Sigh...this is why we can't have nice things.

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Mjolnerd said:

  

 

I mean... okay?

 

This is exactly what I'm talking about -- everybody is eager to tell anyone who will listen all about how much money they're making, and even more eager to brag about how easy it was for them ("semi AFK and half tabbed out of the game"), but nobody wants to talk about how they're actually doing it. It's like an MLB All-Star saying "it's only a 90 mph fastball, right over the plate. Just hit it, it's easy!"

 

Here, I'll quote myself too:

 

 

I've followed the guides. I even had someone very nicely explain to me all what all of the jargon that's used but never explained in the guides actually meant, and give me a few pointers to help me get started. I kept at it for several weeks. I saw moderate profits. Moderate. Nowhere close to what you're describing. I did everything I was "supposed" to do  and never saw these mythical 80-million-inf windfalls. Clearly "just follow the guides" is, at best, incomplete advice.

 

I'll ask one more time. Answer the question or don't.

 

How?

 

Not "how much"?

 

HOW?

 

Ah, I'm sorry, I quoted myself from my guide ( in the signature, lots of info there that might be of use including merits and how to use them).

 

Lets see if I can reconstruct it though it was a great number of months ago:

 

I started bidding for cheap recipes. I have it in the guide which I was using, I think, but basically cheap melee or ranged, or fear, or ToHiT, or  defense debuffs, etc etc, recipes. It's important that they do NOT use orange salvage (though tbh I started using those as well to hurry it up, but it meant losing around 300-400k from buying the orange salvage which cut in the profit).

 

I bid a LOT. We're talking 10 stacks of each recipe (acc/dmg, acc/end/dmg, etc) as long as they were cheap. By cheap I mean I started with 10k and would usually go to 50k but not more. So I had something like 100-150 recipes always being bided. Because of the low prices (10-50k) and the number of other people already doing it it was not an insta buy (hence the large number of diverse bids in melee, ranged, fear, buffing, etc etc) so that they would trickle in while I crafted.

 

I then parked my butt over the Pocket D (there are other places such as Rikti WarZone and such) where I have a crafting table but also access to the AH. As the recipes trickled in I just bought all the savage needed to craft them.

 

I did start by using all my converters I had saved but ran out of them so I started buying the converters off the AH as well. Then, after crafting a bunch of the IOs, I would start converting by Rarity (important so that the IO can jump to a different set (e.g. from being melee to being ranged, or heal, or etc)) until the IO landed into something worth something. I ended up mostly going for Resist Damage, Defense, and Heals, but allowed myself to be lazy and sold some stuff as Targeted AoE or pbAoE despite not being worth as much.

 

If I had a Defense set I would invariably then continue converting using Convert by <category> (if its defense it will converted only in all the defense sets) until I landed on Luck of the Gambler, and then converted 'in set' until I landed on the 7.5% recharge.

 

Otherwise and for the other sets I would first check their prices. For example an end/recharge Resist is crap, but a res/end is golden.

 

 

There are some tips like aiming for low recipes such as level 31 (if I recall correctly) since A) it is cheaper to craft (level 50 are 400k to craft. Level 30 are 30k, I think? Been a while) and B) it diminishes the number of possible outcomes when converting outside of the set (the first step).

 

So, basically, it cost me around... I want to not be hyperbolic but not give false information either... 1-2 million at worst to craft and convert into something useful? And then I would sell for 3-4 mill at worst, and if I lucked out (Numina unique, LotG 7.5%, resistance uniques, etc) it would make me 5-6 million.

 

 

Now, two three things:

 

1 - I was actually gearing myself up when I did this. So I was aiming at replacing my generic for sets. I needed a bunch of Unbreakable Guard, the full Synapse set, the full Preventive Medicine, one full set of (normal) ATOs, etc. So my goal was not so much making money but landing on an IO I needed and then slot it in. But at some point I was still finishing the slotting and getting repeats from my converting so I kept selling those instead of converting from a 3-5 million profit. Of course when I started having enough money I just bought what was left (can't convert into the ATOs as well).

