Announcements
Join the ongoing conversation on Discord: https://discord.gg/w6Tpkp2
To purchase your copy of the City of Titans Launcher, visit our store at https://store.missingworldsmedia.com/ A purchase of $50 or more will give you a link to download the Launcher for Windows or Mac based machines.
TL;DR this thread, but I will go back and read it all since in full disclosure I was a 3-account farmer and market mogul. I sold my stuff at market rates, never ever went RMT, and occasionally I'd give stuff away to random newbies (as determined by their vet badges + questions they'd ask in the bcast or help channels). Market PvP was silly to me. I was a seeder. I provided supply.
That said, how about in addition to player-determined supply-and-demand in the marketplace, an arc or short TF is introduced that would dynamically impact the markets.
The result(s) of theses arcs/missions as so designed could effect market prices for an individual, SG/VG or the entire universe.
E.g., completing the "Initiate a violent labor strike at FedEx" arc/TF would impact distribution, thus supply, and thereby raises prices X% above current market levels. Any entity--a player, a team or many teams within an SG could do this. A cooldown timer would certainly be included per toon, per SG or per account even to limit the exploits.
Want to move the market the other way? Do the "End a violent labor strike at FedEx" arc/TF. Of course, with either choice of arc/TF, your character's alignment is affected as per the proposed alignment meta-system .
Other market-impacting arcs/TFs... "Bring down Goldman Sachs" (market prices down if completed), "Ensure the timely and orderly merger of Goldman Sachs and Citibank" (market prices up if completed), "Infiltrate the G-20 conference and kidnap 3 heads-of-state" (market prices up if completed), "Rescue 3 heads-of-state at the G-20 conference and arrest all kidnappers" (market prices down if completed).
Obviously, scaling the results of the possible hundreds of simultaneous instances of these arcs/TF would be critical.
(using CoX as the baseline for my example)
Devs: So I want to take my level 25 set IOs "with me" as I level up. How about letting me do an "scientific discovery", "technological break-through" or "spiritual awareness and universal understanding" mega-arc/TF so that I can do just that. In return for this incredibly mental and physical taxing evolution, I now have some moderate percentage of XP added on to each of my next 5-10 levels of play. That is, my toon levels slower for awhile (but hey I've saved a lot of annoying market and respec time and currency!). Setting aside this "XP penalty", I believe that the core of this idea simply turns the CoX respec feature on its head. It doesn't have to replace it (if CoT is even going in that direction), it could just supplement it.
This new feature could be presented to the player every 5 or 10 levels (depending upon how the enhancement system is partitioned/designed). Also--instead of, or in addition to--maybe there is indeed a cost of in-game currency that's necessary to complete this evolution. Or maybe there's a core attribute penalty (-DMG, -DEF, -RES or -ACC) that I have to deal with for multiple levels.
I definitely agree with the folks who proclaim that the CoX market had a supply problem. The American housing market of last decade. Region-by-region prices soared as the land in and around good school districts, major arteries, public transportation hubs, retail growth, (i.e, all that is desireable) became saturated. When any of those homes hit the market -boom!- instant bidding war. CoT developers need mostly to ensure the best balance possible for producing supply across all levels.
But since this is an open universe let me offer this.
I want a more favorable dice roll for my toon. So let me do the "Save Las Vegas for Eco-Terrorists" arc to increase "my drops" by 5%. The "penalty" is that the eco-terrorist faction ambushes me like crazy for the next 5-10 levels and are always +3 levels to me no matter what. Dice = Luck = Vegas, is the idea here.
I want more currency per arrest for my toon. So offer me a "Save Wall Street from the 99% Radicals" arc to increase my currency per defeat amount by 10%. The "penalty" is that the 99% radical faction ambushes the hell of me for the next 5-10 levels and they all get +ACC, +DMG, +DEF/RES bonuses to boot!
In either case or decision that I make, my alignment is affected accordingly.
Wow...never thought the debate would go this far...
As I stated before, I have no problem with flipping items. If you want to put a timer on it (an item purchased on the Market cannot be listed for sale for 24 hours) then people will simply trade it off. If you make the tracking system absolute then the Market will bog down and the other aspects of game development may suffer.
Perhaps being able to see ALL of the tracking data on an item would help. If you see that Purple Gadgets were selling at a thousand for weeks and now suddenly they're $3500.00 you can figure out that someone has played with the Market (or a new release has hit and now suddenly Purple Gadgets are in more demand). Either way, the 'twitch' buyers will do what they want.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
Being able to see (like in EVE Online), the daily price range (highest price paid/lowest price paid), Average Price, number of items sold per day, could help people be able to see themselves if a price is worth it, or if it was a temporary spike in prices...
EVE Online also allows you to see up to a year back in time concerning this data if i remember correctly.
