What's considered a lot of wealth in the game?

[Alphabet Soup II]

Wondering based on those that market here what they consider a lot of INF.

[_NOPE_]

Well, since the in-game cap is 2 billion influence (unless you cheat by posting bids for non-existent items on the marketplace or e-mailing yourself influence), I'd say... 2 billion? Honestly, after your first 200 million, anything more doesn't do much for you, I've found personally.

[Shinobu]

 

Here are my current goals:

 

1.  Base full of IOs so that I can quickly IO a character.  Right now I have about 400+ attuned IOs, including PvP IOs, and about 50 ATOs but I want to increase that to at least 100 to 200.

 

2.  Somewhere between 6 and 10 of every Winter O in e-mail.  This is the project I'm currently working on, and I have every Winter O in e-mail, and for some I have up to 6 or 7 of that WIO.

 

3.  Probably 1 billion influence per character that I market with or play regularly.  At present, I have about 800 million on each of about 9 characters, and I am marketing with about 6-8 other characters, some of whom only have 100 or 200 million at the moment.  Anything over 800 million that I make on my main marketeers, I spend on Winter Packs for now.

 

So I have maybe 8 billion influence so far (rough guess), and am building up a nice stock of attuned IOs/ATOs/WIOs to work with.  I have 7 level 50 characters and most of them (well... more than half) have completed "money is no object" builds, except that I have not bothered to buy purple recipes/IOs from the market so I'm still working on filling out the purple sets on a couple of them.

 

I doubt I'm the richest person on the server.  I'd guess there are at least several people worth 10 to 20 billion.

 

 

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I answered 6-9 billion but now I'm doubting my answer, because it depends on how you define a lot. So from a practical point of view you can do pretty much any build for under 1 billion inf, and most good builds cost far less than that. Even hitting 1 billion you need about 8 sets of purple or winter enhancements which isn't always a good way of building anyway. So that's why I said 6-9 billion to me that's a lot since it means you've got enough to pimp out a ton of new characters even if you never make any more inf.

 

But the other side of it is how do you define a lot in relation to other players? I've got somewhere around 10-12billion at the moment (I think). I consider that a lot since it means I can easily afford enhancements for my characters but I've got no idea how that compares to the average player. I suspect it's more than average but does it put me in the top 1% of players? I doubt it, there are plenty of people who are more active in marketing or farming than I am.

 

EDIT: Shinobu posted while I was writing and I think their post does kind of illustrate another aspect to consider. Do we look at wealth in terms of in of total net worth or just inf? I tend to only consider inf since that's easy to quantify. I don't really stockpile enhancements and I don't consider the value of my current builds in my net worth. To me that value is gone, I'm unlikely to spend the time and effort required to get enhancements off of a character so the potential wealth that those builds represent isn't really real to me while Shinobu clearly feels differently.

[Shinobu]

 

Just to be clear, when I say I have about 8 billion that's influence, in addition to what I have in bases or e-mail and / or what I have slotted on my characters.  I don't ever remove IOs from a character just so I can slot them on another -- that's part of why you stockpile things and have a lot of cash on hand, so that you can keep your old characters while outfitting new ones any way you want.  But I do consider all of that part and parcel of my wealth, because having 8 billion and 1 really well IO'd character and nothing in my base is a lot different than having 8 billion and 10 really well IO'd characters and enough IOs on hand to outfit several more characters before I even turn to the market to buy anything.  ^_^

 

 

[Adeon Hawkwood]

Agreed. Personally I've never really felt a desire to stockpile IOs. I've got 4 IO'd characters and about 10billion inf but no stockpiled IOs.

[MunkiLord]

For me it's when I can buy a complete build at buy it now prices all at one time. Anything more than that is just bonus.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I think that the person who had 500mm-1bn in liquid inf would consider themselves wealthy -- I think that's enough to outfit one or two high end 50s at buy-it-now prices, and I'm going to guess that level of wealth is around the median of the Homecoming population.  And I think most people spend it as it comes.

 

I think that 5-10bn puts you in the top 1%.

