How inf much is “just enough” to give?

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, tidge said:

Run the DfB and the character gets bonuses. at level 1, 1 hour of bonuses are 1 Kinf (3 different ones for 8 hours max).

 

DFB. I don't know how many the max is for 8 hours, but, yes, you can get 4 bonus (Acc, Dam, Recharge, and Def?) that will last until your character level past 20.

Drowning in Blood give you the same 4 types that last until your character levels past 30.

 

Well, for most players they last until they level past those marks because of how many hours of gameplay that they last. Most players will have leveled up up to 20 or 30 by the time the timer runs out.

 

Hydra Chemical Accuracy Enhancer for DFB on my level 10 character provides +12.00% to hit

[Snarky]

On 10/28/2025 at 10:23 PM, BlackSpectre said:

The holidays are fast approaching and benevolent heroes everywhere will be offering gifts and charity to fellow players. 
 

Imagine a new player. They’re struggling to scrape together the inf to purchase SOs, salvage and recipes and rising to the challenge. They constantly complain that they don’t have enough to purchase what they want, but they’re also motivated to acquire it. When they finally get their item they are elated. Super happy and in turn proud of their accomplishment. Now imagine a kind and well meaning player suddenly dumps 1 Billion inf on them as a gift… obviously it would abolish the struggle and the joy that comes from that struggle. Would we really want to do that? Or would a small gift be better? And if so, how much would be enough?

Back on live I calculated that it would cost about 17.5 million inf to slot DOs and SOs from level 1-50. Homecoming’s enhancement costs are probably lower, but I haven’t done the calculations so I don’t really know. Would 10 mil inf be too much? Would there be a better amount? 

 

Just give me what you can (@Snarky).  It will be appreciated and you will feel better on holiday mornings.  

[mistagoat]

3 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

(Acc, Dam, Recharge, and Def?)

No recharge reward but a nice 15% Recovery is available.

Also according to the wiki, the buffs last 1 week of in-game time or until level 22.

I don't often do DFB but I may have start running them on toons with low level recovery issues!

[Yomo Kimyata]

When I was doing my giveaways, I made sure that people needed to come to me and ask which is why I did it through in-game email.  There are many many times I've been playing a brand new alt and someone runs up and tries to give me inf or items without even a word, and I find that really offputting.  I understand that they are trying to be nice, but no, I don't need or want your detritus to sell.  I'll get my own.

[Mopery]

It all depends on what you want in a character from 1-50.

If you want full set build from level 7 on, it's going to cost you a lot.

If you simply go SOs and up them every level to 50, it's going to cost you a lot.

 

I'm cheap and I like efficiency, so I stick to lvl 25 IOs at level 22, usually hand-me-downs from other respec'd toons. Also some Quality of Life stuff like KB protection if needed, Perf Shifter Chance for +End, Panacea, Miracle, Numina's, sometimes Preventive Medicine in Health/Heals, Steadfast and Gladiator's, ATO's etc.

Cost?

Somewhere between zero and 50mil, depending on the character, the market, and what's available in storage/mail.

[Amp Up]

On 10/29/2025 at 3:32 PM, Skyhawke said:

Well it was about that time I suspected that Pleistocene Man wasn't a hero at all but a 100 foot tall serpentine dinosaur. Gawdam Loch Ness Monster!

[Scarlet Shocker]

For @Snarky (and your mom) there is never just enough! 

[BlackSpectre]

On 10/29/2025 at 11:43 AM, tidge said:

Another lesson is probably: there isn't that much return at low levels for slotting enhancements.

I think whether or not slotting any enhancements under level 25 is conditional. It depends on how you play. For example, while playing in a full 8-man team it is not necessary at all. When soloing, slotting has some but not a big impact. It’s tactics that matter most when soloing it seems. But if playing in a small team of 3 people, enhancements routinely determine life and death. The small buffs from slotting enhancements at low levels really helps survival because the other 2 teammates can only compensate so much. Besides, the game is balanced differently at lower levels. 
 

Another factor is the rate of XP gain. If you’ve got double XP activated or are on a power leveling team that zips your XP up 15 levels with just one mission, then yeah slotting enhancements at lower levels is not as necessary. 
 