It's just plain silly to talk about monopolies in an MMO where anyone can generate items out of thin air. It's doubly silly in a blind auction system, where anyone can 'beat' flipping by bidding for one inf more, and listing for one inf less.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
Binding a purchased item to a buyer and refusing to allow it to be resold for a period is a huge unwelcome burden on players. I don't believe that I am the only player who ever bought something accidentally by mistaking the name, or clicking the wrong item, or just making an error. The last thing a player wants (particularly a new player) when he spends some of his limited, hard earned influence on an item he doesn't really need, is to learn that he cannot list it for sale and get at least most of his money back. Likely he wanted to get that item for a real reason, and now he can't dispose of it and may not have enough influence to do what he originally wanted to do. Very frustrating.
The same issue arises if the market becomes less liquid because players are going around it.
Flipping is the equivalent to speculating in the real world. It is the grease that makes the market liquid -- that actually makes if function like a market. If every purchase has to be a "final sale" in some way, why wouldn't players just trade with their SG-mates and only use the market only to dispose of stuff no one in the SG wanted or could use? In other words, denying the first trade opportunity to the market because if you make a mistake, it's irreversible...it makes the whole market less liquid and therefore less fun for everyone.
I'm talking about monopoly in the context of the auction market was the only viable place to gain some items and being it was the only place, usually that means there is no choice but to pay through the nose for items. Unless there was some other place that sold all items available in game that I didn't know about.
Well depends. The market wasn't fun for everyone to begin with. If players go around the market, when they have a choice it might also mean the market prices are too high. If they sold at reasonable prices, even with other options, then it still should remain liquid and people will still use it.
But I see what you are saying though. Yeah it is and would be annoying to accidentally buy something and be stuck with it and that would make it less fun for people who liked the market in the first place. There is a reason not everyone plays the stock market or get deep into the speculating markets. Many have the money to do so, but don't enjoy it. In the real world, even the speculating ran markets are not the only option.
But in the real world many things are final sale once purchased, especially online now. Accidentally purchase a movie download, it's stuck there. Frustrating but stuck. Yet, movie downloading is on the rise.
I don't know. Which items are we talking about that weren't available with MA tickets, ordinary merits, astral and empyrean merits, or alignment merits? Or making a post on the forum? Or putting a call out in broadcast?
Since the market was cross-server, and eventually cross-faction, it opened up trading to include the entire playerbase. Larger supply pool and easier trading --> lower prices, not higher. Prices are driven by supply and demand. For a high-value item to drop in price, there needs to be a greater supply, and that is very largely in the hands of the devs, who often have their own reasons for wanting to make some items rare, and so valuable.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
Ideally yes. Supply-demand. But many stuff especially common salvage items that used to go for pennies prices went up even though the supply was greater than ever before so in many cases supply and demand didn't seem to apply for the market in many cases. And actually the average prices on most items especially the upper tiered ones actually rose after the combining of the market server. Prior to that, items rarely rose about 300-500 million.
Afterward, 300 million want often the minimum amount to get the foot in the door for higher tiered stuff. Which some items reaching 1 billion for one. Even seen some reach 2 billion, the inf. cap. I suspect flippers. bought them when it was cheap and sold them at higher prices when the server merged. Instead of flippers on each market and a person could in theory travel the servers to find better prices once it was combined, ya had all flippers in one place on one market and there was no more traveling around to find reasonable prices. And with it like that it was free game to charge whatever suited their fancy with no other way to get certain items.
Which still brings back the original point of basically many items only could be gotten on the market unless one get extremely lucky.
While many stuff was eventually made available through alignment, and some items with MA tickets (usually nothing much that didn't already drop commonly often), many items were not available. Wish I remembered exactly which ones by names but even playing, I barely could remember all the names of the stuff floating around. Now if everything was available through MA alignment tokens or merits of other sorts then yeah it would have been a viable alternative to the market especially those that didn't want to fool around with it for various reasons. But many fooled around the market because it was the only was besides getting extremely lucky with a drop to build the toon the way they wanted to.
IMHO the only 2 billion items were the global PVP IO uniques (i.e., the rarest and hardest-to-get things in the game). It is absolutely intended for those to be, well, rare and hard to get.,
By "higher tiered stuff" do you mean the desirable stuff? The AT IOs, the Luck of the Gambler 3% Defense pieces, the Kinetic Combat set pieces? The desirable stuff should cost a lot. IMHO the problem with these sorts of enhancements was that they were in such high demand that you were competing with lots of other players to get them, not particularly "flipping" or price-fixing. Everybody I knew who wanted set bonuses was competing hungrily for Kinetic Combats, four or five sets of them, often for many of their alts.
I think a certain amount of the complaints about "market pvp" are based on people who wanted those items but shrank from the competition for them. And I think that unless the Devs just want to [i]give[/i] them to everybody, we will find ourselves limited [i]somehow[/i] in obtaining "rare or valuable" items, whether that's by drop rates, market competition, or what-have-you.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
Yeah, the "there simply aren't any of those for sale, at any price" issue bugged me as well. Outside of adjusting drop rates, though, I think that problem was caused by prices being too [i]low,[/i] not too high. I am not an economist, but I believe an economist would tell us that if something always sells out the moment it goes up for sale it is underpriced. Everyone who wants one will buy it instantly without blinking at that price; only if that price goes up will people hesitate, eventually resulting in some units sitting in the store unsold (which you and I can then log in, find available, and purchase at that higher price).