 

I think that "a lot" of wealth would be 50+bn, partly because I think it is feasible that someone has been able to amass that much.  I've cleared over a billion in profit in a day before, and I think it is repeatable, but things really need to work out (i.e., buyers need to come out in droves).  But it would be a lot of tiresome micromanagement to keep up that pace and stay ahead of the other sellers.

 

I usually keep about 100-250mm on each alt for posting fees and working capital, on about 35 alts.  Everything else is tied up in bids.  I'm really not sure what the total would be if I took down all my bids.

[BlueDragoon]

I judge people's "wealth" in the game by how many fully built-and-slotted characters they have. Massive stores of inf isn't that impressive anyway when you haven't built anything out of it.

[DSorrow]

I'd say it depends on your playstyle. It seems that 2-3 weeks is the time it takes for me to get 50, so basically I only need ~250-300mil per week in income to stay neutral. Two to three months worth of expenses stashed up sounds like a good definition for wealthy. For me anything beyond a couple of billion is a point when I stop actively amassing more money because that's enough to get any build at buy it now prices + buffer to easily replace that spend by the time I get another char to 50. For someone who gets a new 50 every couple of days the standards would obviously be different.

[Mr. Vee]

I'm probably hovering around a billion - 1.5 most of the time between my various alts, with probably 2000 merits spread around for ??????. It's enough that i can buy attuned as I go on several leveling characters and finish off their expensive builds when they hit 50. I typically have enough on hand that I don't care to throw purples or large amounts of influence to friends and 20-30 million to randoms in help channel. Apart from my first character I've yet to have to wait for anything because of money so I'd consider that wealthy enough. But of course if I had as much time to play as back in the day I'm sure I'd be scrounging by now just from massive altitis.

[macskull]

Honestly, after your first 200 million, anything more doesn't do much for you, I've found personally.

Most of my IO builds run in the 300ish million range, and I've built 3 or 4 characters in the last week, so 200 million is absolutely not enough. I understand you said personally but I feel like for quite a few of the people that frequent this section of the forums 200 million isn't that much.

[Gorgar]

Honestly, after your first 200 million, anything more doesn't do much for you, I've found personally.

 

That's the most I've ever had at one time in actual inf.  I do tend to stockpile IOs, so when I'm marketing I hang onto anything I convert that I think I'm going to get some use out of.  If I cancelled my outstanding bids and sold off all the IOs and ATOs I have lying around, it'd probably amount to a decent sum.  My characters tend to get attuned IOs they'll want in the end whenever they qualify for them at 22 or 27, but I'm sort of terrible at remembering to keep a big slush fund around.  Keep finding more niches to invest in.

[Shinobu]

Honestly, after your first 200 million, anything more doesn't do much for you, I've found personally.

 

My fake monies keep me warm at night.  ^_^  I like to swim in it like Scrooge McDuck!

 

 

[Bionic_Flea]

Honestly, after your first 200 million, anything more doesn't do much for you, I've found personally.

 

My fake monies keep me warm at night.  ^_^  I like to swim in it like Scrooge McDuck!

[Ukase]

I'm ashamed to say I didn't see the poll in time to vote.

 

I would consider that wealth in this game is relative - relative to how many characters you play.

 

If all you do is incarnate content with your 1 level 50+3 character  - then really, it's safe to assume that character doesn't need any influence at all. Maybe 10k here or there for an inspiration?

 

So, wealth for that player is different than for someone like me who has multiple alts leveling up.

 

Base storage is limited. I typically only store purples and pvp IOs, and some sub level 20 SOs for my alts to use until they start using sets around level 20 or so. The rest of my storage goes to certain salvage which I use in part to fund everything.

 

Last count, I have 7 level 50s, each ends the day with 1 billion inf, and the rest is compiled into an email, which will go (and grow to 1 billion) for the next level 50. Right now I'm at about 7.5 billion. It would be hard to evaluate the enhancements and the 5 bins of 3rd and 4th tier inspirations for value. They certainly make playing easier.

 

I would make the argument that enough influence is when you're in Striga, and you've leveled - but you're on a tf. You know you have the enhancements you need in storage - but using base tp and then returning would be poor form on a task force - so you just use AH and over spend by a couple million to get what you want. I mean, a couple million? I can make 5 times that with one catalyst. (if you can figure that math out, good for you. Shhh!)

