Recycle, repurpose, convert or buy

[COH Radgen]

Plenty of us have multiple alts that we want to slot up to have the best enhancements that we can.  But we also have old alts that we don't play much (or at all) that have some of those 'best' enhancements.  Not all of us are floating in inf as @ukase but I'll admit have have plenty on hand if I need it.

 

So my question to the audience is; Do you tend to move enhancements from one alt to another, do you leave them on an old alt that you don't use much/any, do you take and convert them to new enhancements, or do you just buy the new enhancements for the new alt.

 

I understand, most 'normal' IO enhancements are getting cheaper these days.  Even the usual 4 for health to help both green and blue bars are under, well, we won't talk about specifics here.\\

 

Anyway, do you feel it's worth it to save and convert or just sell and buy or do other?

[Techwright]

I admit I've never considered doing such before.  I assume that would mean either using enhancement unslotters or kicking off a respec and moving all the enhancements into the tray that saves them in an unused state.  While I suppose I could do that, I'd find either process tediously annoying.  I'd therefore intend to continue crafting or buying what I need.  In counterpoint, though, now that I'm thinking on it, I might one day find it useful.

[Ukase]

So, I've had discussions with others before about "alt bloat", wherein you have made a lot of different alts - usually in a very short span of time, and for any number of reasons, some or all lay dormant. 
Here's an example: 
 

Spoiler

Somewhere around 167 days ago, I had done something with the uncommon salvage they possessed, probably because I refuse to ever pay more than 2k for uncommon salvage. I've since taken steps to ensure I'll never have to log in to so many characters, but it should be pretty evident, just on this page alone, other than the one character that did a spur of the moment hami almost a week ago, these characters have gotten no play. 

Some of them will likely never get played again. So, what I've been trying to do is do a respec on those - unslot everything, and stash what's useful, and sell what's not. The dilemma is the value of some enhancements are not that great. Hardly worth the burning of converters, to be honest. And there's no way I'm going to just dump them for 100 inf or something ridiculous. So, in many cases, I'll dump the enhancements into a bin, where the next alt will pick and choose in that pile and use what would be best for that alt. And, candidly, I'm running out of room. Sometimes, a dormant alt is as good a place as any to stash enhancements. From the super/winter packs, I have so many unslotters in my character email, that any one of these dormant characters can just unslot what's useful. Eventually, the goal is to delete all but 10 of my preferred characters on each account. That would still leave me with 40 characters, lol. But I think it would free up some names, and when I want to make a new alt, a new name is easy enough, although I might not get my first choice. 

Some of them will get played again. Like if they're at vet level 14 or something, and t-4'd, I'll undoubtedly start playing each one of these until I get them all a certain amount of merits or badges. If they were enjoyable enough to get to t-4, I'll have fun with them again, I suspect.  

It's just kind of annoying to log in, and sift through 10 pages of level 50s to figure out what you're going to play. So, lately, I've been trying to increase the goals before I retire the alts. 
I think 100 hero merits is a good point to stop. But I may just pursue 1k badges. Or just whatever feels right in that moment. 

 

I just wish I could have another 5 storage bins or 50 more in my base. But until then, there's the 2nd and 3rd sg bases. 

1 hour ago, COH Radgen said:

Not all of us are floating in inf as @yomo

Fixed that for you. And, I strongly suspect there are about 10-20 players with more than yomo or me. I think there's a number of players who look at Yomo and think, "Is that all you have?" 
I can't imagine how much inf I would have if I marketed half the day with an afk farm running for days on end, only stopping for maintenance and to vendor the stuff not worth crafting. Mind you, I'll have a day or so like that, and I used to have quite a few of those days back to back before page 4. But I'm kind of enjoying gathering the prismatics and monstrous aethers while playing. 
And the cheaper the IOs get, the farther my lil stack of inf will go. 

[JKCarrier]

2 hours ago, Ukase said:

So, what I've been trying to do is do a respec on those - unslot everything, and stash what's useful, and sell what's not.

I really should do that, since (aside from my one "badge toon") I always quit playing an alt once it hits 50. And I have done it a couple of times. But there's this annoying voice in the back of my mind saying, "One of these days, they'll come up with endgame content you actually like. And then you'll be glad you still have all those old toons with their enhancements intact."