Captain of Phoenix Rising
Common (and even more significantly uncommon) salvage price rises were down to a variety of causes.
Firstly, there was general inflation in the inf supply, caused by various AE exploits (I remember watching the high-end prices rise with the Mastermind AE exploit, where people were filling multiple characters to the inf cap), Incarnate Trials meaning people spent more time on level 50 characters, and by the devs fixing a long-standing bug that had up until then basically halved the amount of inf level 50s received for kills. (I will never understand why they did that. No one was complaining, and the game was already awash with inf.)
More importantly, AE levelling meant characters spent less time fighting enemies that dropped salvage, which meant supply fell. (This is also why, largely, when common and uncommon salvage prices rose, rare salvage prices fell or remained steady, because people bought rare salvage with AE tickets, as an easy way to use them up.) Smoothing of the levelling curve and XP boosters also reduced the number of enemies defeated as characters levelled.
Low to mid-level magical salvage, including high-demand items like Luck Charms and Alchemical Silver had always been cheaper redside because of better supply -- redside characters had far more missions against enemies that dropped magical salvage. The market merge happened at the same time as Going Rogue allowed side-switching and redside ATs to start blueside, and I do think that pushed those magical salvage prices up because there was overall less redside play, and so less supply for the same demand.
Praetoria also had a bias towards dropping tech salvage over magic, although just after Praetoria came out, the low-level salvage (and recipe) prices crashed because so many people were playing low-level characters there was a vast amount of supply. (I stocked up on a nice lot of Achilles' Heel procs.)
That said, most common salvage, most of the time, was pretty cheap. A few items that were in relatively high demand and relatively low supply were expensive, because that's what supply and demand does.
The individual servers never, ever, from the start of the market, had their own markets. Markets were always cross-server -- this includes the EU and US server lists sharing a single market. The only separation was between redside (where all the servers shared a single redside market) and blueside (where all the servers shared a single market).
So there was no 'travelling around', because all the servers had the same market, and until the redside and blueside markets merged, it was impossible to moved items cross-faction. That just makes no sense.
Actually, immediately after the market merge prices stayed about the same from a blueside perspective. From the redside point of view, they generally fell, with the added miracle of actual supply on the market. Liquidity, yay! (An exception being low-mid magical salvage, as noted above.)
There were only ever a tiny proportion of items that were ever priced anywhere near 300million+, and saying otherwise is just silly -- some of the purple rare recipes, and only a small proportion of those, and a couple of the PVP uniques. These were absolutely in no way required to play the game, in any sense of the word. They were bling, or for edge cases like stupid scrapper tricks builds. In a game where a small purple insp gave +12.5% global defense, and standing near a single Defender running the Leadership pool gave 3.5% no one 'needed' a Gladiator +3% unique.
Those are long-term player goals, something for people to work towards if they really, really want to, but without any obligation to do so. If you're saying that those high-demand items should've been easily purchasable at will by the majority of players, then you're essentially arguing that rare items should not exist in the game. That's a point of view, but it has nothing to do with flipping, or how the market works.
It was perfectly possible to build great characters with SOs, common IOs, frankenslotting cheap sets, or slotting perfectly good full sets without ever touching a single one of the high-priced IOs. I loved creating builds and slotting up characters, and I never felt that I 'needed' purples, or PVP IOs, or a Miracle unique, or anything else.
Eventually, virtually everything was available via tickets or merits of some kind, even PVP recipes. This is one reason why the price of the Glad +3% unique eventually dropped down to well below the market cap. (Note that flippers could not magically drive the price up again, because price is primarily determined by supply and demand.) It's also worth noting that almost all PVP recipes were junk, at least before the 'IO reroll' thing came in. This is because even though the supply of them wasn't any higher than for the Glad +3% unique, the demand was low because the PVE set bonuses weren't anything special.
I think the only IOs that couldn't be bought were the event-specific sets, Winter's Gift from the Winter event and later...the Summer Blockbuster? Halloween Event? I think there was one more set, anyway. That, again, was restricted by design, and if you don't like that concept, it isn't a market issue.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
I agree that rare stuff should be rare. One advantage many of the PvP IOs and the AT IOs had was that you only needed so many per toon. Stacking them was simply not allowed so once all of your toons were kitted out the rest hit the Market. Yes, the price was high...but only because other players were willing to pay it.
If I have an incredibly rare Thing and I decide to sell it for a Billion Inf and nobody buys it, I get nothing. I can keep the Thing but if I was selling it in the first place then I likely don't want it. I can try listing it again at a lower price and again, if it doesn't sell I'm stuck with it. Nobody FORCES the buyer to pay whatever he's willing to pay. But this is for rare, elite stuff that most players never even see in the game.
