Farming vs whatever for fast inf building

[Excraft]

6 minutes ago, Snarky said:

you can email them to yourself...

 

or start an alternate account.  this will allow you to make a farmer to self PL, and also provides flexibility when transferring awkward amounts of things.

 

Question along these lines, has anyone ever asked any of the folks here on the HC team about the feasibility of adding account based storage items to bases?  I don't remember seeing any threads about it.  Certainly would be nice to be able to store stuff at the account level and not bother with using alts as mules.

[Sovera]

9 minutes ago, Snarky said:

you can email them to yourself...

 

or start an alternate account.  this will allow you to make a farmer to self PL, and also provides flexibility when transferring awkward amounts of things.

 

By the gods, mailing them one at a time. I remember way back doing that when I discovered Merits and went through my already abundant stash of alts to mail those 9-12 Merits each had 😄

 

Use SG bases and tables, plz.

[Excraft]

3 minutes ago, Sovera said:

Use SG bases and tables, plz.

 

I don't disagree, however this doesn't help people who may have characters in multiple SGs.  If all your characters aren't in the same SG, they don't always have access to the same storage.

[Sovera]

Just now, Excraft said:

 

I don't disagree, however this doesn't help people who may have characters in multiple SGs.  If all your characters aren't in the same SG, they don't always have access to the same storage.

 

I understand. A second account who is in the SG with the tables can grab the stuff and then do the trade. An unified base where we pool all the account's resources is better than having stuff scattered, in my opinion.

 

Personally I'd explain I'm grabbing some stuff from my other SG and will quit for a couple minutes and please re-invite afterwards.

[golstat2003]

7 hours ago, Scarlet Shocker said:

there is really no substitute for just playing the game

 

I would say playing TFs and SFs AND story arcs to get merits specifically. Just doing paper missions to level 50, won't make you much. Not if the OP is looking for the uber builds his intial post seems to indicate.

 

EDIT: Also for the OP: You don't need 1 bil inf to make truly super characters/builds. The most expensive of my numerous IO'd out 50 is around 700-800 mil. With quite a few in the 500-600 mil range. The key is patience when BUYING: put your bid up at the start of a play session and by the next day it's filled at the REASONABLE price you put in.

Edited February 29 by golstat2003

[golstat2003]

27 minutes ago, Sovera said:

 

By the gods, mailing them one at a time. I remember way back doing that when I discovered Merits and went through my already abundant stash of alts to mail those 9-12 Merits each had 😄

 

Use SG bases and tables, plz.

 

You can trade IOs recipies and converters between accounts. Just have both do trade.

 

Also can't you convert Reward Merits into Hero Merits of some sort. (Not sure if those are account bound though, as as soon as I get any merits they get converted into converters for 'buy cheap set ios on the AH then convert them into more expenisve ones' converter shenanigans).

Edited February 29 by golstat2003

[Snarky]

27 minutes ago, Excraft said:

 

Question along these lines, has anyone ever asked any of the folks here on the HC team about the feasibility of adding account based storage items to bases?  I don't remember seeing any threads about it.  Certainly would be nice to be able to store stuff at the account level and not bother with using alts as mules.

There have been so many threads.  My simplest solution would be to allow multiple SGs for each character.  Which is Comic Book Cannon!!!  How Many Supergroups has Wolverine been in?  Many Simultaneously!!!

[Excraft]

23 minutes ago, Snarky said:

There have been so many threads.  My simplest solution would be to allow multiple SGs for each character.  Which is Comic Book Cannon!!!  How Many Supergroups has Wolverine been in?  Many Simultaneously!!!

 

Good thinking.  That would work well too.

[Lunar Ronin]

28 minutes ago, Snarky said:

There have been so many threads.  My simplest solution would be to allow multiple SGs for each character.  Which is Comic Book Cannon!!!  How Many Supergroups has Wolverine been in?  Many Simultaneously!!!

 

Yeah, that's a vestigial of old MMORPG design.  More modern MMORPGs like Elder Scrolls Online and Guild Wars 2 let you belong to multiple guilds simultaneously, account-wide.  It's quite nice.  Now if only they weren't fantasy genre...

[Carnifax]

3 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

By the gods, mailing them one at a time. I remember way back doing that when I discovered Merits and went through my already abundant stash of alts to mail those 9-12 Merits each had 😄

 

Use SG bases and tables, plz.

