Never admit to being a Marketeer in game...

[Ironblade]

On 4/7/2025 at 10:31 AM, Hatchet_Manners said:

If you think flipping (buying something low and relisting it high) is a good way to make profit in the current system then you don't understand the market.

 

On 4/7/2025 at 11:06 AM, The Trouble said:

....but I am making a profit.

 

They weren't saying it was not *A* way to make a profit.  I don't think anyone would deny you can make a profit by flipping.  I did it a little on live and moved on, because it's not a very good way to make a profit on the AH.

[UltraAlt]

5 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

*Shouts down from a big pile of inf*
 

I KNOW, RIGHT?

 

 

[Andreah]

On 4/8/2025 at 3:29 PM, Ironblade said:

They weren't saying it was not *A* way to make a profit.  I don't think anyone would deny you can make a profit by flipping.  I did it a little on live and moved on, because it's not a very good way to make a profit on the AH.

IMO, it's a low effort, low return activity. I doubt anyone is a trillionaire from a flipping focus.

[Ukase]

On 2/12/2025 at 11:08 AM, The Trouble said:

Has anyone else made the mistake of admitting they're an evil Wentworth's leech in-game?

I have never encountered any kind of animosity for being competent at making my own influence via marketing. I've gotten far more animosity for daring to talk about farming, or even worse, afk-farming. The player that unleashed on you is displaying their frustration at their own ignorance. Think nothing of it. Now that you have your own stacks of inf, I encourage you to make a second account and make a farmer to PL yourself so you don't have to deal with miscreants like this. 

But - seriously - congratulations to you for reading the various guides, and figuring stuff out and making stacks of inf for your own alts. 

There are some marketers who, while not genuinely evil, they do manipulate the market in the short term. As an example, I give you the driven up prices of uncommon and rare salvage. Over the weekend, it seemed to get bad enough for players to pay a full 1M for rare salvage - which is essentially capped at 1M because the devs originally placed 10M rare salvage on the market at 1M to keep the "ebil" marketers from going too far. I'm not sure who first made the typo in "ebil", as we know it's supposed to be "evil", but it's a bit of a meme now. 

There are also other players who may have missed the price point, and suddenly find the dozens of a specific IO they've listed aren't selling for the price they thought they should. So, they buy them all at the cheaper price and re-list them at the point they think they should cost. Generally, other marketers see this, and simply make more to sell for the cheaper price, leaving the would-be evil marketer with even more inventory that's not going to sell anytime soon. 

So, there is a small case for marketers to be deemed evil. And it's felt rather strongly by those who don't market and don't farm, and for whatever reason don't seem inclined to learn about either one. They play the game, and they grind through. I kind of envy them. But then I make a challenge character and quickly stop envying them the struggle. I like being able to get the teleporters and workbench from the START vendor. It makes things more enjoyable for me. I also like giving away inf to those who are too busy or just not inclined to market. I really don't want more people marketing. I am sometimes mildly annoyed at Yomo for giving away the secrets. But, then I remember I've got to thank him. Due to the competition of more marketers, my inf goes even further now than it did two years ago, making my purchase power even stronger. 

[Ukase]

On 2/18/2025 at 8:40 AM, Zect said:

In fact, I would go so far as to say the average person is generally terrible at their choice of activity whatever that might be:

This is painful to read, but sadly, it's probably true. Thankfully, most of the folks in this game are above average. At least, the ones I know. Even most of the folks I disagree with a lot are fairly competent at what they do. We all rise to our own level of incompetence. I've reached mine on the forums, that's for sure. 

[Shad0hawK]

 

21 minutes ago, Ukase said:

This is painful to read, but sadly, it's probably true. Thankfully, most of the folks in this game are above average. At least, the ones I know. Even most of the folks I disagree with a lot are fairly competent at what they do. We all rise to our own level of incompetence. I've reached mine on the forums, that's for sure. 

yes but the more intelligent we are the bigger the mess when we screw up because it is usually spectacular.  🙂

 

[Ukase]

1 hour ago, Shad0hawK said:

yes but the more intelligent we are the bigger the mess when we screw up because it is usually spectacular

Do you not see the wonderful way I made my point? My own incompetence in the forums is proven by each rebuttal to every post I make. 🤣

[TMadness]

On 2/12/2025 at 11:08 AM, The Trouble said:

I discovered Homecoming in 2023.  So unlike the early adopters, I didn't have coffers overflowing with money.  The anticipation of having a "perfect" build became too much, and because I play mostly solo, I realized that in order to have the influence to fund my "perfect build" quickly was through Wentworth's.  I did some reading.  Long story short: I had my enhancements already in my inventory as the slots became available.  It was amazing.