My main concern is for the little stuff. I can't tell you how many times I had a new toon in the Market and I wanted to craft something and I needed Alchemical Silver. The price was always somewhere between 30-60k depending. Now I was a vet with lots of Inf but I'm also a cheapskate and refuse to be gouged. So off I go to the AE to get some tickets to trade in. This not good because it means fewer players in the core part of the game teaming up and actually going through content. It also occurred to me that if I were a new player with little knowledge of the Market and I wanted to craft that cool new Wings set I just bought that I was out of luck because I was broke.
These are the people I'm worried about...the new players that this game or ANY game will need to keep it going. The vets will realize that the Market will be wonky at first and not panic. New people who really want to enjoy the Market might get chased off by someone trying to artificially hike the price of Alc Silver. I say artificially but then some items had their own problems.
Magic salvage was almost always higher-priced. Why was that? Well for one thing there were more Heroes than Villains and Blueside didn't like fighting Magic enemies because they had all kinds of strange abilities and effects. Drains, Slows and -Acc flying around all over the place made for a bad day for most heroes and even teams. So as a result there was less Magic salvage flowing in ANY direction because there was less of it earned during regular play.
Then there were the guys like me who like to call out bullies and I see Market manipulation as a form of bullying. So I would farm the AE for an afternoon, earn a bunch of tickets, get a bunch of stuff and then throw it on the Market foe 100 Inf each. This would bring the prices way down for the day and by the next day everything was back up. My little way of flipping off the Man I suppose.
I'm not worried that the uber-l33t stuff will cost billions. Since some of that stuff was approaching 'I Win' button status it SHOULD cost an arm and a leg. What I want to avoid is the new kid showing up to play, seeing a cool cape or set of wings, getting the recipe and then seeing that the 'common' piece of salvage that he needs to craft it costs 5 million because some vet also needs the same salvage for his new UberCycle. THIS is why I strongly support scaled salvage and drops based on level. Once you hit level whatever (say 20) then ALL of the stuff that drops for you should be level 20 or higher. ALL of the stuff you need to make all your new stuff should drop from foes lvl 20 or higher. A lvl 50 should NEVER have to go back to a lvl 15 enemy to get something to craft the Universal Widget that he wants to craft.
There is really no way to prevent flipping other than inform the players that it exists. 'Hey Mister...don't go there. He's charging too much for that thing. Either go down the street and get one yourself or wait an hour...someone will sell it cheaper.' Impulse buyers will always impulse buy so there's no point in trying to change them.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
I don't think "competition" from high level characters for low level salvage really ever had an effect on market prices. Sure there were people making a wing recipe or some proc or global. But most of the time they were either making an enhancement (generic or set) for a lower level character or working on the memorization badges. In the latter case they were often selling the recipes back onto the market, and I can tell you many of them were sold at a significant loss.
Luck charms were in high demand because they were a component in the lvl 10-25 ACC generic IO recipe. They were scarce because people chose to not fight the circle of thorns*. The vast majority luck charms being bought were not going into wings or Karma KB globals, but into the generic ACC IOs, either by the end user, or by a crafter to sell the finished IO.
*It really amazes me to this day that this fact alone didn't spawn PUGs of people at low levels specificly targeting CoT (or the higher end hellions) missions, talk about a get rich quick scheme.
-----------------------------------------
I never set anything on fire accidentally!
The Titan Legacy - Defender of the Inner Flame
That was the "other form" of flipping that was going on in the game... people buying up cheap (but sellable) recipes and then crafting them...
So as long as the component prices (salvage+recipe) didnt exceed the minimum selling price for the IO, then you could quite easily make money just by crafting.
Once again though... some people *really* didn't like crafting, so just bought the finished IO, even if it could be cheaper for them to do it all themselves.
Oh man, the [url=http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Enhancement_Converter_Salvage]Enhancement Converters![/url] I got so much mileage out of those toward the end. And by mileage, I don't mean money so much (although they could make you cash!). I got a lot more out of them by being able to convert unwanted purples into purples I wanted, and, best of all, being able to get specific levels of set IOs! It was often very hard to find level 30 or 35 IOs I wanted for exemplaring, and you couldn't change the level of the IO in any way. But Converters meant all I had to do was get ANY level 35 IO, and roll it until i got the right piece (if it was not the right set, I'd first have to roll it until I got a piece in the right set). Wasteful in number of Converters perhaps -- but a way to do what could not otherwise be accomplished at all without a level-locked farmer of some sort. I was using tons of Converters at the end and it was enabling me to finally get a lot of stuff I'd never been able to assemble before. Plus the rolling was kind of like a minigame in itself. Loved those things.
Captain of Phoenix Rising
This. Sooooooooo this.
I understand why folks didn't want to spend the time to buy and craft, but the "buy direct" segment of the player-base had a significant impact on the "crafted IO" aisles of the market.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
One of the best adds in CoX history.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
We did. We weren't PUGs though. It was a deliberate effort back in the summer and fall of 2009 IIRC. There were three groups (1 on red side). I joined the blue side effort just to hoard them in my personal base, for my own crafting purposes, and to seed the market with ACC IOs during 2XPs wknds and issue launches.