Yep, email. Thing is I rarely strip chars (advantage of mostly using cheaper sets and rarely loads of purples or Winters). Anyone I do spend the time to purple / winter out I've had on a cheaper build since the mid 20s so I know they work and I like them. Hence they never get stripped for parts. 

Mostly email is full of Oblits, Thunderstrikes and Kinetic Combats (because those are the ones replaced by Winters / Purps as an upgrade). 

 

I will start using tables to squirrel away LOTGs and the uniques as I craft-convert them though. 

[Dacy]

5 hours ago, Carnifax said:

found it by speeding through a video! Off I go for Attempt #2

Just ask if you need more help. 🙂

 

[Ironblade]

Well, I do a ton of task forces.  To generate influence, I buy converters 3,000 at a time using merits, then buy trash recipes, craft them and convert to stuff that sells.  I spend 15-20 minutes at it, about 3-4 times per week and that will get that character to the inf cap (2 billion) in a month or so.  I could make money faster, but why bother?  I only make a new character every other month or thereabouts, so I make money faster than I need it.  And I have 52,000 reward merits still sitting around.

[Ukase]

On 2/29/2024 at 9:15 AM, WuTang said:

It takes a PvP enhancement to covert to a PvP one though, right?

Correct.

[Ukase]

On 2/29/2024 at 7:11 AM, BigKahuna337 said:

@tidge my main toons that I build typically have 4 or 5 purple sets. Each individual enhancement is ~20M so for the set 120M. So then 4 or 5 of those sets 480-600M. Then I still have to slot everything else and yeah I use boosters anywhere I can. Easily costs 1B+.

So, as a marketer, I am fond of players like you. But, at the same time, it amuses me. I know it's not real money. But - time is money, is it not? The time you spend accumulating that influence to get those purples...

Have you considered buying the recipes for about half the cost of the enhancement and crafting them? 
Or, buying a cheaper very rare recipe, crafting and then converting into the more expensive ones? 

I have never mentioned this, but I've often thought about setting up shop as a build enhancement provider, for lack of a better term. 
You share the build you want on mids, and tell me what you'd pay for the enhancements in that build. 
You give me 24 hours, I give you the enhancements, and you pay ME the inf you would have paid the AH for that build. 

I would make a killing - except occasionally folks want a d-sync I don't have stored in my base and that would make me weep, running an Aeon just to satisfy a player's desire to eke out an extra .05% boost. (I just made that number up, don't know what it is, but it's marginal) 

 

It costs you 1B or so, because you're just buying what you want when you want. You're not bidding for these items when you create your character, but when you've dinged 50 and you want it "now". You're not crafting from recipes when it saves inf to do so. 

It's your character, your inf - do it how you like. But just because it CAN cost 1B, by no means does it HAVE to cost you 1B. 

[Ukase]

21 hours ago, Sovera said:

 

I understand. A second account who is in the SG with the tables can grab the stuff and then do the trade. An unified base where we pool all the account's resources is better than having stuff scattered, in my opinion.

 

Personally I'd explain I'm grabbing some stuff from my other SG and will quit for a couple minutes and please re-invite afterwards.

I remember the first (and only) SG I joined on HC. 

There was a 2nd (or 3rd, I've no idea) account a leader had that was set up behind a counter where members were told they had an option to drop off recipes, inspirations, whatever on that character. 
Meanwhile, the base was filled with enhancements of just about any kind. ATOs, Hami-Os, Very Rares, even Overwhelming Forces. It didn't have EVERYTHING, but most things you'd want. 
Kind of a need a penny, take a penny, have a penny, give a penny type deal. 

It gave me the idea to make a 2nd account for my own solo SG that could retrieve or deposit items as needed. I've since dropped the idea, as the population size makes in untenable at times. But nothing works quite so well as a solo SG where all of your characters are members. 

With the global chat channels like Taskforcejunkies and the like, the need for an SG isn't really what it used to be. 
Mind you, I understand it isn't the same. Having an SG with people that you actually like, and have gotten or are getting to know over discord, that's hard to beat, and it's what keeps a lot of players interested in logging in to play. 
So, anything that would serve that purpose would probably be a good thing. 