[Scientist]

I would say a lot of wealth in this game is a lot less than it was on live on the original game.  There, a fairly high end build was 1-2B, here as someone said earlier around 300M, give or take, will do it.  A high recharge build, a bit more, high defense is not as expensive.  I'm not working quite as hard on my marketing since I cleared 1B, since I only have one level 50 character so far, and at my rate of play I'll be lucky to get 1 additional every couple of months. 

 

Then again, after getting my first 50 I now spend a lot of play time doing things like running arcs to open TF contacts, collecting badges for useful accolades, and so on rather than joining PI radio teams for fast leveling.  Really optimizing a character takes longer than getting them to 50 these days, and there are not many additional shortcuts you can buy with Inf once you have your IO build. :)

 

To those wondering where the 1% cutoff lies, I would bet my 1B is well within it.  There were a LOT of people even in the live game who never had 1B inf in the entire game, and it was considerably easier to earn Inf then since there were a lot more things you could flip profitably.  I had several friends with multiple 50s who probably didn't have 200M between all their characters, let alone a purple IO. 

[JusticeBowler]

I've got one toon, my main lvl 50 with ~120 million invested in him, some expensive one offs but mostly lesser sets that still deliver buffs I'm looking for, with a little frankenslotting. He doesn't have a single offensive set yet, except 6 slotted taunt (I can't remember which one).  I spent too much because I was often impatient during market surges were happening and I didn't understand how to convert stuff. If I were clever and patient I could have done it for a lot less (especially wasting a lot on unslotting and attuning them manually and all the stuff I dumped on the market rather than converting it to sets I could actually use).

 

About 20-30 million in common IOs across another 10 alts. This is getting a lot less expensive since my main toon crafts all the 25s and 30s IO for reduce prices... it is a SUCKY PAIN IN THE @$% to mail them all to myself, but whatever.

 

I've probably blown another 10 million on SOs for characters I was experimenting with and then largely abandoned.

 

And last I checked I had about 60 million in cash and about 500 merits floating around.

 

So, forgetting the merits, I've seen about 200 million in my hands and frankly I feel poor. I mean, my wife thinks it is awesome that I can drop whatever cash on a new alt at 22 and 27 to basically suit them up for the rest of the game if I still want to play them. And it is nice to occasionally send my son a "set" of something fun in the mail for a gift. But whenever I see something I want for 2-5 million per IO in a set I want at least 4 of 6 in... man... I get penny pinching fast. I'm really protective of that 60 million I'm sitting on right now. I don't feel like I can spend it even though I have it. Too close to real life!

 

(Sure I'd love to take one of my mid range blaster-alts and put Entropic Chaos on five attacks. Right now that would wipe half my fund assuming there were enough on the market to not spike the price.)

 

 

Something in-between...

 

Thankly, I wish there was another tier of wealth in this game that was obtainable without market shenanigans. I've tried several of the techniques folks have posted about on the boards, but my profit margins always turn out way below theirs and I've even had some sessions where I flat out lost money. I remember burning through so many converters one session I went briefly broke and ended up having to sell the lesser crap that fate had handed to me just to have operating funds.

 

The thing that has made me the most money? Saved me from poverty when the market thrust it upon me? Burning through as many MSRs as the server would support for a few days. I think I was on three or four per day for several days in a row once. All with the XP turned off (because I NEVER see the Vmerits other people claim to get during MSRs.. I'm always around 800 and other folks always talk about 1400 or so) I could make just over 10 million in cash for each run.

 

It would be nice to "shop" in the market rather than "beg bid" in a hope to get lucky. It would be nice to sell stuff for what I see stuff selling for rather than always 60-70% of that (even after letting the stuff sit over a weekend on the market).

 

 

The good news...

 

The good news is anyone with a 35+ level toon can do all sorts of content that gets INF flowing while still enjoying playing the game. It isn't hard to spend one night a week burning through some of the shorter TFs or some Ouroborus options at grabbing a few merits to supplement that. Anyone who plays the game regularly can outfit their toons with common IOs of their choice on as many toons as they'd like and maybe pick up a cool set or two along the way if they are patent just because they like it.