[img]https://i.imgur.com/26pBVBG.png[/img]
([i]Currently developing the Sapphire 7 Initiative[/i])
One of the things I learned early for a new character was that running through the tutorial would yield one large red and one large green inspiration. I never used them. Instead I worked through the tutorial, emerged, and then did early missions until I had about 5,000 influence. Then I would go and sell whichever inspir I could make the most money selling, under 50,000 influence (so my 5,000 could cover the listing fee). Once I had sold one, I had the money to sell the other large inspir. Presto, i had enough money to buy some DO's and improve my powers.
I don't see this as an exploit...with just a few inspir spots at the lower level, I was paying a price to carry those two around with an extra trip to the hospital or two. but it was a smart way for a cheap player to lever up some money quickly.
Once again, this required a rich level 50 to be dropping influence like raindrops, paying handsomely for the large inspirs. But it went to a good purpose, so thanks for those items, guys!
Most purples I seen were above 300 million. A couple were at 250 million one or two at 200 million. Every blue moon couple of months might be able to catch one at 150 million.
And no, not saying everyone should get one or rare items should not exist. I'm saying the market should not be the only place to purchase any of them at the mercy of made up prices by the players. There should be somewhere else another choice with a set standard price, even if priced decently high for value, but the market should not be the only place to get anything a player may want to buy.
And of course purps were not mandatory, niether was a sub. Although seen many people get kicked off a team because they said they was not purpled out, especially when it came to level 50 content and the incarnate stuff. Seen many people said "You dont have purple sets, then you wont survive." And thus they were left out.
Either way all I'm saying there should be other places to enjoy the ENTIRE game, and not be forced to do the market or else be stuck with SOs unless ya hit the lottery for any item in the game or sold on the market.
Well speaking of PVP IOs. never seen one less than 2 billion. Possible they sold as soon they hit below 2 billion.
And of course in the market thing that people leave out and since the COX market is suppsoe to operate like a real market, things people forget that also happen in the real world, is one, there is things against price gouging. Two, monopolies in the markets are strictly frowned upon. And if the market is supposed to be like a real market then there is supposed to be alternatives. And three the real market dont depend on drop rates. Most stuff is manufactured or processed.
And side note, if IOs were not that great where it wasnt felt needed, then it wouldnt have been high priced in the first place if it wasnt step above SOs in the first place. Thus saying it not needed do not prove a point that those prices needed to be marked high priced for no reason. Even with supply and demand and stuff, apparentl yenough people felt they needed it to deal with the market to buy it. As I said, I'm sayign get rid of the market or change it or what not. I'm saying with the market even the same way, there should be anotherr store or place to buy every item. Even if it requires real money to buy. So simply that people who may not enjoy the market, whether IOs are needed or not, can enjoy the entire game, everything the game has to offer, just like those that enjoy the market can when they pay the same, not be forced to play the market to get things they want or feel they need. Those that enjoy the market can, and charge what ever they want just the same. And those that dont enjoy the market can simply svae up or whatever and buy from NPC without having to deal with the market.
I loved crafting common IOs! I used to craft various set IOs, too, but there was something weirdly satisfying about making common IOs and unloading them for people who were in a hurry to buy them. My main had all the crafting badges, so all it took was the salvage. Double XP weekends were such a lot of fun - it was impossible to keep up with demand, even if I stockpiled salvage in advance.
'Buy it nao' set the top-end price everywhere. Impatient customers are the best kind :-)
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
You make valid points.
So it's simpler to make whatever you buy from the market can not be sold on the market. The only thing that would remove that restriction is if you buy materials and craft them into something or, assuming this gets added to the game, you buy a completed item and deconstruct it.
And if you can't sell it on the market, it should probably be account bound. I'm sorry to say that last, but IMO flipping opens up a whole host of ills, including gold farmers.
Problem solved.
I don't have an issue with the market finding a level, even if that level is not easily reachable for me.
What I object to is players artificially inflating that level so that only other players who manipulate the market (e.g. by flipping) can purchase said items.
I'm here to play City of Super Beings, not City of Day Traders. The market can, and should, serve more people by being a tool for the many, not a mini game for the few.
Just wondering, but what is your view on "Bind On Pickup" gear drops that other MMO's use?
If what you're worried about is high prices and gold sellers, then enormously restricting market supply is absolutely the last thing that you want to do.
If items from the market can't be resold, that means found items are a lot more desirable then bought ones. (E.g. when stripping a build, all the found IOs could be sold and used to fund another build, while the bought ones cannot.) You have destroyed market liquidity. This will lead to rampant hoarding of drops, tiny market supply, and sky-high prices. Removing the market as a way of generating in-game currency means people will be more likely to turn to gold sellers, or to RMT trading of valuable items, not less. Wanting a market that's fair to everyone is a great goal, but that's an absolutely bass-ackwards way of going about it.
Flippers just aren't that bad for the game, anyway. Supply and demand set prices, and flippers just follow the market. Overall, they improve market liquidity and (in CoX) reduce inflation. At worst, they're neutral, at best they're helpful. If you want to worry about inflation, worry about adequate gold sinks, because that's the real problem.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
After reading the comments here for a while I have to say that I don't like any of the ideas on restricting the market or binding items to a character or making things unsaleable permanently or temporarily.
