economy Crashing This Economy With No Survivors - How to Abuse Super Packs for Profit

[Timrod]

I've seen guides posted before about how to make loads of influence using enhancement converters. Today, I'm here to tell you that not only is that method for chumps (since most people have already read that guide and caught onto it) but that there's a far better way to earn influence that will absolutely crash the server's economy once people figure it out. I've made some money off this, but I feel like it's time to reveal this method (which I'm sure other people know) in order to hopefully make the economy less dumb.

 

How Do I Get Started?

 

The first thing you want to do is realize how to get the most money out of your reward merits. I play primarily on Torchbearer, so all of these numbers are going to be Torch-specific. If your shard is different, you may need to adjust this a bit to fit.

 

On Torchbearer, one Enhancement Booster sells for around 1.1 to 1.2 million. I've seen some people get lucky and sell for as much as 1.7, but that's an extreme outlier. Most of the time, it's going to be between 1.1 and 1.2 million inf unless someone is dumping on the market like crazy (which everyone will be once they read this guide). This means that for 100 reward merits, you're looking at over 22 million influence even after AH fees. In contrast, pretty much everything else is going to sell for less than that. The closest I've seen anything get are the purple sets that are used by fire farmers, but even those usually only reach 22.5-23 million inf on a good day and may not sell for that much if people undercut you.

 

I made an alt and levelled it to around 40, and I had some 500 reward merits from doing TFs and trials. I cashed these in for a bit over 100 million influence by converting them to Enhancement Boosters at a ratio of 5:1.

 

This is going to be your starting capital for crashing the economy.. with no survivors.

 

I Have the Money, What Now?

 

Simple. The server owners have seeded the auction house with Super Packs, which are CoX's term for loot boxes. There are three types:

 

Heroes & Villains: These contain the first set of Archetype Origin Enhancements (ATOs) for each AT [ex: Command of the Mastermind for MMs]

Rogues & Vigilantes: These contain the second set of ATOs for each AT [ex: Mark of Supremacy for MMs]

Lords of Winter: These are significantly more expensive, but contain winter enhancement sets that sell at a significantly higher price.

 

You're going to want to start with the first two types, which are priced at 10 million inf each. Lords of Winter packs are 25 million each.

 

Now, here's what's in the Super Packs:

 

Candy Cane Salvage (Lords of Winter only, practically useless)

Brain Storm Ideas (20x or 40x, will only pop up once per pack)

Enhancement Converters (common as dirt)

Enhancement Unslotters (also common as dirt)

Enhancement Boosters (uncommon)

Enhancement Catalysts (rare)

Reward Merits (25x, will only pop up once per pack)

Various Temp Powers (guaranteed in every pack)

Free Tailor Vouchers (uncommon)

Dual/Dual Team Inspirations (these are guaranteed in every pack)

Archetype Origin Enhancements (H&V/R&V only, 1 or 2 per pack)

Winter Enhancements (Lords of Winter only, 1 or 2 per pack)

 

Most of this stuff is pretty worthless. What we're after are the ATOs/Winter Enhancements, the Reward Merits (which can be converted to boosters and sold) and the Boosters/Catalysts (which can be sold directly). Pretty much everything in these packs should be sold directly - don't try to use a Catalyst on one of the ATOs you unbox because I find that people don't buy Superior enhancements as much. For the inspirations, you can use or delete the health and endurance ones, which don't sell. The others you can just put up for 1 inf each to avoid AH fees and sometimes make 100,000 inf off them.

 

The temporary powers are a nice side bonus - these can include the Experienced power (which gives you half a level of patrol XP, great for levelling alts) and the temp power that boosts your influence gain for an hour.

 

The trick here is that the contents of a Super Pack can usually be sold for far more than the Super Pack itself was worth. If you get lucky and find a Brute ATO, these can sell for 10 million by themselves. Most ATOs are in the 6 to 8 million range, so if you're getting two in a pack that's potentially 4 to 6 million inf in profit PER PACK. The profit from this will more than offset any losses you might take from bad unboxes where you only get one ATO. Once you factor in stuff like the reward merits and boosters/catalysts you're almost guaranteed to make a profit provided you have enough starting capital.