[Yomo Kimyata]

3 hours ago, Ukase said:

Fixed that for you. And, I strongly suspect there are about 10-20 players with more than yomo or me. I think there's a number of players who look at Yomo and think, "Is that all you have?" 

 

Honestly, I don't have any idea of how much liquid inf I have anymore.  Whoever is managing the PvP factory and/or the purple factory may well be in the mutilple trillions range, but I cannot imagine how much time it might take them per day in order to lock it up -- I generally just get involved there at weak points nowadays.

5 hours ago, COH Radgen said:

So my question to the audience is; Do you tend to move enhancements from one alt to another, do you leave them on an old alt that you don't use much/any, do you take and convert them to new enhancements, or do you just buy the new enhancements for the new alt.

 

Yes.  Actually at this point, somewhere in my gallery, I have someone with either a factory for making everything or have hundreds or thousands of things in storage.  Generally, all of my alts self finance, and the only things I will consider emailing are lvl 53 HOs (and then only the expensive ones).  Everything else I just buy and sell on the open market but since I am not in this business to give things away I will generally do things like buy ten things, use one and sell the other 9 for a 25% profit.

[AlwaysAPrice]

I usually buy fresh enhancements for everything, but I've had a couple cases where I did bother to strip things from an old build. When my kat/fire brute reached the end of her empyrean generating lifespan I pulled out most of her gear because I planned to just start the build over, but never got around to playing the new one up, and recently I saved the ATOs and other bits from a sonic/rad corr in the 30s I deleted because the character had never really clicked for me while a more recent ice/rad had. The corr ATOs I ended up turning into scrapper sets for my latest project with converters, since I'd already kitted out the ice/rad before I realized I was never going to bother with the other and decided to scrap it, and the brute gear got claimed piece by piece over years by other characters who either needed them or that I wanted some quick cash on without alting around to e-mail funds, so when I've done this I've never actually ended up using the stripped pieces for the reason I bothered to strip them for.

 

Generally speaking I don't find it to be worth the time and fiddliness of the process of unslotting and transferring enhancements, let alone losing a combo from my roster of options to play with. My normal play and intermittent marketeering keeps my account hovering comfortably around the 3 billion inf while every new full build that holds my interest runs me about 600 million at buy-it-now pricing, and each tends to make most of that back from drops during their incarnate grind.

[Greycat]

Everyone has their own enhancements. I don't pull them out because (a) it's usually fairly easy to afford the enhancements - it's easier to transfer INF, which can help with other enhancements, after all, and (b) even if I don't play the alt a lot, I still *play* them, and want them ready to go when I am.

[Troo]

On 9/20/2024 at 4:12 PM, COH Radgen said:

Do you tend to move enhancements from one alt to another, do you leave them on an old alt that you don't use much/any, do you take and convert them to new enhancements, or do you just buy the new enhancements for the new alt.

 

I have to really dislike an alt to clean them out. But I've done it. Picked 'em clean.

More commonly, and outside the answers you asked for, I have stashes of good precrafted loot for new characters. (I've run out of space regularly)

I will then buy or craft/convert anything needed.

 

Edited Wednesday at 12:29 AM by Troo

[UltraAlt]

8 hours ago, COH Radgen said:

Do you tend to move enhancements from one alt to another

 

Never.

 

8 hours ago, COH Radgen said:

do you leave them on an old alt that you don't use much/any

 

I have so many alts, it is random which ones I get to play outside of the gaming times with a small group that I generally play fixed alts with.

 

8 hours ago, COH Radgen said:

do you take and convert them to new enhancements

 

no. I don't think I have ever used a converter.

 

8 hours ago, COH Radgen said:

do you just buy the new enhancements for the new alt

 

More or less. I tend to have some of the standards stockpiled one place or three or ... who knows how many places? I don't. They are all over the place.

 

 

 

 

[Scarlet Shocker]

If an alt is slotted reasonably well then I keep it.

 

If I find I get to 50 and don't like the toon after a few lvl 50 appropriate missions, it most likely gets scrubbed. Others that are niche, unexciting but functional or boring get put on a back page and probably only rarely get to see light of day depending on the context/needs of the team on a given day so they move slowly.

 

Those I like and/or play consistently will get the best builds and attention. Mostly though I keep them in an SG for my alts so everything of value gets shoved in bins and the good ones get to cherry pick.

