Consignment House Rant

[Ironblade]

3 hours ago, lemming said:

I know of a gas station in Pocket D that is open for development

 

Manny would be happy to sell.  He hasn't seen a customer in ages.

 

[Major_Decoy]

9 hours ago, Mjolnerd said:

 

Wait, I think I can save this. Turn it into a rant. Or at the very least, a diatribe. Hopefully not a screed, though -- I don't want anybody to get hurt.

Which is to say, I get it, to a point. I've tried reading these mythical guides people keep mentioning, but most of them are so vague and paranoid and secretive as to be almost useless.

 

"How do I get started using the market to make money?"
"There are already guides. Read those."
"I've read several. They all said I should do something called 'converter roulette,' but none of them explained what that is or how to do it."
"Oh, that's because it's explained in other guides."

"I looked at other guides, none of them had any actual useful advice. Like, what kinds of things should I be on the lookout for? What should I convert things into?"
"You'll figure it out."
"Yeah, that's literally what I'm trying to do right now. Can you give me any specific, practical information I can use as a jumping-off point? Please?"
"What? You mean mention a particular recipe or piece of salvage in this context, even just for the purposes of providing an example, instead of just gesturing vaguely toward the market as an overall concept?"

"Kinda, yeah. Not that I expect it to be perfect, I understand we're talking about a living economy that's constantly changing due to any number of different factors, but literally any kind of actual starting point would be really helpful."
"But my niche!"

 

It's like trying to get a mobster to give you a straight answer about how he's able to afford the Mercedes he bought for his wife as an anniversary gift: "I do business. If you know what's good for you, you won't worry about what kind. Capiche?"

It's nice, Socrates, but that's a hypothetical dialogue, not a rant.

[Mjolnerd]

1 hour ago, Major_Decoy said:

It's nice, Socrates, but that's a hypothetical dialogue, not a rant.

Okay, fair enough.

 

But my second post in this thread... that counts, right?

[Sanguinesun]

On 5/23/2023 at 11:26 AM, TekkyFox said:

How do you make trillions of inf?

 

Folks have made lots of good comments and suggestions and thread links to help you but also something of merit to keep in mind.

 

1. Auction House= shift of influence.  It doesn't actually  generate influence  to add to the pool active for players.  It only just moves it from one person to another.  It also is  fractionally an influence sink(ie fees etc (and as was intended too when Cryptic added the system in to the game so many many years ago).  

 

There is just one caveat to all that:  there is some seeding that goes on with the AH to keep it stable but its very minimal in terms of what is seeded.

 

2. General game play, selling things to npc vendors, and or farming missions= influence generating.  These are the methods that bring influence into the game's economy.

 

The two are thus interwoven and dynamic but without point 2, point 1 would not be sustainable with the relative profitability the guides and other suggestions. 

 

So this isn't mentioned to give you some sort of ways to make trillions of influence but to frame how the econ works for those purposes.

[Herotu]

21 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Your post is valid, and worthy of being deemed a philippic.  I'm slowly working on the final guide anyone will ever need on how to get the items you want, but I'm kind of tied up with some other things nowadays and it's pretty comprehensive.  Until then, I think this one is pretty specific and entertaining to read.  It sure was entertaining to write!

 

 

 

I do the crafting thing habitually on a lot of characters these days, instead of playing the game 😞

 

On some of my especially low level characters, and characters on another server, I'm bidding low on insps and selling high, but the demand seems to have disappeared at the moment, so they're all just holding the bag.

 

Is there a sudden lack of farmers or something?

 

 

[SeraphimKensai]

On 5/23/2023 at 3:23 AM, Supertanker said:

Buy low, sell high

Man that explains why I'm always losing money. I've been operating in reverse for years. I need to quit buying high and selling low.

 

Then again I just buy more IOs and DCA, and I'm sure eventually I'll get my average cost back to a reasonable rate to sell for a los...er gain.

[Sanguinesun]

43 minutes ago, Herotu said:

I do the crafting thing habitually on a lot of characters these days, instead of playing the game 😞

 

On some of my especially low level characters, and characters on another server, I'm bidding low on insps and selling high, but the demand seems to have disappeared at the moment, so they're all just holding the bag.

 

Is there a sudden lack of farmers or something?

 

 

 

I'd say less hardmode/4star ITF running is the culprit

[Clave Dark 5]

23 hours ago, Captain Fabulous said:

This is my problem too. I loathe farming and doing market stuff. It feels like work, not fun. And I play games to have fun. Which is why I have a bunch of 50s still sitting with common IOs cause I can't do full IO builds.