I did not start in CoH until after the market was introduced and at first I did find it frustrating, everything was so out of reach and the stuff that wasn't was not really worth investing in. As time went by it got better. Yes it still bothered me when it was apparent there was someone taking advantage of something, but in a free market situation that is bound to happen. I did not "Play" the market, but I learned how to use it.
One one the main points made by others, if you restrict things too much then the market becomes pointless, no one will use it and it was a waste of time to add in the first place. Just make sure you can by everything form vendors in the first place for money, merits, whatever. Many of the suggestions I've seen by the anti-flippers will simply make the market a useless entity.
And to the point about some of the more expensive IO's never being available, well, it was not just a case of rarity. Yes they were rare and there were few on the market, but there were more being sold than what was listed in the market. Some on the items were being sold privately off the market because there were people willing to pay more than the cap to acquire them. If you make the market more restrictive then you'll just see more of this and make it harder to the average player to acquire things.
In the latter days of the game (summer before shutdown) I was actively crafting and reselling purple attack IO's. I don't seem to recall seeing them over 225 million any time recently. When they'd just come out, yeah. Depending on the piece it seemed to vary from 75 million to 175 million for the recipe. With the lowest price being the solid +Damage one.
[color=green]BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER[/color]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42230002/Memes/favicon.ico[/img]
Ok I totally agree with you BUT
There is a misconception here, there were a few players who played just the market and from what I could tell from the forums, actually didn't do anything else. Mostly however there was a medium to large size bunch who just played the market for a few minutes, maybe half an hour to an hour split between logging in before *actually playing* and then after a session of *actually playing*. They were still a minority of players.
For this purpose I consider *actually playing* to be just that, you take a bunch of your characters on a bunch of missions, you engage with mobs and npcs, friends and pugs and team or even if you're just soloing you are moving around maps doing events.
Personally I could and from time to time did.. spend way too much time stood at the market on a single character, from time to time I would spend way too much stood at the market on a bunch of characters as I figured out bids that either filled or sold whilst I was stood there, resulting in me spending time just playing the market for a bit.
Mostly however marketeers were playing the game. Sure they were scheming whilst doing it, they were posting plans on the market forums and of course individuals and cartels did spend time manipulating prices for their own purposes. Look at the crazy um.. 88's? I think 88.. they went out of their way to delete money from the game but even they were still playing whilst they were doing crazy market stuff. Even the bunny would run some serious TF's/farms, he still loved the game as a whole more than any single part of it.
For a few people, it was all about the mechanics of a trading system and they played CoX to play the markets. For most people it was just about using the blind system to turn lowball bids into profit making sales. It wasn't black magic, there were tons of guides on the market forums about how to make money, most forumites advertised what niche they were playing, where they thought would spike next.
The argument FOR flipping / marketeering is that you are finding the price that people will pay. Say that's 100. If I come along and put in bids at 50 then I will make a profit when I resell. Anyone can do that, anyone can bid up to 90 and make a profit. Sure if there was no flipping everything would be 50.. but don't forget I could still buy them all, vendor them or store them somewhere (preferred option) to put the price up. Only then the price would have to be 120 to cover the losses I make from vendoring cheaper items / to cover inflation.
I'd say there was a problem with certain IOs hitting 2 billion (the cap) because a) there was a cap.. and b) you *needed* that item to make that cookie cutter build you copied off the forum.
Often thought that you could make a fotm build JUST to sell specific items. So if you were cleverer than I and had an awesome brute build that took milkshake 420 IOs, stock up on them, post your build, profit.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
I'd have to agree with everything GH said.
There are the outliers. On the right you have those that take try to abuse the system and on the left you have those that want anything and everything done to stop those abusers even at the cost of hurting the general population.
Most of us were somewhere in the middle. Myself, I probably spent less than 10% of my time in the market overall and spent the other 90% doing missions either alone or with a group. Some days more, some days less depending on my goals at the moment. The market, selling, buying, it was all just part of the game for me and even with that attitude I managed to amass billions, so much so that I gave it away and participated in anti-flipping (buying high and selling low) to reduce the prices.
The game needs to be balanced for those of us in the middle.
Could a few tweaks be made to the game to make it better, probably. But the absolute clamping down of the market as to make it impossible for those on the right to abuse it that I'm seeing proposed by a few will only result in it being unusable by anyone and that's not something I'd be in favor of.
Gangrel,
I hate BoP
Hube, you win.
Draconian measures are NOT the answer. Or rather I'll say they are a cure that is as bad as the disease.
Yup, but I;m noticing a slight pattern. It seems that there is assumption that people don't like the market means they A) don't know how to use it. and B) were broke.
Most of the time that isn't the case. In some cases yes. Some people that had billions spread across multiple toons knew how to do/play the market at or near expert level but didn't enjoy it or think it was proper for them to have to do that just to get times the wanted or needed. Many did it because it was the only way to get along to get what they wanted. Why did people need billions anyways to buy stuff they need or to build a toon how they wanted to? Inflation, that should of been controlled wasn't. The reward while bumped up a little from when something as low as 25 million was more than enough, it didn't keep up for the sudden jump to when it took multiple billions of dollars to build a toon to optimal levels.
