S.O. enhancements... let's make them affordable for new players

[Rudra]

8 minutes ago, biostem said:

It shouldn't be that difficult to make level 1-9 generic IOs, then, especially since they did just that for DOs...

Do you really want to be able to slot a level 2 generic IO granting a whole +5.85% boost?! A level 1 would probably only be around +4.5%.

https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Enhancements#Relative_Enhancement_Values

 

Even a DO you've out-leveled by 3 levels still grants a +11.66% boost at low levels.

 

(Edit: And that is ignoring how quickly those early levels just fly by. At which point in time, you could be slotting level 10 generic IOs instead.)

 

(Edit again: And given how the generics are leveled? You would only see a level 5 version added.)

Edited December 23, 2023 by Rudra

[Wavicle]

Get all the Explore Badges in Atlas Park. This will get you a few Reward Merits.

 

Trade these at the Merit Vendor for Enhancement Converters. Sell these on the AH.
 

Buy your SOs.

[UltraAlt]

On 12/21/2023 at 8:23 AM, Shred Monkey said:

But the thing is, the pricing for SO's was never set for starter toons to be able to afford them.  I always send 20M inf from an alt to my new toon so I can afford to buy SO's and upgrade them at each level.

 

DFBs and DIBs drop SOs and, generally in my experience, a kind and level that your character can slot.

... and that's regardless of what level your character is.

 

Also, there are people that sell their SOs on the market for cheap. 

I'm one of them. Any SO drops I get go on the market for cheap. I buy all the SO's that I slot from a base vendor.

[Doomguide2005]

On 12/23/2023 at 4:09 PM, Wavicle said:

Get all the Explore Badges in Atlas Park. This will get you a few Reward Merits.

 

Trade these at the Merit Vendor for Enhancement Converters. Sell these on the AH.
 

Buy your SOs.

And after that initial funding I usually continue to put a portion of further merits into converters for sale while the remaining merits accumulate.  So far it's keeping my latest project flush with inf, merits accumulated for the first Special IOs and other wise in SOs without using my higher characters as a Sugar Daddy's.

 

Edit:  The real issue is whether or not it's truly all that difficult for a new player to pick up and learn one of the many, many ways a low level character can earn inf.

Edited December 26, 2023 by Doomguide2005

[Wavicle]

The basic expectations, which are for the player to ask:

 

"what are these currencies I'm accumulating, how do I spend them",

 

and

 

"how do I interact with the player economy to maximize my earnings"

 

are not really all that high. How successfully they find the answers to those questions depends somewhat on their resourcefulness, but I've seen people explain merits>converters>ios/inf to strangers in-game, on discord, here, on reddit, and elsewhere, so the information does get out there.

Sure, if a hypothetical player discovered the game by themselves and has made their first character and has no friends, it might take them until their second character to be able to self fund for SOs, but high likelihood someone will gift their first toon multiple millions.

Thank you, Captain Canada! >.>

[SeraphimKensai]

Does the influence gain while not using an XP booster allow a new toon to slot themselves with DOs and transition into SO's? Does selling unnecessary enhancements, recipes, salvage, inspirations cover any difference?

 

As the game design assumes SO's from lvl 25 upwards, are new players reasonably able to  afford SO's from that level? Not necessarily ++'ing them, but at least slotting white enhancements?

 

It's been so long since I've used SO's that I can't remember how much influence is spent on them as a character levels up. I do remember back from 2004 that my first toon was difficult to keep them ++'d with maximum effectiveness.

 

However since IOs came out, most people I know would typically use lvl 30 generic IOs as they've reasonably scaled up enough that people would just use them until swapping to lvl 50s prior to starting to migrate to Set IOs. As it saved influence over the course of the next 20 levels.

 

I'm not one that really can dig into the synoptic merit of whether to adjust SO pricing  is a good or bad thing since I typically just slot IO sets from the time I roll a character. Perhaps if anything performing analysis to ensure that low level SOs are reasonably affordable based on low level influence gain has merit since that correlates with the overall design direction of Homecoming's removal of TO's.

[Bionic_Flea]

1 hour ago, SeraphimKensai said:

Does the influence gain while not using an XP booster allow a new toon to slot themselves with DOs and transition into SO's? Does selling unnecessary enhancements, recipes, salvage, inspirations cover any difference?

 

No.  The game has never provided enough influence just from defeats and mission completion to fully equip a character and keep him or her their until maybe the 40s, even if you include vendoring.  That's not counting any marketing done on the /AH.  Marketing can easily cover all your needs.

 

It used to be better to just slot drops and vendor the rest until you got to SO levels at 22 or so because buying DOs and keeping them fresh meant not having enough to buy SOs.  Now that SOs drop from level 1 on I think it may still be better to just slot drops until your 20s, but I haven't seen or done the math on that.