 

I have no hard and fast rules on this. Mostly it's gut feeling. I can't think of a time I've ever robbed a functioning build on an alt to give a better build to a different toon.

 

Also I fundamentally dislike enhancement unslotters. They seem expensive - and respecs are cheap.

[PhotriusPyrelus]

I don't have that many alts, but I think I would just leave them alone and buy new enhancements for a new character.  So if I ever end up wanting to go back to that alt everything is already ready already.

[Logansan]

I don't think I have ever moved a (slotted) enchantment from one character to another. Once the sets are slotted I trend to leave them as is, even if better sets are added to the game or the powers are altered.

 

Each time I get  a new alt to 50 it doesn't really cost me much to fit them out as I keep any good enchantments I find ready in supergroup bins.  It normally only costs less then 75 million to buy the few enchantments I don't already have.

[Uun]

If I'm upgrading a character and removing a set from a power, I'll drop the removed enhancements in my base rather than selling them if they're something a future character might need. I generally limit this to uniques and pricier enhancements. I'll also do this if I end up with something useful in the course of converting. For the most part though, all my characters self fund and just buy stuff as needed.

[PyroBeetle]

When Homecoming first came to public light, I used to maintain bins and unslot alts that I stopped playing, all in the quest for more powerful heroes or new toon experiences. Now, more than 5 years later, I find myself creating characters that I like because of a look or a back story,  and then play them exclusively, often for a month or more. Doing this allows me to just start off a new alt with 999,999,999 inf, the most that a single email can contain, and a couple of transcendent merits. This is enough to buy the enhancements I want when I want them without waiting for the market, and to T3 my Incarnate abilities as they open. The need for unslotting when I play this way is nil.

Edited September 21 by PyroBeetle

[lemming]

I only strip characters if they are being retired and that generally only happens with chars I don't think I'll play anymore.

I think I had a high of around 200 characters, and now I'm at 88.  Goal of around 50, but now what I tend to do is when I add an alt, I tend to retire 2-3.

 

Retiring, I completely strip the char and delete.   Enhancements, I used to keep them all, but with fewer chars, less need, so been selling.   And with inf piling up, keeping generic IOs around is less needed as well.  Most of the alts being retired are ones I got to 50, they are minimally equipped with basic stuff, so almost everything just gets sold at this point.

 

Actual steps:

• Check that I have costume saved. (I have restarted a couple retired, usually slightly different AT or powers)
• Convert Emps & Reward merits into Tran & Hero merits.  Left overs, depends.  Sometimes I buy a bunch of converters, sometimes I'll do something to get to an even 50. (moreso with Emp)
• Convert all incarnate stuff into super insp.   Sell them at whatever.
• Salvage and Recipes, if useful to other chars, transfer, if not, sold.  (vendor or AH)
• Transfer it all to an alt.
• Delete.
• Realize I forgot to send the inf over, or that they were lead of a SG. 😄  (Only happened once, but ow)

[Crysis]

I tend to not be a wasteful person in life, and this trait follows me into gaming.

 

I have so many fully T4’d out 50’s, many sporting 4-5 Purple sets and tons of Hami-O’s, that I feel wasteful letting them sit there, unused, while I go off and buy more for a new project.  

 

That said, sometimes I’ll “melt down” an old alt that I no longer play via a respec so I can grab all their enhancements into the trays and then just delete them entirely.  Other times, if I think the toon -may- someday be better after some Dev love (looking at you Storm Blast alts), I’ll use enhancement unslotters to grab their ATO’s, Purples, Winter Event enh and their HamiO’s via Unslotters and pass them off to another toon.   It’s easy enough to reslot them should they ever be more than lackluster appeal again after a dev update, but since I’m not playing them, no sense leaving “gold rims on the car up on jacks in the garage” as they say.

 

 

[Ukase]

On 9/20/2024 at 10:48 PM, JKCarrier said:

I really should do that, since (aside from my one "badge toon") I always quit playing an alt once it hits 50. And I have done it a couple of times. But there's this annoying voice in the back of my mind saying, "One of these days, they'll come up with endgame content you actually like. And then you'll be glad you still have all those old toons with their enhancements intact."