It's like how some people say the controls in DCUO are too console likes. There are plenty of guides on how to do DCUO controls in and outside their forum and people could learn how to use the controls. But when it gets down to it, whether they learn or not or read guides, do that mean the person will now like DCUO control set up? Probably not. Many are probably very good already at using those types of controls. Doesn't mean they like it or liked it much or wished it was a bit different. Makes sense don't it?
But then why is it alien to think that could be the case for COX market and only reason people could possibly not like the market as is is simply because they didn't have money and or didn't know how to use it?
You keep saying this, and it keeps not being true.
All CoX did was add more and more ways of getting recipes and salvage. Heck, by the end of the game people had even stopped coming to the market forum and complaining about how it was impossible for casual players to purple out their warshades. Practically every major change in the game added another drop system. The TF revamp brought in ordinary merits. The AE had tickets. Side-switching had alignment merits. The incarnate trials had two different types of merits. And that's without good old fashioned farming.
Do any of those, and you'd get the items you wanted eventually. Do any of those, throw the results on the AH for 1 inf, and you'd get more than enough inf to buy what you wanted, faster. Yes, the market remained the easiest and fastest way to make inf and get the specific items you wanted. How could it not? The market potentially made everyone's drops accessible to everyone else.
But the market was very far from the only way to get what you wanted, and saying anyone who wanted to put together a build was somehow forced to play the market is disingenuous.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
Purpling your casual warshade was a bit of an in-joke surely.
You can substitute playing the market for any other in-game event and complain about that just as much.
it's not fair my casual warshade can't:
do all the TF's
run this mission on +4x8
get all the badges
walk
wear this costume
pick a certain power from an unavailable powerset
Most peoples problem with the market was that the buy it nao option was expensive, especially if you wanted a fotm build nao.
That's the players problem not the games fault.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
First thing you say is that my statement is not true then you explain the process and one step of the process is "throw the result on the market." That is what I'm talking about I'm not talking about being broke or how to play the market. Either way, to buy many items you had to go to the market whether it's to trade another purple fro merits to the one you need, or etc. Still had to go to the market.
Why so adamant about not having another option to go, using inf, and buy the items from an NPC? Those that want to play the market can, those that don't, wont ever have to touch the market with their inf whether to trade in stuff or what ever nor have to jump through extra hoops in trading in farming other items. They can take their influence, just like market people, and go buy the items they need just like market people the only difference it's not going into another player's hands. Nothing more nothing less. It wont even effect the other people that want to play the market and give and equal influence buying option of those that don't.
I get that you are fundamentally opposed to having to use a market and I totally see your point. However saying "you guys have a market, I'll buy from the NPCs" wouldn't work.
I mean what would be the point of the market? We could all just buy from the NPC. May as well save the development money of introducing a market.
I could see a level of complexity being that origin, event, base, high level, low level, enhancement, recipe and event NPCs only carried certain stock. Except that just adds a layer of confusion. Where do you get rikti telescopes? For some reason nobody can figure out they are a level 35 science item sold in the level 30 shop that is near the large tree behind the second railway station on the third island.
I thought the game matured near the end with merits getting you stuff, with convertors to make it the right stuff. That's quite a complicated little system there that would have been pointless if you could just buy it all from an NPC. I assume you mean you can buy everything from an NPC right? The recipe at the right level, the salvage to build it? So what's the point in fighting stuff then? If all you want to be is overpowered at end-game then that's the same in any game, it takes time and patience and honestly I'd rather have the market than spend weeks farming a mob for a drop then moving on to the next mob and farming that for weeks and then on to the next mob.. d'oh.. someone ninja'd my drop, have to farm again for weeks.
The devs always said that the market was voluntary, mobs were not made tougher because of the introduction of IO's and actually I was pretty OP with just SO's anyway, many of the teams I played with played the content together cohesively and we blew through maps without any bonuses without spending billions of inf on a single toon. There was never an obligation to use the market and the NPCs selling you SOs remained in the game for you to use as you saw fit. amerits and ae tickets saw to it you could move up the IO ladder but remain independent of the market.
Plus in the end the cash shop started selling decent sets of IOs, something I hope to see in CoT. Would you deny them that revenue stream?
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Read it again. What I actually said was "Do any of those, and you'd get the items you wanted eventually." Nothing at all about the market. Just use the umpteen different kind of merits, and there's your stuff.
If you want to get your stuff FASTER, then you can use the market at an absolutely minimal level of interaction (throw everything on for 1 inf, use profits to get items at buy-it-now prices). But I didn't say that you had to. I just said it would take longer if you didn't.
Because this is a terrible, horrible, pitfall-riddled system to try to implement.
Simple question - how are you going to set the store prices?
