubling your money.

3) once you have at least 50k, change your filters to: "uncommon" and lvl "10-20"
Hunt for typically undesirable recipes. Confuse, sleep, and so on. Once again, your ideal scenario is many for sale and few buyers. An OK buy price is about 10k inf.
Make sure the crafting ingredients do NOT require Rare salvage. Some yellow recipes lie to you that way.
Get the recipes. Craft them.
Your total cost should be about 50k per recipe.
List them back for 101k (= worst case scenario, you double your money). They will typically sell instantly for 350k. I assume professional converters buy them at that price.

4) once you have 5M to 10M, get pvp recipes
Again, lower level is good because it costs less to craft.
A good buy price is 2M6 or so. Throw in the cost of salvage (mainly the Rare piece at 450k-500k) and the listing price, you should plan to spend about 3M5 per IO.
List them back for 4M1. They will typically sell within a day, for 5M to 7M.

This method got me to 0 to 100M in 4-5 play sessions this week, for about 2h of total market work, and no brainpower required.

 

There are better paths as others suggested. It would make sense to go the merit exploration route rather than bother with 1) and 2). Seems much more efficient!

 

So, do whatever you want. As long as you sell things for a higher price than you get them. There's limitless ways to make inf in this game.

I just (Re)Started CoX, Homecoming, Easter Weekend. I am a Proud Alt-a-Holic, and so I started 13 Toons on my first day (back). Before creating my Toons, I read a bit in the Forums, Wiki, etc. I stumbled upon a similar solution. I went to the P2W Vendor, equipped each Toon with various ENH, "Prestige" Powers for more attacks, faster travel, and the Inspiration Chest (3 every 30 minutes). I have a lot of $hit going on in the real world; still I try to log on several toons a day; most parked at WW to be able to sell Inspirations.

 

I log in each of my Toons, receive the Gift of 3 INSP, put most of them on the market at WW's, and then run one of my Toons for a bit to do missions, and (Re)Learn the game. In a week several of my Toons have earned over a Million Influence; most of the rest have earned at least Half a Million. I have bought some SO's and traded amongst my Toons various DO or Common Enhancement drops, using a SG Base.

 

I am taking it slow, as I really enjoy the game, and the environment. I also have a LOT to (re)Learn before I join a TF or even a PUG, without causing too much of a mess. I am having Fun, Learning, and earning adequate Influence to prepare my Toons for adventuring from Levels 11-20.

 

I will consider what you are doing, and perhaps imitate your scheme to earn Influence, if I need to. Still, you validate what I have learned from experience 2004-2012, and from browsing the Forums. Fun can be had in many ways in this Game. I hope everyone finds some ideas on how they can get sufficient Influence to improve their Toons, without anything becomeing a grind.

 

Cheers!

Edited April 22, 2023 by Paladin-6
Spelling corrections

[Paladin-6]

2 minutes ago, tidge said:

A note of caution, regarding 'unslotting' at low levels (below 20). The non-set (i.e. inherent) bonuses from enhancements at low levels are not particularly strong, and can be somewhat obscured by Beginner's Luck and/or any bonuses from early mission arcs like Death from Below. I usually only use unslotters on characters below level 25 when:

• The Enhancement is 'valuable' (a very subjective adjective) and I want to keep it (that is, not clobber it with a new slotting choice)
• It is a piece that provides some sort of global (e.g. Kismet +ToHit) that is simply in a 'wrong power' (e.g. moving it from a Click/Toggle to an Auto power)
• It is some sort of %proc that isn't 'paying off' in the power (many %proc don't offer as much 'bang-for-the-slot' at lower levels, many powers are simply bad choices for %procs)

Often I'll find it is useful to do a respec in the mid-20s, just to move slots around in powers. All the enhancements become unslotted during the respec.

Thanks Tidge! That was pretty much my recollection of Respecing. I got the "wrong" P2W Enhancement "stuck" in a power. Srmalloy just posted how I can drag the ENH to the garbage (I couldn't seem to drag it back to the "tray") Since it is a FREE P2W I will just destroy it, then get another and put that one into the power I want it in.

 

Cheers!

[Oubliette_Red]

3 hours ago, Paladin-6 said:

I just (Re)Started CoX, Homecoming, Easter Weekend. <snip>

 

Welcome back!

 

[luxlorica]

I have seen it said that one should avoid boosters and attune, but I have often seen people talk about having a particular set at +5 and they seemed quite pleased about it.

Is there a conventional wisdom about attuning vs boosting. Can one do both?

[FupDup]

2 hours ago, luxlorica said:

I have seen it said that one should avoid boosters and attune, but I have often seen people talk about having a particular set at +5 and they seemed quite pleased about it.

Is there a conventional wisdom about attuning vs boosting. Can one do both?

PVPs and Purples let you have the benefits of both attuning AND boosting. Never attune a purple. 

 

For the rest, it depends. Generic IO's like Invention: Recharge cannot be attuned, only boosted. Some IO sets like Winters are only available in their attuned format. PVP's can actually be very good attuned in a leveling build, then replaced at level 47 with boosted versions. Sets that max out at a level below 50 (i.e. Touch of Death) can be very good boosted since that lets them compete with level 50 sets. 