 

Anyhow, I was teamed on a farm to get some quick early levels on one of my Tankers.  The lead was generously giving me advice on my powerset because their main shared the same primary.  Then they casually complained how hard it was to keep funding their growing stable of alts.  They said that farming got them about 20m per hour. So I shared some marketing wisdom... sort of a "thank you" for their build advice.  I let them know they could get about ten times what they were making in the same amount of time.

 

Their response was filled with the most profanity filters I've seen in the two-ish years I've been back in Paragon City!  "Greedy" this, "price-gouging", that, "manipulation" this, "leeching" that...  The entire mood soured instantly.  I had no idea of the stigma until I opened my mouth, and it honestly shocked me.

 

Has anyone else made the mistake of admitting they're an evil Wentworth's leech in-game?

"First rule of Fight Club is we don't talk about Fight Club"

 

It's not that it's not entertaining to talk about FC but most people can't wrap their minds around it because they are too rigid in their thinking. Because it's not in their norm they label it as something bad...So we don't openly talk about FC. Cus this thread is about FC  😜

[Ukase]

I'll give you a billion reasons to not mention you're a marketer. A player I never heard of the other day, while I'm minding my own business waiting for the Hami raid to start in the abyss sends me a tell, "You don't know me, but I'm level 47 and I could really use some inf for my build."

I think to myself, "I have the resources. Sure, I can help. But if I don't know you, how do you know me?" 
And really, these days, I have players who have level 50 characters who pretend to be broke, trying to take advantage of kindness. 

I keep saying, I like to give it away. But it has to be my idea. Not yours. Otherwise, a line forms up, and then I'm the broke one. It's more fun to do a hami raid because you want to, not because you feel like you need to. 

Read the guides and do the tedious crafting. And if you can't be bothered with doing that, then don't bother me! 

[tidge]

11 minutes ago, Ukase said:

I'll give you a billion reasons to not mention you're a marketer. A player I never heard of the other day, while I'm minding my own business waiting for the Hami raid to start in the abyss sends me a tell, "You don't know me, but I'm level 47 and I could really use some inf for my build."

 

On one hand: "Don't ask, don't get". On the other hand, they are about to get 120 Merits for less than 20 minutes of effort.

[sponazgul]

On 2/12/2025 at 12:08 PM, The Trouble said:

 

 

Has anyone else made the mistake of admitting they're an evil Wentworth's leech in-game?

I don’t really play the market, but dropped in here to say that this is probably more of a THEM problem than a YOU problem.

 

You can hide being a marketeer if you don’t want to be chided by what is likely a very small member of the community, primed to be offended, but you’ll miss out on meeting like-minded folks.

 

I am sorry that you had a bad experience 

[CFIndustries]

I simply dislike "marketeering" as a concept, ever since it was announced. I do sell the stuff that makes some influence, craft some others to make a bit more, but I don't follow any of the guides for "getting rich quick" in marketeering as…they just break the "fun" for me. I built a dedicated farmer (with a bio that makes fun of farming and marketeering)  based on some excellent guides, and if I have to do something that isn't playing on a team, I find solo farming more like actual playing, and relaxing in it's own way. Grind away, get some nice drops, make some nice influence, listen to music, watch a show, and alt when teams start to form.

 

I have a severe case of altitis so I need the funds to build nice alts. And in the beginning I had to farm fairly regularly. But now my existing 50s get played enough at random to mostly supply the up-and-coming ats. And grinding for T4 incarnates keeps me playing longer on a given alt anyway, which means more inflience. This is even considering I probably pay too much for set IOs since I'm mostly a "get it now" than "wait for the price to come down" buyer. Despite all that, I farm maybe a few times a year when I get too alt-happy, or a bad combination of expensive builds close together, or I play alot of lowbies for a while, or whatnot. And I am happy I don't have to farm very often.

 

Frankly, I used to be a bit down on farmers, not marketeers. And I still have negative opinions about some aspects of farming. Never farmed on Live, didn't need to. But the economy vs. what I enjoy about the game vs. what I don't enjoy conspires to keep me broke on Homecoming without a little farming for influence here and there. So my opinion of farming softened out of necessity. (And even when I thougth farmers were some sort of evil, it never reached the level at which some people hate them and the efforts the devs sometimes seem to take to nerf them.)