[macskull]

On 2/29/2024 at 5:49 AM, Ukase said:

If you're a farmer, your converters are free. You get vet levels and emp merits. Use those to convert to reward merits and then to converters. And when you hit, say vet level 48, re-roll your farmer and start over so you always have the merits coming in.

You haven’t been able to convert emp merits to reward merits for a while now, so the only way to make inf via emp merits is converting them to threads and using those to buy and sell super inspirations since it is probably not worth buying converters in bulk with the inf.

[golstat2003]

3 minutes ago, macskull said:

You haven’t been able to convert emp merits to reward merits for a while now, so the only way to make inf via emp merits is converting them to threads and using those to buy and sell super inspirations since it is probably not worth buying converters in bulk with the inf.

 

Eh my farmers convert all their inf to converters and give it to my main farming/crafting kin (who makes money by both farming and crafting), who then uses those to convert lvl 30ish enh into others that sell for more. That often quadruples the inf I got from the original farmer.

Edited March 1 by golstat2003

[macskull]

4 hours ago, golstat2003 said:

Eh my farmers convert all their inf to converters and give it to my main farming/crafting kin (who makes money by both farming and crafting), who then uses those to convert lvl 30ish enh into others that sell for more. That often quadruples the inf I got from the original farmer.

I am supremely lazy and am willing to line other players' pockets, so unless it's purples or the occasional PvP IO I just buy the crafted versions of what I need.

[Ukase]

5 hours ago, macskull said:

You haven’t been able to convert emp merits to reward merits for a while now, so the only way to make inf via emp merits is converting them to threads and using those to buy and sell super inspirations since it is probably not worth buying converters in bulk with the inf.

Thank you for the correction. Some time ago, I know there was talk about changing that, but I thought they tabled that until later. I guess it's later now. I'm still holding stashed transcendent merits and the change went right by my notice. I haven't needed any converters for a while. I guess I can t-4 my next few alts a little faster now, lol. 

Edited March 2 by Ukase

[BigKahuna337]

@Ukasethe main cost I find are winter sets and ATO's. And I don't believe you can craft those from recipes, but I may be wrong? I typically see a single purple Winter enhancement go for ~22M, even the orange ones are about the same price but then you need a catalyst to turn them purple and that's another mil. I don't typically use Ragnarok and those types or purps that you can craft cause my set bonus is Max is typically met between the 4-5 winter sets plus 1-2 ATO sets. Is there a cheaper way to get those? I know you can earn merits and exchange but that's a lot of merits when 1 Winter enhancement costs 100 merits. And I typically earn ~500M PL'ing my toons from 1-50 and then through Vet level 9 or so, so I can work my Alpha Destiny and Lore to at least T3. So when I have that level of influence I just purchased the Winter sets, or most of them.

[Ukase]

10 hours ago, BigKahuna337 said:

@Ukasethe main cost I find are winter sets and ATO's. And I don't believe you can craft those from recipes, but I may be wrong? I typically see a single purple Winter enhancement go for ~22M, even the orange ones are about the same price but then you need a catalyst to turn them purple and that's another mil. I don't typically use Ragnarok and those types or purps that you can craft cause my set bonus is Max is typically met between the 4-5 winter sets plus 1-2 ATO sets. Is there a cheaper way to get those? I know you can earn merits and exchange but that's a lot of merits when 1 Winter enhancement costs 100 merits. And I typically earn ~500M PL'ing my toons from 1-50 and then through Vet level 9 or so, so I can work my Alpha Destiny and Lore to at least T3. So when I have that level of influence I just purchased the Winter sets, or most of them.

Winter sets....so, some of us that have been here since HC opened up, well, we have a bit of an advantage. 

I think it was 4 years ago when HC offered Winter Packs at a discount during the Winter Event, for 10M, instead of 25M. A lot of marketing took place, you can be sure. 
Folks would buy as many as they could. 
Some would relist them for 15 to 24.9M, unopened, and wait until the event was over and make a very easy, but patient 5-15M. 
Many folks would open the packs and sell as many as the goods inside as they could. 

Then, the next year, the devs said they were going to have the sale again, but for 15M, and this would be the LAST time. I think they felt there would be too much push back if they just didn't have the sale..not really sure. But it was clear the HC team wasn't too happy about the results of the sale, for whatever reason. 
The idea behind winter packs is an inf sink, as another player doesn't get that influence, it gets dissolved into the AH. And when players resell the contents, 10% of each price also disappears. In any event, those days of the discounted packs are supposedly over. 