So it all depends, but it is good to know that in many cases enhancements can be skipped when below level 25. 

[BlackSpectre]

14 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

When I was doing my giveaways, I made sure that people needed to come to me and ask which is why I did it through in-game email.  There are many many times I've been playing a brand new alt and someone runs up and tries to give me inf or items without even a word, and I find that really offputting.  I understand that they are trying to be nice, but no, I don't need or want your detritus to sell.  I'll get my own.

Calling a Panacea IO “detritus” is a little crazy, although I imagine you’re talking about normal salvage or enhancement drops. Inf is anything but detritus. It is the coin of the realm!  No matter its amount, my coffers welcome its appearance!

[UltraAlt]

15 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I've been playing a brand new alt and someone runs up and tries to give me inf or items without even a word, and I find that really offputting.  I understand that they are trying to be nice, but no, I don't need or want your detritus to sell.  I'll get my own.

 

Other people getting the gift may not feel the same way.

How do they say it "don't look a gift horse in the mouth"? It is intended as a gift, and wasn't given out of disrespect.

 

However, I've run into at least one character that hands out https://homecoming.wiki/wiki/Computer_Virus_Salvage as a joke.

"[Charactername] gave you a computer virus".

 

 

[UltraAlt]

1 hour ago, BlackSpectre said:

For example, while playing in a full 8-man team it is not necessary at all.

 

Is that because you are depending on the other characters on the team that have slotted up their powers?

 

1 hour ago, BlackSpectre said:

It’s tactics that matter most when soloing it seems.

 

I think Tactics works better when it buffs a full team.

But, putting lower-level game-related jokes aside, tactics do make a big difference but you have to be able to hit your targets as well, so I find acc enhances very beneficial at lower levels.

 

56 minutes ago, BlackSpectre said:

Inf is anything but detritus. It is the coin of the realm!

 

Uh, I just looked at it. It has the forum avatar of @Yomo Kimyata on it.

[Ukase]

This is a fine question to ask, one I've asked before. 
There is no right answer, I'm afraid. 

I think @Yomo Kimyata with his give away that he tirelessly did for a year or more had the right amount. 20M. 
They could still get the luxury team teleport, if they even knew it existed, and have enough left over for basic SOs. But it really doesn't matter. Gifting them influence is pointless, because they have no idea how to get more. Most will park the alt after Halloween, or beg for a farm. Some will keep playing, but those would be in the minority. 

Anecdotally, I know I've given away entirely too much, because those players stopped playing (as far as I could tell) almost immediately after I gifted them large sums. In fact, there might be 5 people out of the hundreds I've gifted large sums that are still playing. 

I think the best gift of all is your time and your knowledge, if they're smart enough to ask the "how" question. 
 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

8 hours ago, UltraAlt said:

Other people getting the gift may not feel the same way.

How do they say it "don't look a gift horse in the mouth"? It is intended as a gift, and wasn't given out of disrespect.

 

Fair enough.  I fell victim to conflating my experiences and my opinions, so let me give some more concrete examples that happen with frequency.  (Also, I just like the word 'detritus'.)

 

1.  Someone comes up to my new alt in Atlas and sends a tell, "Hey, would you like some influence or [insert item here]?"  Awesome.  That's kind and thoughtful and behavior I try to emulate.  No problems, I decline politely and gratefully, and feel slightly better about the community here.  10% of the time.

 

2.  Someone comes up to my new alt in Atlas and opens a trade window without any preamble.  I do not enjoy this, because it is interfering with whatever else I am doing at the moment, be it crafting, /AHing, trying to find or start a team, or sending lewd messages to provocatively dressed and willing robot characters.  I shut down the trade window.  Sometimes they try to open the trade window again two or three more times.  This is not a major inconvenience, to be sure, but it is also not a major inconvenience for the person to take the time and effort to send a tell and ask me if I want or need anything.  30% of the time.

 

3.  Someone comes up to my new alt in Atlas and gifts me directly something nice, like a Panacea without any preamble.  Not a time or window suck for me, since it happens automatically, and generally I won't even notice at the time.  This is good because they are doing what they think is something nice, and this is bad because it removes me from agency.  I don't need a Panacea; I don't want a Panacea; this gift would be better off in the hands of someone who needs or wants it and I wish you had taken the time to figure that out.  So 10/10 for good intent, but 0/10 on execution.  5% of the time.