 

But then there is a huge gap between covering all your playing costs and tricking out a toon even with uncommon mid-range sets, not even talking about rares and purples.

 

Someone will say that at the very least I can turn that 60 million into 300 million in just a few days probably buying up crap IO recipes and converting them and selling them. But I've tried and never see the sorts of returns others have seen. As i've said, I've even had a few sessions of losing money doing that.

 

 

I suppose this is a rant...

 

I don't mean it to be. But I feel like I've missed out on something. I feel like a strong-regular-dedicated player. When I look at my post count on the boards I'm not in the PK range, but I'm here. I feel like I'm on as much as the folks in some of the supergroups I've tried out, but the mid-to-big money continues to elude me. I do wonder what all the 2 billion plus hordes of stuff stashed in base storage type folks are going to do with themselves next month. If there are people out there already spreading a 10 billion INF fortune across several toons to avoid the cap... that's mind-blowing.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I've got one toon, my main lvl 50 with ~120 million invested in him, some expensive one offs but mostly lesser sets that still deliver buffs I'm looking for, with a little frankenslotting. He doesn't have a single offensive set yet, except 6 slotted taunt (I can't remember which one).  I spent too much because I was often impatient during market surges were happening and I didn't understand how to convert stuff. If I were clever and patient I could have done it for a lot less (especially wasting a lot on unslotting and attuning them manually and all the stuff I dumped on the market rather than converting it to sets I could actually use).

 

About 20-30 million in common IOs across another 10 alts. This is getting a lot less expensive since my main toon crafts all the 25s and 30s IO for reduce prices... it is a SUCKY PAIN IN THE @$% to mail them all to myself, but whatever.

 

I've probably blown another 10 million on SOs for characters I was experimenting with and then largely abandoned.

 

And last I checked I had about 60 million in cash and about 500 merits floating around.

 

So, forgetting the merits, I've seen about 200 million in my hands and frankly I feel poor. I mean, my wife thinks it is awesome that I can drop whatever cash on a new alt at 22 and 27 to basically suit them up for the rest of the game if I still want to play them. And it is nice to occasionally send my son a "set" of something fun in the mail for a gift. But whenever I see something I want for 2-5 million per IO in a set I want at least 4 of 6 in... man... I get penny pinching fast. I'm really protective of that 60 million I'm sitting on right now. I don't feel like I can spend it even though I have it. Too close to real life!

 

(Sure I'd love to take one of my mid range blaster-alts and put Entropic Chaos on five attacks. Right now that would wipe half my fund assuming there were enough on the market to not spike the price.)

 

 

Something in-between...

 

Thankly, I wish there was another tier of wealth in this game that was obtainable without market shenanigans. I've tried several of the techniques folks have posted about on the boards, but my profit margins always turn out way below theirs and I've even had some sessions where I flat out lost money. I remember burning through so many converters one session I went briefly broke and ended up having to sell the lesser crap that fate had handed to me just to have operating funds.

 

The thing that has made me the most money? Saved me from poverty when the market thrust it upon me? Burning through as many MSRs as the server would support for a few days. I think I was on three or four per day for several days in a row once. All with the XP turned off (because I NEVER see the Vmerits other people claim to get during MSRs.. I'm always around 800 and other folks always talk about 1400 or so) I could make just over 10 million in cash for each run.

 

It would be nice to "shop" in the market rather than "beg bid" in a hope to get lucky. It would be nice to sell stuff for what I see stuff selling for rather than always 60-70% of that (even after letting the stuff sit over a weekend on the market).

 

 

The good news...

 

The good news is anyone with a 35+ level toon can do all sorts of content that gets INF flowing while still enjoying playing the game. It isn't hard to spend one night a week burning through some of the shorter TFs or some Ouroborus options at grabbing a few merits to supplement that. Anyone who plays the game regularly can outfit their toons with common IOs of their choice on as many toons as they'd like and maybe pick up a cool set or two along the way if they are patent just because they like it.