Myself, I still have at least 1000 of them unopened across multiple characters. My emails are FULL of dozens of each winter O, except maybe the entombs on some characters, which I converted, catalyzed and sold for a ton of profit the first year - so I could buy more packs before the sale ended. 

But the history lesson doesn't do you or anyone else much good, does it? What do you and others do now to get these items cheaply? Or as cheaply as you can? 

I recognize that these items sell for a nice chunk, especially if you're starting out and not sitting on a stockpile of influence. This is what I would do:

First. I'd look at all the non-superior winter-Os. The AH is acting really wonky now, in particular when looking for the last 5 prices the item sold at. I have no solution for that. But, what I would do is probably focus on the entombs. These non-superior ATOs are generally cheaper than the others. When I weigh the cost of converting into one of the other sets - Avalanche, Blistering Cold, Frozen Blast, Winter's Bite - the odds are 100% you'll get a Winter-O that has more value than the Entomb. But - the market is silly sometimes. And unknowable. Just like people can be. So, you have to check the AH and see. Like any other item - you have to look at outstanding bids. Some of those bids are from people who are no longer playing that left "noob" traps. Essentially, very small bids. In any event, as you look at bids, look at how many are for sale. It stands to reason that you are likely to make more inf from a sale of an item that has 5 for sale with 100 bids than an item with 67 for sale and 40 bids. 
So, when you get the entomb, you convert it, and then you use some unslotters (that you undoubtedly have from the winter packs) and you slot the winter-O, and catalyze it, then un-slot it and sell it. 

That's where the value is added. It's crazy. I can't look at the AH at this moment, but the last time I did, I saw a non-superior winter selling for 15-18M, and the superior version selling for 22 to 30M. A catalyst USED to sell for 5M, if you can believe that. The price stabilized at 2-3M for a long time and suddenly in the past year, it plummeted to the current 800K to 1.1M. 
But, that's what I'd do. I'd buy the common winter-Os, convert and catalyze (not necessarily in that order if your marketer has a hold power) and sell it - and when you have sold enough to make enough to buy more packs, I'd repeat that until I felt comfy actually using some of the winter sets in the packs. 

You won't make so much inf that you won't ever have to farm doing this unless you're exceptionally patient and can handle the tedium of opening a lot of packs and plucking things like boosters and unslotters from your email. Not to mention the brain storm ideas. You can use those to craft rare salvage and list it on the AH, or use the salvage. I think you get more value using the salvage. Just selling BS ideas is..well, kind of lame. I think you save more using the salvage. But the salvage from BS ideas IS random, so it all depends on how much storage room you have. 

Some folks believe that using 100 reward merits for a winter-O is the way to go. If they can sell the winter O for more than the price of 300 converters, they're right. And, if they take the time to catalyze it, they're even more likely to be right. 

If you're inf poor and merit rich, this is definitely a better path than just trying to lowball bid for an entomb. But, if you have the inf and the patience, I think a lowball bid creates more profit than the 100 reward merit purchase. But, hey, if you've got the merits, are a bit impatient, no harm, no foul. You'll still get what you want. And probably a bit sooner. 

Hope that helps. 
 

[Sovera]

The first thing to consider is if those winter event IOs are REALLY needed. The biggest reason to slot them is for the defense, the second for the slow resist. If not chasing slow resist then a humble Kinetic Combat is almost the same defensive value for a laughable price difference.

 

As I pointed above most of the time purples are not even the best in slot and are just more recharge than any other option, but at the cost of having no particularly useful bonuses (there is an argument to be made for the 15% accuracy and the recovery).

 

 

[Crysis]

On 2/29/2024 at 12:37 PM, lemming said:

I don't know about 1b+ on cost.  I just went thru a couple of my builds and maybe would get up to that if I went thru the auction house for all of it?

 

For example: An electrical/MA blaster of mine has for enhancements:

PVP: 7

Very Rare: 24

Regular: 40  (Luck of the gambler, Numina, etc...)