 

4.  Someone comes up to my new alt in Atlas and gifts me things like their unwanted SOs or snipe recipes without any preamble.  I get it that they are presumably not doing this to grief me and fill my inventory, although I have my suspicions.  But I don't really want to take the stuff that you don't want to be bothered to sell at the vendor.  Vend it yourself, then offer the inf to someone who wants it.  I'm stretching the metaphor here, but it's as if I see a homeless person in need on the streets and hand them my half eaten tuna sandwich and a used battery because they can eat my leftovers and sell the battery to someone who needs it.  I'm not doubting the giver's intent to do good, but it's really not helping the recipient as much as it is helping you get rid of your garbage and trying to feel good about it.  This habit of giving rankles me, and seems to happen about 55% of the time.

 

My objective for giving is clear communication.  Give to people who want and need it.  Give a preamble.  Heck, give an amble and a postamble as well.  I realize this is my opinion that has been shaped by my personal mores and experiences over the years, both in and out of game, and I realize I am more likely to benchpress the Atlas statue than to get anyone else to start sending tells before giving anybody anything.

[Skyhawke]

Remember to send all detritus to @Snarky 😅

[Maelwys]

24 minutes ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

4.  Someone comes up to my new alt in Atlas and gifts me things like their unwanted SOs or snipe recipes without any preamble.  I get it that they are presumably not doing this to grief me and fill my inventory, although I have my suspicions. 

[Hedgefund]

If you don't want items dropped on you, there is a setting to decline gifts.  I have this set as a default for non-team gifts.

[Snarky]

3 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

 

Fair enough.  I fell victim to conflating my experiences and my opinions, so let me give some more concrete examples that happen with frequency.  (Also, I just like the word 'detritus'.)

 

1.  Someone comes up to my new alt in Atlas and sends a tell, "Hey, would you like some influence or [insert item here]?"  Awesome.  That's kind and thoughtful and behavior I try to emulate.  No problems, I decline politely and gratefully, and feel slightly better about the community here.  10% of the time.

 

2.  Someone comes up to my new alt in Atlas and opens a trade window without any preamble.  I do not enjoy this, because it is interfering with whatever else I am doing at the moment, be it crafting, /AHing, trying to find or start a team, or sending lewd messages to provocatively dressed and willing robot characters.  I shut down the trade window.  Sometimes they try to open the trade window again two or three more times.  This is not a major inconvenience, to be sure, but it is also not a major inconvenience for the person to take the time and effort to send a tell and ask me if I want or need anything.  30% of the time.

 

3.  Someone comes up to my new alt in Atlas and gifts me directly something nice, like a Panacea without any preamble.  Not a time or window suck for me, since it happens automatically, and generally I won't even notice at the time.  This is good because they are doing what they think is something nice, and this is bad because it removes me from agency.  I don't need a Panacea; I don't want a Panacea; this gift would be better off in the hands of someone who needs or wants it and I wish you had taken the time to figure that out.  So 10/10 for good intent, but 0/10 on execution.  5% of the time.

 

4.  Someone comes up to my new alt in Atlas and gifts me things like their unwanted SOs or snipe recipes without any preamble.  I get it that they are presumably not doing this to grief me and fill my inventory, although I have my suspicions.  But I don't really want to take the stuff that you don't want to be bothered to sell at the vendor.  Vend it yourself, then offer the inf to someone who wants it.  I'm stretching the metaphor here, but it's as if I see a homeless person in need on the streets and hand them my half eaten tuna sandwich and a used battery because they can eat my leftovers and sell the battery to someone who needs it.  I'm not doubting the giver's intent to do good, but it's really not helping the recipient as much as it is helping you get rid of your garbage and trying to feel good about it.  This habit of giving rankles me, and seems to happen about 55% of the time.

 

My objective for giving is clear communication.  Give to people who want and need it.  Give a preamble.  Heck, give an amble and a postamble as well.  I realize this is my opinion that has been shaped by my personal mores and experiences over the years, both in and out of game, and I realize I am more likely to benchpress the Atlas statue than to get anyone else to start sending tells before giving anybody anything.