 

But then there is a huge gap between covering all your playing costs and tricking out a toon even with uncommon mid-range sets, not even talking about rares and purples.

 

Someone will say that at the very least I can turn that 60 million into 300 million in just a few days probably buying up crap IO recipes and converting them and selling them. But I've tried and never see the sorts of returns others have seen. As i've said, I've even had a few sessions of losing money doing that.

 

 

I suppose this is a rant...

 

I don't mean it to be. But I feel like I've missed out on something. I feel like a strong-regular-dedicated player. When I look at my post count on the boards I'm not in the PK range, but I'm here. I feel like I'm on as much as the folks in some of the supergroups I've tried out, but the mid-to-big money continues to elude me. I do wonder what all the 2 billion plus hordes of stuff stashed in base storage type folks are going to do with themselves next month. If there are people out there already spreading a 10 billion INF fortune across several toons to avoid the cap... that's mind-blowing.

 

JusticeBowler, I promise you that you haven't missed out on something.  I understand that lots of people choose to NOT be in the market, but there is no reason to not be making money if you want to.

 

A lot of it is practice, and doing it over and over again.  It's really, really hard to make 5mm profit on a conversion trade, but it's really easy to make 500k profit on ten trades.

 

I suggest you try it again, but keep your sights modest.  Get 10 recipes, 100 converters (you probably won't need that many).  Call it a 15mm investment.  Roll those ten until you get something you can sell in the market for over 1mm.  You might end up with 10 Miracle procs and sell for 50mm before fees.  Chances are you'll end up with some less savory items, but chances are very good you will end up with well over 20mm before fees.  As you do it more and more, you will learn tips and niches, and it will get easier and easier.  I guarantee* it.

 

* not an actual guarantee

[JusticeBowler]

JusticeBowler, I promise you that you haven't missed out on something.  I understand that lots of people choose to NOT be in the market, but there is no reason to not be making money if you want to.

 

A lot of it is practice, and doing it over and over again.  It's really, really hard to make 5mm profit on a conversion trade, but it's really easy to make 500k profit on ten trades.

 

I suggest you try it again, but keep your sights modest.  Get 10 recipes, 100 converters (you probably won't need that many).  Call it a 15mm investment.  Roll those ten until you get something you can sell in the market for over 1mm.  You might end up with 10 Miracle procs and sell for 50mm before fees.  Chances are you'll end up with some less savory items, but chances are very good you will end up with well over 20mm before fees.  As you do it more and more, you will learn tips and niches, and it will get easier and easier.  I guarantee* it.

 

* not an actual guarantee

 

Noted with thanks!

 

I'm here for the long haul (fingers crossed that the servers will be). All the toons I play regularly will end up with at least what I've invested in my main even if it takes months and months to pull in that off. It isn't like I have no money at all and as I said, you can get plenty of money to play this game maxed out with Common IOs, no problem. That isn't so bad as it sounds.

 

I'll give it another go. I just checked all my toons for recipes and merits, collected them up on my main to see what I might pull off. I'll take that as seed money (once I use the merits for converters and work on the raw drops for something better) for an actual market purchase which will be a little more targeted to what I think I should be working with.

[_NOPE_]

This has been my personal method to slow, but virtually guaranteed, wealth:

 

[*]Buy uncommon set recipes from the market at level 20 (to minimize crafting fees), that have ZERO rare salvage to craft. It doesn't really matter what it is, as long as it requires no rare salvage. I usually pay about 3500 for each piece of salvage, because I'm impatient to get crafting, but surely you can pay less than a thousand each. I buy the recipes for 10K Inf... so Cost: 20.5-34K Inf

[*]Craft them. Cost: 34.5K Influence

[*]Convert them to another random Uncommon, doesn't matter which. Cost: 1 converter (100K Inf)

[*]Convert them to within their set... 75/80% of the time, it will automatically up-convert them to Rare. Cost: 200K Inf-400K Inf depending on if it takes one or two converters to convert to a rare. If it take more, ugh you might have to eat that one.

[*]Post on the market for 500K, to ensure that you make a decent profit (Cost: 25K Posting fee)

[*]Wait. Cost: 0 Inf

[*]Pick up your winnings! Cost: Profit!!!