So, much to my surprise, I dusted off a character I hadn't played in 4 years or so. At least, it was created 4 years ago. Not sure how long it was dormant. At least 3 years, I'd guess. And it's an ice/cold corr. 
So, due to the absolutely crap decision by whatever bully in the powers division decided to nerf burnout, I respec'd that power out. (and yeah, that's a little rant/vent. There was absolutely no reason acceptable to me to do that. And that's my only litmus test for power nerfs. If my character has that power, and they change it, it is woefully unacceptable) 
 

And, realized it was missing a lot of things I now do with all characters beyond the 4 passive accolades. So, I've been doing all kinds of stuff with it, including the labyrinth. I don't think it's quite as useful as my fire/natty in the Mino/Achylus fights. But I guess when people run into the center, there's only so much an ice shield is going to do for them. 
The new respec seems to work well. Or at least, well enough. The HP has got to be the lowest of any corruptor I've got, but it doesn't take many hits, so it's not that much of a concern. Yet. 

Just a few more characters to move to the front page...and then about 200 or so to find something to do with. 

[NotsoevilDM]

I don't have that many toons, not yet anyway. So, I am keeping them all slotted for now, as I still take the few 50s I have out for a few missions, Hami or Tinpex every now and then. 

 

I usually don't transfer inf between toons, but I have noticed that a couple of my 50s are building up nice reserves so might start tranferring the odd million or two to help my alts get their first set of IOs at 25. Plus I have a small stash of Hami-O's in emails that will get picked up by relevant toons at 50.  

[JasperStone]

I have been working on my alts.

I leave them kitted out so I can pop onto one at will.

Most have all inf and salvage ...perhaps I should consider emailing the inf and selling the salvage.

[High_Beam]

I have done this once or twice.  Characters that I invested slotting of Set IOs in at an early point (pre-30) then discovered that I wasn't having fun with the character which placed it in the scrap pile.  Buy needed Set IO recipes with any reward merits or execute the tedious transfer withing account, then I strip them using a respec, trade set IOs, salvage recipes and influence and anything else sitting in them to a mule.  THEN DELETE.  In rare cases where I have a character that I ran to 50 and either tolerated or liked but lost pleasure in playing, they are stripped like the others then sent to Everlasting.

 

The Mule then divies out the Set IOs to those in need based on my spreadsheet or dumps them in the Base Bin.

[Without_Pause]

On 9/21/2024 at 2:05 AM, Greycat said:

Everyone has their own enhancements. I don't pull them out because (a) it's usually fairly easy to afford the enhancements - it's easier to transfer INF, which can help with other enhancements, after all, and (b) even if I don't play the alt a lot, I still *play* them, and want them ready to go when I am.

Pretty much this. If I felt the need to strip out IOs from an alt, I am doing so since I am deleting the character. I have 15 Level 50s on my main account. I email their extra earnings to the lower level characters, and I use a spreadsheet for the current build status and finance situation each of my characters are in. Level 50s are either fully done or use common IOs with having 500 mill on hand for the conversion when I want to do their final build. My current target goal is anyone under 50 having 200 mill on hand. I have a plan for getting my next 5 characters to 50 in say Oct. which would put me roughly having 2/3 of my roster on my main account at 50. My biggest stop gap for not having a character at 50 is honestly a lack of a build.

[Andreah]

On 9/20/2024 at 11:24 PM, Yomo Kimyata said:

the purple factory

This feels like it has a half dozen hands in it right now.

[Andreah]

I only have a few dozen alts, but all of them are well geared, and I occasionally play old ones often enough I don't strip anything off them. 

[WuTang]

Still too new to have too many alts, but Inf is easy to come by, so for me, as of right now, I just don't think I would bother stripping one down. The market is full, prices fluctuate but nothing crazy, and so far, I haven't wanted for anything...well not since I figured out the inf game. Got thousands upon thousands of reward merits, enough inf that I can buy what I want when I want, enhancement-wise that is, somethings are still pretty up there for me, but those things are wants not needs.

 

I used to be short alot. A new alt would out level my wallet and they'd have to sit at 50 for a week or so until I managed to scrap together enough to finish them off. Now my stockpile of enhancements and reward merits is good enough that new alts don't outpace my resources, and that in turn has led to me saving up even more inf...so forth and so on. It may be the long way around...but hey still gets ya there.