 

I'd also recommend splitting your money between two types of packs so that you don't accidentally flood the market.

 

How Well Does It Work?

 

Remember the 40 alt I told you about? I have had them at zero influence gain from kills the entire time I've been playing them. Within a few days, I turned that 100 million influence into almost 300 million. Once you get enough inf to afford ten or so Lords of Winter packs at once, you gain influence even FASTER, as most LoW enhancements are worth at least 22 million by themselves, meaning it's almost impossible to lose money on them. My most recent LoW unboxing was 7 packs where I got a total of 11 Winter enhancements that I sold for 20 million each: I could've gone higher but I wanted fast sales.

 

25 million x 7 = 175,000,000 inf (175 million)

20 million inf x 11 = 220,000,000 inf (220 million)

 

Minus AH fees, that's still probably around 215 million influence, or 40 million influence in profit from around five minutes of screwing around with super packs. In contrast, a 50+4 ITF farm run with full kills will take you probably two hours and yield a bit over 30 million. I know which one I'd rather do.

 

Won't This Crash the Economy?

 

Oh, it ABSOLUTELY will. If enough people do this, the number of ATOs and Winter enhancements will vastly out-number the amount of alts being generated to buy said enhancements with AE farm money. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that if enough people figure this out, the only things that will still be worth money are the Summer Blockbuster enhancements and Hami-Os because of the increased amount of time it takes to farm those.

 

Edited July 25, 2019 by GM Fiddleback

[Yomo Kimyata]

I wholeheartedly support your endeavors.  I expect to profit off your risk-taking!

 

*polishes monocle*

[Coyote]

Hyperbole.

 

If a lot of people do this, the price of ATOs and the other items in the booster packs will drop.... to a level where the profit is still noticeable but not so immense.

 

So, some items being sold on the auction houses will drop in price. This will have a negative feedback on the amount of people buying the super packs, and then the downward pressure on the items in the packs will decrease.

 

In the end, prices will stabilize with the items in the super packs at a lower level, but not "crashed". Brute ATOs, as an example, may drop from 6 mil to 3-4 mil. And the market, and the servers, will go on.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

So this can be worth it but I think there's a few things to point out:

1. The market is common across all shards, it's not server specific (not super relevant but worth remembering)

2. Enhancement Converters tend to be on par with Enhancement Boosters in terms of inf per merit (since you have 15x more converters for the merits)

3. Market fees are 10% of the final sale price so I think you're slightly overestimating your profit.

4. If you get a bad ATO it might be worth using converters to turn it into a good ATO.

5. It's unlikely that people will actually manage to crash the ATO market. If people start losing money opening packs they will stop opening packs. So in general the market will tend to stabilize at a point where on average you make a moderate profit opening packs.

 

[Herotu]

If the reward for the packs goes under 10m, people will stop buying them. Right? Right?

[Zolgar]

If the reward for the packs goes under 10m, people will stop buying them. Right? Right?

 

Yes and no. People will still open them because 1) they don't know better, and 2) blind packs are fun to open.

[Yipp]

What economy?

 

Once you have your Main to 50 with all his possible Enhancements working on Incarnates.... what do you spend INF on other than the occasional P2W selection like Back-up radio or Defensive Amplifier at a fixed price?

 

The problem with COH was and still is no INF sink other than another alt which at some point, will end.  So given a reasonable amount of time, just about anyone can max-out their main character and 1 alt, with ease. Then its the few people who will have 10 or 20 level 50 alts that will be impacted & they probably have a farmer than can generate 50 million INF in under an hour.

 

If we really want to be constructive to the future of COH, we can help the developers come up with INF sinks that are easy to implement, meaningful to the player, without tilting existing game balance.

[Zolgar]

The problem with COH was and still is no INF sink other than another alt which at some point, will end.

 

There's not even much of an inf sink in making new alts, since a large portion of the inf you spend on set IOs often goes to other players, and most of us don't bother with SOs any more even when leveling, so once we get one character to 50 and kitted out, we dump their leveling IOs in our bases for the next generation of characters.