 

2 - This sounds like a lot of effing work, but like I said the buying of the recipes was a trickle hence my half AFK. I would check in, see some bought recipes, craft them, sell them, check if more recipes had been bought, and if no I'd go browse youtube for a bit and then checked CoH in a bit. Replace browsing youtube for 'go do a TF' or 'check and convert for half an hour each day'. With what I know now I do this straight at level 1 so that by level 30-ish I already have a bunch of recipes that were trickle bought while I was playing which is when I sit down and gear up for realsies.

 

3 - It's not actually needed. As pointed out selling raw converters is poor use of merits, but as I ALSO said I actually did this for a long long while so I did not have to bother messing with the AH more than the minimal thing of throwing hundreds of converters into the AH, set a price, then spam click, and collect my earnings the next day. It's actually funny that NOW that I don't need to do this anymore (with a humble billion to my name and several fat enhancement tables (I had to sell purples and uniques at some point because I had too many packed tables) is when I'm actually doing this sort of thing. But that's because I'm enjoying doing self sustained runs. I start with zero in a new character and they have to completely provide for themselves with no transferred money or gear.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Sovera

[SwitchFade]

4 hours ago, Mjolnerd said:

 

That's four million influence a minute, every minute. Almost a quarter billion an hour. Sorry, I don't buy it. Either you're overstating how much you're making, or exaggerating how often you see numbers like that, or both. I don't doubt that it's happened a few times, but I can't believe for a second that you're making so much, on such a consistent basis, that 4mil/min is "on the low end." What are you claiming is your average, then? Five million a minute? Ten million? Please.

 

I tried for a month or so, and frankly, I was making nowhere near that much. There was profit, absolutely, but at most I'd pull in about 20 million in 20 minutes, around twice what I make on average just running a farm in AE. And that was on the high end for me, sometimes I'd make significantly less. Unless I was doing something drastically different from what you are -- and I'm sure it was different but not to the tune of 400% or more -- I was never going to see numbers like what you're claiming.

 

Just once, I'd like someone to actually state how specifically they're pulling in these untold millions of inf that are "so easy" to make instead of just gesturing vaguely toward the market and saying "guides! There are guides everywhere!" But wait, you can't do that, can you? You've got some super-secret technique and/or niche and if even a single other person knew about it, your profits would bottom out to, what, four million a minute on the high end instead?

I literally just did it last night again, and I'm on the low end because I like fast cash so I always list below market price.

 

It's no secret, I teach people how to do it, I just taught someone in game last week and there are guides 

 

You may not believe it, but many of us do it regularly and most will tell you I'm on the low end and they can make upwards of 100+ in that time.

 

And how specifically is in the guides you mention, buy a recipe, craft it, roll it to a good enhance and list it. Go play. It sells.

 

And to answer your other statement, 80 million in 20 minutes is my average, because I always sell below market... If an LoTG is selling for 6 mill, I list for 4, as an example.

Edited October 30, 2023 by SwitchFade

[Sovera]

1 hour ago, Mjolnerd said:

 

Tried it. As I've mentioned twice already, I've followed the guides. As I've also mentioned twice, moderate profits. The 20 million in 20 minutes I mentioned before? Congratulations, that was, like, half your doing! Thanks.

 

But since then I've had "80 million in 20 minutes at the low end" and "fully IOed plus an extra 80 million in two hours" quoted to me. And both parties made a specific point of mentioning how easy it was. Those numbers still sound grossly inflated to me, but nobody else seems to think so, so I guess they could be legit.

 

I've got 20 minutes right now -- what specific steps do I take to make 80 million inf today?

 

 

Yes, we really gain nothing in bragging. As the others have pointed in the last posts it is info that the 'ebil' marketeers are constantly pushing out trying to teach people to do the same thing they are doing. The community is great, and it's replicable so trying to lie about it would just bring confused reactions.