 

I do not, however, think any less of the "marketeers." After reading the guides on doing this, I give someone props that they can make more money than my farmer by keeping all that marketeering information in their head AND enjoy it. Not my thing, but kudos for you. I'm glad enough that I make influence faster farming than playing for the times I need to top-off my funds.

 

I never really understood the "destroy farming!" hate, and until now, I'd never heard of "markteering hate."

[Yomo Kimyata]

A few thoughts after looking at this thread again after a handful of months:

 

1.  I’m reading a book on sugrophobia, which is basically the fear of being tricked (the name basically means “fear of being a sucker”).  Now, in real life, I have this in spades to the point where I can safely say it is pathological or at least neurologically atypical.  And I’ve spent a lot of my life in competitive and/or lucrative spaces where all kinds of people do all kinds of things to get ahead, so I’ve gotten a lot of confirmation bias reinforcement.  To a lot of people, working the /AH system, be it through trading or making and selling product, is incomprehensible black magic of the highest degree.  It is a skill that may or may not be in their wheelhouse, but to some of them, “marketeers “ are responsible for all the financial woes simply because they are different and unknown.  It should come to no surprise that humans are very good at “othering” and ascribing bad intent and pernicious stereotypes to people who just aren’t like them.  It’s just like how I know all dominators are sketchy vermin who smell like cabbage because I just don’t see the appeal.

 

2.  Along that note, I think poorly of AFK farming.  Not because I don’t understand it or how to do it, but because it feels sleazy to me.  I can also manufacture rational excuses why it’s “bad” since it keeps forcing more money supply into the system leading to disinflation which is bad because of some other reason, but to be honest, it just doesn’t sit well with me and that’s just a bias based on my personal experiences and makeup and I can recognize that and try to not let it bias my opinions on other things.  Not my circus; not my monkeys.

 

3.  Speaking of disinflation, I do personally think that “the system” would benefit from higher prices, and sometimes I tilt at windmills in order to encourage that.  Mea culpa, but I’m not going to stop and I’m not going to feel bad about it, mainly because I do think it’s best for everyone.  I also enjoy that I (and clearly a LOT of others) are keeping lots of supply in the markets, although I would prefer it if those listings crept higher over time.

[Bionic_Flea]

Marketeering = Witchcraft

Witchcraft = Magic

Magic = Incomprehensible Science

 

Therefore, Marketeering = Incomprehensible Science

 

[Troo]

On 2/12/2025 at 9:08 AM, The Trouble said:

I discovered Homecoming in 2023.  So unlike the early adopters, I didn't have coffers overflowing with money.

 

~2 weeks

~20-30 minutes per day

~2B in resources to build whatever we want for the near future.

 

Tips:

• Don't pay the 'today' price. Some patience and we can save a l o t.
• Winters, D-Syncs, some Hamis.. temper the expectation to have lots of these right away. Great builds can be had without 'em.
• 2xp from pay-2-win (S.t.a.r.t. vendor) - We earn no coin when it's on.
• Do something! We don't earn anything in the character creator, just chatting in General Chat or looking for a 'farm'.

 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

1 hour ago, Troo said:

We don't earn anything in the character creator, just chatting in General Chat or looking for a 'farm'.

I guess Troo isn’t out there raking it in from winning costume contests like the rest of us.

[Ukase]

21 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I guess Troo isn’t out there raking it in from winning costume contests like the rest of us.

The folks that win those, my hat's off to them. I think the same way I look at the tiny game within the game that is marketing, there's a whole different level to costume creation than an ignoramus like me is aware of. 

I kind of wish I could look at a costume and recognize what kind of effort goes into creating it. But that's outside my skill set and experience. I'll leave that to the experts..and begrudgingly visit the tailor to minimize fx. 

[Troo]

34 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I guess Troo isn’t out there raking it in from winning costume contests like the rest of us.

 

I LOVE the costume creater. I'll do a contest or two but the standing around.. and waiting.. and waiting.. it's just not a good ROI. lol 😛 

 

 

3 hours ago, Bionic_Flea said:

Marketeering = Witchcraft

Witchcraft = Magic

Magic = Incomprehensible Science

 

Therefore, Marketeering = Incomprehensible Science

 

You had me sold at Marketeering = Magic

 

Edited 10 hours ago by Troo