 

At this point, the only inf sinks we have are the Super Packs, which always take a certain amount of inf. out of the economy, and the P2W vendor.. Granted if we buy literally all the prestige powers for every alt, she's only going to soak like what, 30 mil per alt?

[Shinobu]

 

1.  You can certainly get merit rewards more than once in a pack.

2.  You can certainly get brain storm idea rewards more than once in a pack.

3.  You can certainly get zero ATOs or Winter Os in a pack.

 

Otherwise, yes this strategy works and the nicest part of it for me is having all of the other stuff in e-mail for use when you're on a lower-level alt and need extra help.  But on the whole, I find making money a lot easier and faster doing the craft/convert thing.  ^_^

 

 

[Adeon Hawkwood]

At this point, the only inf sinks we have are the Super Packs, which always take a certain amount of inf. out of the economy, and the P2W vendor..

Actually the primary inf sink in the economy is market fees. Since the market takes 10% of every transaction that sets a limit on the maximum size of the economy, basically for every 1inf generated by game play you have a maximum of 10inf worth of market transactions.

 

This is nice since compared to static inf sinks it automatically scales up with the size of the economy.

[Robotech_Master]

So the "trick" is, basically "buy the packs, sell the stuff." A nice "trick," but did it really need to be stretched to a whole guide when, like, a sentence or two would have done? :)

 

(And by the way, Enhancement Converters are probably more lucrative, from an Inf-per-merit standpoint. 100 merits' worth of Enhancement Converters could be worth 27 to 30 million.)

[Profit]

For the record, I've never asked anyone to abuse anything.

[Obitus]

So the "trick" is, basically "buy the packs, sell the stuff." A nice "trick," but did it really need to be stretched to a whole guide when, like, a sentence or two would have done? :)

 

(And by the way, Enhancement Converters are probably more lucrative, from an Inf-per-merit standpoint. 100 merits' worth of Enhancement Converters could be worth 27 to 30 million.)

 

Yeah, the apocalyptic rhetoric in the OP isn't quite appropriate.  Don't get me wrong, earning 200 million INF in "a few days," is impressive, but there are ways to earn more, faster.

 

And "crashing" the ATO market is a good thing, as far as I'm concerned.  It won't happen, of course; the price will find an equilibrium point, but in principle, there's nothing wrong with dirt cheap ATOs.  The average player would benefit.

[Trypticon]

ATOs and winter enhancements take a while to sell so this method isn't great if you aren't patient.  The market for them isn't that big either so you can't dump 40 into the AH and expect to have all your profits in a couple of hours like you can with some rares.  There are definitely faster, higher margin ways to make inf but this method is nice as a passive income source for people who don't want to spend large chunks of time crafting and converting.  The extra merits and experience buffs for your alts are a nice bonus. 

[ajax34i]

This method is like playing the slot machines at a casino.  Just push the button repeatedly.

 

The enhancement converters is like playing the poker machines.  Offers some choices about what to hold and what to re-roll.

 

Hilariously, the "convert" button sound effects are EXACTLY slot machine sound effects.

[Papaschtroumpf]

I must have had bad luck. I bought 5 hero packs in the past few weeks and only got 4 ATOs. Two from one pack and two packs with nothing but garbage (unslotters, inspirations).

With the ATOs selling for under $8M I don't think I got my money back. Sounds like I need to buy more and let the law of averages work for me?

[Zolgar]

I must have had bad luck. I bought 5 hero packs in the past few weeks and only got 4 ATOs. Two from one pack and two packs with nothing but garbage (unslotters, inspirations).

With the ATOs selling for under $8M I don't think I got my money back. Sounds like I need to buy more and let the law of averages work for me?

 

Except since everyone is jumping on this, the price of ATOs is going to keep dropping, so ... good luck turning a profit off this method. >.>

[Mr. Vee]

I must have had bad luck. I bought 5 hero packs in the past few weeks and only got 4 ATOs. Two from one pack and two packs with nothing but garbage (unslotters, inspirations).

With the ATOs selling for under $8M I don't think I got my money back. Sounds like I need to buy more and let the law of averages work for me?

 

Except since everyone is jumping on this, the price of ATOs is going to keep dropping, so ... good luck turning a profit off this method. >.>

 

This has worked and died out no fewer than three times since i've been paying attention. Same cycle as anything - good profits, people jump on, profits dry up, people jump off, profits return, repeat.