 

But I would not make big claims either. '40 mill in 20 minutes' is not something I would claim. First because I'm not a pro marketeer and just dabble, and second because stuff still needs to sell. My claim I posted above ended trickling above what I said because there were lots of IOs that took a while to unload.
 

Using this method to slot one's character on the cheap works best for me because the duplicated stuff we get can be sold and that money pays for the continued crafting. As I started with 8 million I did have moments where I stalled and was waiting for sales so I had money to continue  (another tip: if you flood the market with a certain unique even if it's a good selling one there is only so much demand 😄 Yep, first hand experience).

[SwitchFade]

Also, I don't keep salvage, I relist it all on the AH. When I make enhances I buy the recipe, buy the salvage and use converters from regular play. The time it takes to store and retrieve salvage on alts is not worth it, dump it all in the AH or a vendor  and buy the salvage needed when you craft.

 

My crafter has maybe 2k converters at any given time. I always play story content or TFs and never farm on all my alts, I play them up. The merits I earn I convert in base when done playing, store in the racks and log out.

 

So here's how you can do it 5 minutes a day if 20 minutes a day makes you gag... When you log in, open AH, buy 10 recipes and the salvage, drop a worktable, make them, roll them to something good and list; collect the cash made yesterday from doing that and then go play. Literally 5 minutes of effort and you have steady income.

 

If you do that 5 minutes a day, that's really easy money and a steady stream of 20 million daily for 5 minutes work. If you don't believe me or don't want to do it, I'm ok with that because I do it and I never have to worry about inf.

 

As a last, to be very clear, income is income, what I am describing is 5 or 20 minutes of effort for the return listed. That return comes within 24 hours. This is how all returns work, like a paychecj at the end of a work period. For example, when I bought shares of AMD at $11 per share, the effort was exactly 45 seconds. AMD is now trading at over $100 a share.

[tidge]

2 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

Next time I log in on this character, I will craft them.  Convert by category for 2 converters each and I will have 50 Touch of Lady Grey.  I will convert each one of those by rare until I have something that I would consider slotting in one of my characters, which is a loose proxy for if something is valuable or not.  I think you should have a good idea of what the useful IOs are by now, but if not look at the last 5 trades are (hopefully it's not a bugged display!) and see if it consistently trades over 2mm. Put them on the /AH at a price a little higher than what you think the floor is based on the last 5.

 

I rarely bother with trying to make beaucoup inf these days, which means I'm not actively hunting recipes to craft... but this is exactly what I do with my recipe drops. I happen to be Catalyst-rich (I play enough with a small stable of characters) so crafted recipes I will use get added to characters, generally at the the level 50 respec, or earlier if appropriate. The AH can attune them for the cost of the vig as well, depending on supply.

 

Sidebar about my SG base storage: My SG base stores:

• Super-Inspirations (1 bin)
• 4x Enhancements: Mostly the crafted 'useful' Enhancements (attuned or not), I have a few ATO/Winter still in there IIRC
• 1x oddball (Catalysts, Warburg pieces, occasionally Prismatics and some holiday pieces)
• The rest are salvage

This lets me casually craft my recipe drops, allows me to quickly craft any PVP level 10 (or 50) PVP recipes, refill on SG boosts if I am missing salvage.

 

Characters (and their Vault and AH storage) can also act as storage racks, up to a point. There are a few Enhancement sets and recipes I especially like for certain builds that are kept with some level 50s, but are otherwise ones I don't generally use.

 

1 hour ago, Sovera said:

But I would not make big claims either. '40 mill in 20 minutes' is not something I would claim. First because I'm not a pro marketeer and just dabble, and second because stuff still needs to sell. My claim I posted above ended trickling above what I said because there were lots of IOs that took a while to unload.

 

(+1)

 

I don't think I've ever made x MInf in y minutes... because I am lazy and/or patient. When I had my first 5 characters on Homecoming, I dedicated one of them to earning merits, playing level 50 x8 content (for Inf and Drops), crafting/converting for the market and leveraging the Winter pack sales (no longer available). This one character by itself primed the SG base with everything I needed for future characters... including 'starting funds' for P2W goodies. New characters replenish the Inf they spend for future characters (vendors, AH), and they have replenished the stock of attuned enhancements.