[*]If, for some reason, you got a crap rare enhancement that's selling on the market for like 200K or less inf or something, you'll either have to repost it for 1 inf and get what you can (call it a lost), or play roulette with converters and hope you get something good to recoup your losses.

 

Total Cost: 380-594K Influence

Average Sale price: 500K-2M Inf

Average profit range: -100K to 1.62M Inf, usually you make a couple hundred thousand per on average really

 

The law of averages works in your favor here, and you very slowly will gain the monies. You won't get super rich super fast, but you'll slowly and steadily accrue funds. If you're willing to wait and sit and see if things sell, you'll even be able to sell some of the "junk" eventually.

[Mr. Vee]

If you're losing money doing the converting methods listed in various places you're doing something wrong somewhere. There are at least 4 things in Philotic Knight's method I disagree with and he's still making good money.

[DSorrow]

If you're losing money doing the converting methods listed in various places you're doing something wrong somewhere. There are at least 4 things in Philotic Knight's method I disagree with and he's still making good money.

 

This. I have 4 fully kitted out 50s (and I mean the purples out the wazoo, soft capped, perma Hasten variety of fully kitted out) plus around 4 billion in inf/merits, and I haven't touched a farm yet because I can make 50-200M per day in the market. Yes, starting up was kind of slow but even on my first character I had somewhere between 500M and 1B inf by the time I hit 50. Going from 5M to 100M took me around a week as I wasn't familiar with the converter thing or the bucketing Homecoming has, so I made my money from just buying recipes, crafting them and selling them for a profit. Later on I discovered converters and did that in addition to my crafting service, and finally I stopped the crafting thing altogether as the profit margins from converting were better.

 

Haven't really done any marketeering in the past couple of weeks because I don't have an acute need for more inf, but I'll probably get back to for a while it once I settle on what my next character is going to be. Until then, I'm just fishing very low priced popular IOs (purples, LotG +rech and the like) for my future alts.

[JusticeBowler]

OK. So I changed my approach and took a new look at how the market functions, especially with respect to converters. And I accepted the need to gamble, hard. If you are willing to set fire to INF, it will turn into something eventually.

 

I think one of my chief problems in the past was not having enough money to spend to make the money, at least this way. As soon as I was willing to spend a lot of money (say around 25 million which scared the crap out of me, but I did it)... and focus in on exactly what I thought I could accomplish, I was able to almost double that over the course of an hour or so. The second hour I got lucky with a couple of sales and did more than double my investment.

 

There are some limitations to what I'm doing. The supplies of the right recipes are a little lean and as soon as you grab up the few "at cost" (around what people are selling them for) you run quickly into people that want double or even triple the going rate for stuff and the profits drop like a stone. The other problem is, salvage. It just takes so friggin long to pull out what salvage I need in what numbers and fill up without overfilling my limited capacity. So what I'm doing won't ever scale beyond turning 25-30 into 45-50 in an hour or so, just in terms of how much clicking and sorting and stuff I have to do.

 

20+ million an hour is no joke. This is better than I've ever seen before. (usually I'm turning 5-6 million into 8-9 million) but that's still 50 hours of markettering to get to 1B INF... that's a lot of time doing some mind numbing sorting of salvage.  But it still isn't the 100 million folks talk about casually making in an hour of markettering each day.

 

So I'm a step closer, but the big time is still out of my league. I'm OK with that for now. The money I made is a welcomed relief. It certainly makes Farming (AE or otherwise) rather pointless, which is great because I sucked even worse at that!

[Mr. Vee]

Still sounds like you're doing something odd but I can't put my finger on it from what you've put. Essentially the 'right recipe ' is anything in the level range you're aiming for that only has one other (rare) set in its type at that level. There are plenty of those. Bid on everything in the set in blocks of 10, being careful not to get any of the sneaky ones with a rare salvage. When they fill buy your salvage in blocks of 10. I've been converting all 7 trays to rare in one session then converting/ listing one or two trays when I log in. I consistently send 1-200 million off to alts doing that daily.