[Cheli]

I wouldn't exactly call ATOs falling in price so they're not 10 million each 'crashing the economy'.

 

You can't really 'crash the economy' when everything can be purchased directly with merits. If the price of an enhancement on the auction house exceeds the value of the amount of merits it sells for from the merit vendor, people will just buy them with merits instead.

[Papaschtroumpf]

Can you buy winter IOs with merits? I never looked.

[Mr. Vee]

Can you buy winter IOs with merits? I never looked.

 

Yes, but unless there's one not up for sale or they're running really high that day it'd be worth it to sell off converters or boosters and buy anyway.

[Cheli]

Can you buy winter IOs with merits? I never looked.

 

All event IOs, ATOs and purple/PVP recipes are 100 merits from the vendor. Rare sets are 50; uncommon sets are 20.

 

Normally this is an ineffective way to buy these, because 100 merits is generally worth more than the 25-30 million inf you would spend buying these on the AH... buuuut because you can buy them with merits, if the price fluctuated up past the rough inf value of 100 merits, then yeah, people would just buy them with merits. It's a nice control on the price of stuff going too far out of whack honestly. And since this is a private server that we play on for fun, and not a live server where subscriptions and microtransactions incentivize artificially controlling the economy by making things like ATOs, event IOs and useful salvage like converters/boosters impossible to get outside of real-money trade... I think it's a good idea.

[Zolgar]

Can you buy winter IOs with merits? I never looked.

 

All event IOs, ATOs and purple/PVP recipes are 100 merits from the vendor. Rare sets are 50; uncommon sets are 20.

 

Normally this is an ineffective way to buy these, because 100 merits is generally worth more than the 25-30 million inf you would spend buying these on the AH... buuuut because you can buy them with merits, if the price fluctuated up past the rough inf value of 100 merits, then yeah, people would just buy them with merits. It's a nice control on the price of stuff going too far out of whack honestly. And since this is a private server that we play on for fun, and not a live server where subscriptions and microtransactions incentivize artificially controlling the economy by making things like ATOs, event IOs and useful salvage like converters/boosters impossible to get outside of real-money trade... I think it's a good idea.

 

Though it's getting really close.

 

Converters are worth about 100k a piece on their own, so a merit is worth somewhere around 300k right now. The price of converters drops much more and the high demand winter pieces, purples, and PVPs will be more viable to buy with merits. >.> (Assuming, of course, their price doesn't drop too)

[Cheli]

Can you buy winter IOs with merits? I never looked.

 

All event IOs, ATOs and purple/PVP recipes are 100 merits from the vendor. Rare sets are 50; uncommon sets are 20.

 

Normally this is an ineffective way to buy these, because 100 merits is generally worth more than the 25-30 million inf you would spend buying these on the AH... buuuut because you can buy them with merits, if the price fluctuated up past the rough inf value of 100 merits, then yeah, people would just buy them with merits. It's a nice control on the price of stuff going too far out of whack honestly. And since this is a private server that we play on for fun, and not a live server where subscriptions and microtransactions incentivize artificially controlling the economy by making things like ATOs, event IOs and useful salvage like converters/boosters impossible to get outside of real-money trade... I think it's a good idea.

 

Though it's getting really close.

 

Converters are worth about 100k a piece on their own, so a merit is worth somewhere around 300k right now. The price of converters drops much more and the high demand winter pieces, purples, and PVPs will be more viable to buy with merits. >.> (Assuming, of course, their price doesn't drop too)

 

There are already some I feel it's viable with. I use the Steadfast Protection +Def IO in almost all of my builds; it's a lower-level common recipe, so it's only 20 merits, but the IO on the AH can go for 9-10 mil sometimes. Most PVP sets, on the other hand, I find are pretty underpriced compared to the 100 merit vendor pricetag... whereas purples and Winters are definitely probably close to even if you buy them with merits instead of inf.

[Remidi]

For the ATOs, do you still need to buy one type of pack to get certain AT types, or are they all in both types?  And if it is specific, are Sentinel sets in either of them?