 

I write (and repeat) the above because since I've been doing the above, I think the most actual Inf I ever spent on a single character is probably on the order of 200 Minf (because D-Syncs, and BIN fever). I certainly have spent an amount greater than that if imagining that the Merits, Catalysts, Boosters  used on characters were converted to Inf.... but my point is that Inf itself isn't that necessary, but of course having a cushion isn't a bad thing.  I simply question the size of that cushion.

 

I can imagine that there are players who really want to power-level to 50+, and then want to have full-kits. My advice for such a player that does this and has almost no Inf... craft some of the workbench IO drops, slot those, and run lower-level content like crazy. Simply having powers slotted will make such a character pretty powerful for low-level content. Use merits and drops from the low-level content to start the AH journey.

[Bionic_Flea]

I will agree with several of the last posters that it is entirely possible to make tens if not hundreds of millions with minimum effort and time.

 

Each one of my characters gets about 250 mill on creation to buy P2W stuff and IOs over the course of the character's life.  They can also rummage through storage bins that I keep with Panacea, Steadfast, Shield Wall, Gladiator's Armor and other high value items that can be slotted at level 10.  They make a huge difference while leveling.

 

I will then look at my recipes periodically, craft what I have salvage for, convert to something that will sell for over a million, and leave it on /AH.  That could happen while I am waiting for a team to fill up, just before logging, or maybe while idling in base and reading work emails.  Low level recipes are very cheap to craft.  As I wait until I get everything as a free drop, my only cost is the crafting fee and the AH fee.  But I will continue doing the same even when I get to 50.  Although the crafting costs are higher, there are lots of IOs that will let you make a profit, again especially if you are not paying for the recipe and salvage.

 

Just by doing that, my characters have everything that they need/want in their build by the time they are 50.  Although my funds may get low, especially in the 30s and 40s, I have never needed to give them additional funds.  And by the time they get to 50+1, more often than not they are back at the 250 mill starting point or more.

 

Now, once I consider a character "finished", I will go and make something new but I still play them occasionally.  When I do, I set up bids for level 10 uncommon recipes and the accompanying salvage.  Be careful!  There are a couple that still require an orange salvage.  Stay away from those.  Look for level 10 recipes with no or few bids outstanding and place a low, but reasonable bid.  Or be unreasonable and bid 1.  I'm not trying to get it now, but rather days, weeks, or months from now when I log back into that character, who then collects sales and purchases, crafts, converts, and places those for sale while placing bids for whatever new recipes have few bids.

 

Those rarely played level 50s accumulate 50-500 million in sales in between play sessions and end up sending the next character the 250 mill seed money.

 

What I described only takes a few minutes per play session.  But it may be days, weeks, months before I claim my profits.

Edited October 30, 2023 by Bionic_Flea

[Perfidy]

On 10/29/2023 at 5:39 PM, Mjolnerd said:

Peter Parker balancing his checkbook.

On a tangent - the thing that made me fall in love with reading Spider-Man was the financial struggles he had as a young adult. The realism of a character facing the same kinds of issues we all face...man, that's what made Spider-Man so compelling for me. 

I certainly understand anyone thinking the market is boring, even though it's my favorite part - mostly because I'm better at going from zero inf to a billion than I am getting a level 1 character to 50 (outside of a farm). Neither is difficult, but for me, there's a fair level of tedium in both aspects of the game. 

Like the annoyance of clearing the Fir Bolg from a neighborhood when it's not real clear that there are any in that neighborhood. I end up having to pull them in the area to get credit before I can get on to the mission at hand. I'd rather churn through 1000 converters than do that. But, that is just me. Opinions and preferences are going to vary, and I think those should be embraced. 

[Perfidy]

On 10/30/2023 at 12:36 PM, Bionic_Flea said:

There are a couple that still require an orange salvage.  Stay away from those.  L

The Flea is good. The Flea is wise.