The only thing I would have dropped on you in Atlas is a temp power from Incarnate Trials.  I tend to exit Ouro into Atlas and share those with the peasants there…

[Ukase]

4 hours ago, Hedgefund said:

If you don't want items dropped on you, there is a setting to decline gifts.  I have this set as a default for non-team gifts.

This reminds me of one of my "drop challenge characters". I had NOT set it up to decline gifts, got gifted without "preamble" and had to carry this defender ATO around until the challenge was over, lol. I moved it to the last position on the last tray...but it did act as a reminder to decline gifts. 

 

 

[Ukase]

4 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

So 10/10 for good intent, but 0/10 on execution.  5% of the time.

In all transparency, this could have been me. I must have given away a few hundred of them. 

Now, I wasn't just running up to folks and giving them away; I would look at the bio and the build. If I saw something in their info that suggested they had any kind of IO, I didn't gift them. If they had no bio, I took them to be a vet player, and I didn't gift them. Now; certainly many vet players, myself included will write a bio of some kind. So, I might check their global. I'm in the habit of checking globals a lot; if I don't recognize it, they probably are fairly new. At least, that's how I looked at it. But lately, I've learned there's at least half the player base that teams among themselves and don't mix with the rest of us. Most larger SGs that take anyone will team up with the lfg folks; but some folks just stick to themselves, and there's more of these than I would have thought. 

So, now, I just gift when it's my idea, and it's a fairly new player, but it's more of a hand up, than a hand out. 

[BlackSpectre]

5 hours ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

kind and THOUGHTFUL (emphasis is mine)

It’s difficult to act in a way that is always considerate (too many hidden variables), but regardless it is a worthy goal to strive for… and this is what I consider the gist of what you’ve been saying, kind sir.  🙂 

[Yomo Kimyata]

37 minutes ago, BlackSpectre said:

It’s difficult to act in a way that is always considerate (too many hidden variables), but regardless it is a worthy goal to strive for… and this is what I consider the gist of what you’ve been saying, kind sir.  🙂 

 

Be kind and thoughtful, or else I'll cut you!

[Intrinsic]

I think the best thing that vets can do for new players is to teach them how to get the most value from their reward merits.  A player who has completed some story arcs and TFs may be sitting on millions, or even tens of millions, worth of reward merits without realizing it or knowing how to convert them.  Probably much better for player engagement too because we'd be teaching them how to fish, not just giving them the fish.

[MonteCarla]

I routinely drop level 50 recipes silently on starting characters training at Ms Liberty when I come back to train after a high level run.

I check that the recipient is below level 20, and doesn't have any set bonuses which would indicate that they're already comfortably off at that level. 

 

The recipes are worth 100,000-ish, and sell at exactly the same point - 20 metres away from Ms Liberty, where new players run into financial trouble trying to afford enhancements.

Doing this takes up literally zero of their time. Although, between 1 in 3 and 1 in 2 times I get a "thanks" tell and reply "no worries 🙂". (maybe the others are silently fuming at my sheer audacity? :D)

We all start with a recipe inventory of 80, so there's no world in which I'm clogging up a level 20 or lower character's inventory with 1-5 recipes.

 

I do this because the starter game is really badly balanced against new players. Struggling to buy enhancements that then go off in a few levels time is not a fun challenge.

Saving up for sets when you know what you're doing is fun, but I'm not taking that away from anyone with gifts of 100K.

 

If this happens to annoy the richest players in Homecoming... umm, bonus? 😛

 

I also teach people how to use merits and other stuff.

 

[BurtHutt]

I usually start a toon and then bid for all (or almost all - skip purples if they're in my final build) IOs. I bid low so I have literal weeks/months/years to win bids. So, I start my toons with approximately 100 mill. Now, I don't play as much these days so INF is tight. 

[Bionic_Flea]

Quote

How inf much is “just enough” to give?

 

1 (one).

 

Then do /emote dice twice and add that many zeros.

Huzzah!  You get 100.

 

Lucky for me it wasn't a pair of sixes (1,000,000,000,000)

 

*Mails Yomo my leftover shrimp and grits from Monday's dinner*

Edited 2 hours ago by Bionic_Flea