Basic IO: 5

ATO: 12

Winter: 6

 

Now if went out and bought all those via the auction house at buy it now prices, maybe a billion.   Since I tend to collect a lot of recipes, etc... I tend to craft and sometimes convert, so I might have bought around 50 million (and spent a bunch on crafting, but still cheaper than buying outright)

 

I just took a Powerfarmed 50 I made eons ago and pulled out of the library, totally bare of powers/enhancements of any kind, and finally activated it with a build and fully IO’d slots.  As it happens, the numbers of IO’s it took to do so is almost identical to what you just posted here.  Including Catalyzing the ATO’s and 5 Winter-O’s and boosting about 5 of the IO’s….add say 32 of those combined for maybe another 50mm in influence.  Then all the stuff I buy off the P2W vendor for same, like the base/team travel goodies, for maybe another 5mm.  All in, including the “buy it now” pricing (I didn’t bother to pull any of these IO’s from my reserves, it takes too long for me to do so) on a WEEKEND no less, total came out to about 855mm and some change.  I know because I keep influence in emails in 500MM increments and that toon pulled out a billion even when the building started and still had 145MM left fully kitted.  The overwhelming majority of the spend was on purples, which is why I NEVER sell those on the market and I usually never buy them either.  ATO’s are fairly consistently priced these days as well I’ve noticed, and I often never buy those either due to the hundreds I have from Winter Pack hoarding.

 

So even at current pricing, it’s hard to spend a billion on a PVE oriented AT.  If I was PVP’ing, maybe my PVP recipes would have eaten up more.  Or, more likely, I’d be dropping massive (by today’s standards) influence on D-Synch Provocations to boost or something (those appear to be running 300MM+ right now, but can’t ever tell for sure on the market).  

 

Back to the question posted…..to the OP, if you enjoy farming (I do on occasion), might I suggest ensuring you don’t run for influence rewards but rather recipe rolls?  Great way to fill up a whole mess of yellow recipes that can be easily flipped to AH gold in no time.  

 

I admit I used to despise marketeering, and anyone who writes a guide about it only taking 30 mins of your time is talking in current tense after a lot of experience.  At first, it’s a confusing mess and can take hours of in-game time to learn the tricks to making good influence.  Yes, once you’ve got your first disposable billion or so, you can buy/convert/sell in stacks at a time, and that can take only 30 mins here or there.  But at first…it’s daunting.  

 

So start off easy, find the 4-5 items you really want to specialize in and play that way.  I fondly remember the first billion I ever made off of marketeering alone was simply buying/crafting stacks of Exploited Vulnerability IO’s and converter flipping them all into Achille’s Heel -RES procs.  It wasn’t the most profitable of all the ways to make money, but it was predictably steady for a long, long time until someone published a guide that included that example and kinda killed the market for awhile.  But that’s the basics really…find something that is semi-reliable, turn/churn/burn them via crafting/converting/flipping, then repeat it every day.  Farm during downtime.  Run TF’s if you don’t like everyday missions, always someone advertising a Speed TF….quick way to earn merits, which are great to flip into converters.  Rinse/repeat/profit.

Edited March 3 by Crysis
I no spel gud

[tidge]

23 hours ago, Sovera said:

The first thing to consider is if those winter event IOs are REALLY needed. The biggest reason to slot them is for the defense, the second for the slow resist. If not chasing slow resist then a humble Kinetic Combat is almost the same defensive value for a laughable price difference.

 

As I pointed above most of the time purples are not even the best in slot and are just more recharge than any other option, but at the cost of having no particularly useful bonuses (there is an argument to be made for the 15% accuracy and the recovery).

 

My take on the Winter's pieces... I can see why (AFK-ish) Fire Farmers once recommended (many, many of) them... but for my build styles, it is rare that I use them for anything other than franken-slotting.... and that is usually because PVP and Very Rare sets don't offer the Accuracy/Endurance combinations I want!

 

I have a couple of characters in my roster that have something like "full slotting" of a Winter's set, but those are corner cases.... for defense. I tend to lean into the Global Accuracy and Recharge bonuses from the Very Rare sets. At least that is where my headspace is... especially if I am trying to leverage %damage.

[Troo]

On 2/29/2024 at 5:11 AM, BigKahuna337 said:

4 or 5 purple sets. Each individual enhancement is ~20M so for the set 120M. So then 4 or 5 of those sets 480-600M. Then I still have to slot everything else and yeah I use boosters anywhere I can. Easily costs 1B+

 

yeah.. you are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay over spending and I thank you for it.

 

Every time you spend $20M that's less work I have to do. So sincerely, thank you.