Say whaaaaat?  Look, force yourself to keep playing a 50 even with mere SOs, start doing 50 content, get a few Aether Particles, sell and spend.  Do some mothership raids, covert Vanguard merits to Enhancement Catalysts, do that a lot.  You get to slowly slot your one 50, then keep playing them as they keep getting better.  Really, after a bit, that and craft-and-selling recipes that drop (that have obvious market appeal) will get you there.  That's what worked for me.  Pewpewpew!!

 

ETA: forgot one important thing, do lots of Summer Blockbusters, those enhancer sell for like 7 million and SBB is super easy.

Edited May 24, 2023 by Clave Dark 5

[momentarygrace]

2 hours ago, Clave Dark 5 said:

Say whaaaaat?  Look, force yourself to keep playing a 50 even with mere SOs, start doing 50 content, get a few Aether Particles, sell and spend.  Do some mothership raids, covert Vanguard merits to Enhancement Catalysts, do that a lot.  You get to slowly slot your one 50, then keep playing them as they keep getting better.  Really, after a bit, that and craft-and-selling recipes that drop (that have obvious market appeal) will get you there.  That's what worked for me.  Pewpewpew!!

 

ETA: forgot one important thing, do lots of Summer Blockbusters, those enhancer sell for like 7 million and SBB is super easy.

 

Where can you convert Vanguard merits to Enhancement Catalysts? 

[dtjunkie]

On 5/22/2023 at 10:26 PM, TekkyFox said:

How do you make trillions of inf?

 

I put in bids for less wanted purple set recipes (let's say a sleep set for example) for exactly 1 influence more than the last 5 sales. Then I would craft those and convert them into a cooler purple set that more people want (let's say a melee dmg set). This would clear at least 5 million each time. Then I repeated this ad nauseam.

[lemming]

3 hours ago, momentarygrace said:

 

Where can you convert Vanguard merits to Enhancement Catalysts? 

Vanguard Merits->Reward Merits->Catalysts    (pretty sure all merit vendors)

[Clave Dark 5]

4 hours ago, lemming said:

Vanguard Merits->Reward Merits->Catalysts    (pretty sure all merit vendors)

Whoops yeah, left out a step; thanks for the recovery.

[tidge]

FWIW: Catalysts aren't exactly hard to come by. At level 50, every character has a chance to get a Catalyst drop once-per-day as part of a regular defeat. The chances of the drop are quite high, I want to say that defeating something like 8 spawns of 8 (*1) should be enough for a Catalyst to drop. Any random tip mission with the spawn size turned up should do the trick, provided the enemies are actually defeated.

 

^{(*1) Crude estimate based on clearing all four of the Kings Row Paladin level-less spawns twice.}

 

A side effect of running (any) level 50 content at high spawn sizes are the common IO recipe drops; on average, the level 50 IO recipes sell to vendors at 100k. Typical AH pieces for useful (non Superior, non PVP) enhancements, run from 2Minf to 6Minf.... (the 6Minf is extreme for things like luck of the Gambler) and if a player is running actual arcs (which includes completing an morality 'capstone' tip) mertis should be rolling in as well.

[Yomo Kimyata]

On 5/23/2023 at 1:49 PM, Mjolnerd said:

Also, I thought I'd share this funny meme I found. Apropos of nothing, of course. Isn't it entertaining? I apologize for it being completely unrelated to the topic at hand.

 

 

From my understanding, recipe bloggers tend to tell stories because it enables them to get more hit words in, which increases traffic driven in by search engines.  I find that annoying as well, but I get it.

 

As for why *I* chose to tell that guide in story-form, well, probably for a few reasons.  First, there are, in fact, many guides out there already and why reinvent the wheel (although I did aggregate them in a guide of marking guides), and it's difficult to spoon feed someone when you have zero idea of what they already do or do not know.  Second, I am far more of a "teach a person to fish" kind of person rather than just do it for them.  Along the lines of this, if you just say "transform this to that and sell it at XXX" not only is that unsatisfying to me as a teacher, but the information becomes irrelevant the instant someone does it.  For that kind of guide, the tldr is "Trade in all your merits for converters at a merit vendor; post them all on the /AH at 5 inf."  Finally, I like telling stories!