 

Anything else just depends on how often you do lower level content. There's also the budget concern (attuning is way cheaper). 

[tidge]

There will be cases where a single piece from an enhancement set is what is needed to maximize one (or more) aspects of a power (for the chosen slotting). If that Enhancement isn't providing a global effect or some sort of %proc, it is probably best to acquire the piece at its maximum level and boost it to +5, as the set bonuses won't be a factor to consider.

[Andreah]

On 4/22/2023 at 1:55 PM, luxlorica said:

IIs there a conventional wisdom about attuning vs boosting. Can one do both?

 

No.... not for the same slotted enhancement. 

 

BUT.

 

You can have up to three separate "builds" : https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Multiple_Builds

 

You could have a build set up with attuned enhancements to be flexible for exemping down for lower level teams, Ouroboros arcs, and task forces, etc. And you could have another build tricked out with the very best boosted enhancements solely for doing max level content.

[BazookaTwo]

On 4/17/2023 at 10:49 PM, 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.

 

Buying incarnate ingredients is the least cost effective way to do incarnates. I've never, ever spend an inf on incarnates, and I work on tier 4 for all incarnate slots... So maybe you need to rethink/look again?

[FupDup]

To elaborate on incarnates, NEVER* choose the incarnate salvage recipes that require inf. For commons and uncommons use threads. For rares and very rares, use emp merits. Do incarnate trials and story arcs and select incarnate salvage as your end reward most of the time (unless you're really close to a certain rare or very rare, then you can pick emp merits). Also do a daily Hami raid for 4 extra emp merits. Do a daily Dark Astoria repeatable mission for 10 easy threads. 

 

Well, okay, there's also the option of using shard-based ingredients for the alpha slot but that takes a lot of time (threads are way easier/quicker). 

 

*The one time it's okay to use inf for incarnates is to convert 10 shards to 10 threads but that's it. 

Edited April 24, 2023 by FupDup

[srmalloy]

8 hours ago, FupDup said:

Well, okay, there's also the option of using shard-based ingredients for the alpha slot but that takes a lot of time (threads are way easier/quicker). 

Since you'll be spending enough time acquiring the components for two tier-3 alpha boosts, it should be easy to have accumulated the 38 shards and two Notices to make the tier-4 boost, rather than relying on getting a VR component.

[tidge]

I don't write this to be contrarian, but on a merit-rich character that ran multiple weekly ITF recently that also didn't have a tricked-out set of Alpha powers, I chose the alpha salvage reward once (which I knew I could use) in place of more merits to get one of the alpha powers over the T3->T4 speed-bump.  Every once in a blue moon when similar circumstances arise I will occasionally make the (generally poor) choice of Empyrean Merits as a Hamidon reward.

 

Generally: I agree that the Alpha-slot Incarnate salvage is a poor choice for a reward. It's not as bad a choice as a random Single Origin Enhancement from the signature Story arcs!

[Arc-Mage]

I don’t slot any toons until lvl 50. Then I only use Merits to buy almost all of my IO sets. Out of pocket on average I only spend about $20 million INF per toon. 
 

If you are complaining about INF you probably are not maximizing the other forms of money in the game. Merits are really where it’s at. Merits followed by INF. 

[Darkir]

On 4/17/2023 at 3:47 AM, Random Axis said:

I run double XP and can't fathom blowing that kind of money on a new toon. I'm not even sure I'll keep a character until they hit 22-27 and I find I like the powersets. I spend 2 mil at level 27 filling slots with level 30 IOs and consider that a lot to spend. Those IOs will sit there until they get replaced with set enhancements or a level 50 IO if they'll never get a set--like in Hasten. There's no content that's so bleeding edge before 50 that the miniscule boost from upgrading IOs as you level is worth it.

 

Today I learned that people play very very differently from me.

[Snarky]

49 minutes ago, Darkir said:

 

Today I learned that people play very very differently from me.

Yeah, i hit P2W and drop 40 mil there before I even decide if i like the concept, much less the powersets.  I mean, I need my ports and toys!   Then I might delete the thing, or more likely park it for 2 years if it bores me in a few hours.

[lemming]

59 minutes ago, Snarky said:

Yeah, i hit P2W and drop 40 mil there before I even decide if i like the concept, much less the powersets.  I mean, I need my ports and toys!   Then I might delete the thing, or more likely park it for 2 years if it bores me in a few hours.

What's nice at the lower levels, recipes are cheap and easily converted to replace that 40 mil easily.

 

And yes, Everyone plays different from Everyone.  (heck, i think my alt account plays different)

[wjrasmussen]

On 4/17/2023 at 3:47 AM, Random Axis said:

I run double XP and can't fathom blowing that kind of money on a new toon. I'm not even sure I'll keep a character until they hit 22-27 and I find I like the powersets. I spend 2 mil at level 27 filling slots with level 30 IOs and consider that a lot to spend. Those IOs will sit there until they get replaced with set enhancements or a level 50 IO if they'll never get a set--like in Hasten. There's no content that's so bleeding edge before 50 that the miniscule boost from upgrading IOs as you level is worth it.

I toss a million at a new character so they can buy stupid crap from p2w and such. I call it the hero fund, money for heroes. 1,000,000 is nothing these days.