[WumpusRat]

I've never had more than like 200 million in cash spread among my various characters. I tend to think up a fun concept, level the character up, kit them out, get them all set up with incarnate abilities unlocked, and by the time that's done, I've thought of a new concept I want to play, and it starts all over again. I don't tend to really do any "farming" for influence once I hit 50. 

 

Though if I liquidated all the stuff I have stocked away in my three SG bases and the several thousand merits I have, I could probably come up with a billion or so.

[Sanguinesun]

10 hours ago, WumpusRat said:

I've never had more than like 200 million in cash spread among my various characters. I tend to think up a fun concept, level the character up, kit them out, get them all set up with incarnate abilities unlocked, and by the time that's done, I've thought of a new concept I want to play, and it starts all over again. I don't tend to really do any "farming" for influence once I hit 50. 

 

Though if I liquidated all the stuff I have stocked away in my three SG bases and the several thousand merits I have, I could probably come up with a billion or so.

 

Ironically on Monday, I went through 50's (I've only about 2-3 pages of em) and some of my 30-49 (about another 3 pages) toons that I'd parked for a while and cleaned out their salvage(including enhancers, boosters, aethers, etc), recipes I'll never immediately need to use, and more.  AH'd what I needed to, vendor trashed the rest.

 

Just a little over 900 mil.  

 

 

[ChiliBear]

There are the traditional methods for generating in game wealth.

 

Obviously farming, purchasing and reselling, crafting. You can also hop on the Hamidon train and get your daily merits. Reward Merits can be rewarding as well.

 

But before we think about how to generate mega-wealth think about the community and think what there is to gain from categories. Note any great endeavor requires some kind of effort on your own part...influence doesn't just magically appear!

 

There are many categories here are some.

 

RP: Costume Contests and Events have prize money. Play around with costumes at level 1 and make some cool costumes and park them in Atlas! Pay attention to daily events posted and get involved in the community. Learn where events are being held and get involved to participate. The whole reason they hold events and give away influence is to help you, help the community, and draw in crowds to have some fun!

Base Building: Check out Dacy the CR of Base Building and look into learning how to build a base, in game realty is a real thing and people pay BIG INFLUENCE to have structures built. If you don't want to mindlessly farm creatures for influence or work the market create an artistic masterpiece and sell it.

Raiding: Hamidon, MSR, iTrials, etc.

PVP: Get good and have someone hire you as their thug protector. LOL

Crafting: Get Into Crafting Buy Low, Craft, Sell High.

 

Just some basic ideas, some are outside of the box, others are pretty common answers.

[Snarky]

If you want to be rich (in this or almost any game)  there is a very simple system.

 

1) find a character you like

2) play that character

 

you will find there is tons of treasure just being dropped on you.  

[Nitekilla]

All I know is that IO's that used to cost 1 million now cost 5 million.  I guess inflation is affecting City of Heros now.

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Nitekilla said:

All I know is that IO's that used to cost 1 million now cost 5 million.  I guess inflation is affecting City of Heros now.

 

I can't think of what IOs you are speaking of.  Maybe it's a temporary lack of supply?  Tell me which IOs and if they are normally 1mm, I can't imagine it would cost me too much to make a bunch of them.

 

For the most part, prices on uncommon/rare IOs have dropped over the past year and I'm hard pressed to think of any that have gained in price.

 

[Bionic_Flea]

I can think of one.  Achilles Heel -res proc was 1-2 million a few years ago.  Now they regularly go for 4-5 mill.

 

I attribute that to a delay in the masses realizing how strong that proc is.  Most builds these days, certainly those chasing DPS and Pylon times, will have an Achilles or two.

[Snarky]

I have noticed a serious and steady DECLINE im market prices over the last two years.  not dropping off a cliff but a serious softening.  LOTG, Perf Shifter, the staples.

[jprewitt73]

So you're saying we should ask for some stimulus money from the Devs to increase prices?

 

Yes, I agree. 

 

😜

[Snarky]

9 minutes ago, jprewitt73 said:

So you're saying we should ask for some stimulus money from the Devs to increase prices?

 

Yes, I agree. 

 

😜

I know a true "whale" who hardly plays anymore.  Last time he was on he gave me 2 bill.  I am set for....ever?  a year?  hard to say.  depends on how many crazy alts I make and store.

[SwitchFade]

I'm surprised no one has offered what is considered best online game wisdom...

 

Git Gud.

 

Now that you know, venture forth and be Uber1337gosu.