As an absolute? Rare items are supposed to be rare, and provide long-term goals for players. A purple recipe vendor price that seemed reasonable at launch is going to make them as common as dirt later on in the game's life. That means that someone will have to have the job of monitoring the prices relative to overall inflation, and readjusting them to make sure that item availability matches the dev intentions. To maintain rarity, stores will have to be expensive enough that not too much extra stock enters the game, or they will have to have very limited stock (hellooooo, restock bots!).
As a lower proportion of current market price? Congratulations, you have just opened the system to massive gaming -- by marketeers! But on the plus side, it won't matter because, well...this simply isn't going to work. The store price will cap the market price. So if store price is 80% of market price, and that then caps the market prices at 80%, and store price is 80% of market price...you can see where this ends up, right? With the price about zero, and everyone swimming in rares?
How about as equal to market price? Further bad news -- this actually has the same problem as the system above, just slightly more slowly. The store increases supply, which lowers prices in the market, which lowers prices in the store, which increases supply...
How about higher than market price? Well, this is obviously open to gaming, again, but it might actually be possible to make it viable. Say that items are always available from from a store at (as an absolute minimum) 1000% of some longer-term market average. Supply will probably not be affected too badly, rare items can be kept rare, and people who really, really hate the market will have somewhere to shop. Does that work for you?
As I said before, CoX already had 'stores' for items. They just used merits as currency instead of inf. This was a necessity if the devs wanted there to be rare items, as merits were non-transferable, and their rate of accumulation was set as reward-over-time for different activities. What you can't do is have stores that use tradeable currency for purchases AND maintain high rarity for some items. (Unless you set the store price way over the market price.)
If you're saying that games shouldn't have rare items, or that items should be bound on pickup and characters should be self-sufficient for drops, then you're making completely different arguments about game design, and tying them to the market only confuses the issue.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
And buying it from an npc wouldn't be anymore nor less pointless than buying it from the market or buying any item from any source.
Yeah, the market was voluntary IF you didn't want to do or have IOs. If they wasn't needed, then what was the point of the IOS anyways? Because people wanted to do it.ANd again here it is, "IOs wasn't needed you could get by on SO." I know this and that the issue, see the only way to get IO is playing the market mandatory or optional. People keep saying they could do fine with SOs if they want to do the market. I'm saying that people that want to do IOS the market shouldn't be the only option or be stuck with rarely dropped items or the market. They should be just like people who like to the play the market and view it asa fun mini game, should be able to go purchase it also.
A while ago I suggested to put stuff like IOs on the cash shop, but it howled down as Pay to win and not something they were interested in doing.
And people keep saying that having an NPC would create bots and gold sellers. I guess when IOS came out in COX, bots and gold sellers were everywhere because of the lack of ability to go anywhere else and players charging crazy amounts of money items thus bots and gold sellers came. In fact if people have other option, it would decrease those people. And if people are not using the market then it's very apparent that players charge too much. Those that enjoy the market don't have to buy from an NPC, they can simple still use the market. BUT the difference is, no one, whether it's optional or not, will be forced to go to the market at the mercy of player pricing if they wanted to do IOs, insteado f the option of being funneled into the market or stick with SOs. That is not equal choices and it's obvious that is not a fair choice for something that is supposed to be optional. I'm not saying that stuff should be super cheap but should be a reasonable price instead of the crazy price fluctations that lead to hyper inflation and the appearance of gold farmers and bots like in COX. ANd if the worry that rare items shouldn't be sold at NPCs then maybe they shouldn't be allowed to be sold on the me market either but since it was, the "rarity" thing is moot. Anyone with enough cash and enjoyed playing the market could buy it and have. Purpled out toons were very common over all with items that were supposed to be super rare. Some bought in from the gold sellers others played the market and made a killing and a few simple got lucky with the drops. It would harm anyone except those that like to hoard billions of influence by controlling the market and the only way to get those items, if NPC offered those same items at a more reasonable price. NPCs sold SOs, and many people I know still bought SOs off the market. But no one paid attention to that nor was a an issue because SOs are not high value very flippable items. But IOs were and only downside that adding an NPC to sell the times would be that it would be more difficult to charge much over than what the NPC is offering. While providing an ACTUAL choice and ACTUALLY making the market optional for those that like IOs just as much as the next guy and want to make their toon powerful and not get kicked from the team because they are not IOed out, but don't enjoy player on player market system.
Those that want ot do the market they can and if as many people enjoyed the pro-market people let on, then there should be plenty of people playing the market as a mini game. While those that don't enjoy the market can be just as powerful but don't have to partake in a system they don't enjoy with the other option being weaker. Or as I suggested a while ago, yeah putting IOs on the cash market would work too or at least be a step in the right direction. Although people who don't like playing the market and don't have enough real life cash probably wont like that much.
Purps were already common due to the market. So what's the issue? A person could barely set up an 8 man team with more than half the team purpled out.
And bots an s gold sellers were everywhere in COH once the inflation due to the player ran market hit. So the extra option isn't going to bring them in. They are already there when prices got too high by the players. The price should be set of course. Only reason inflation was even an issue in the first place was because of the player market. control the player market inflation than the set price that keep it actually rare, should be no issue.
You said it would be an idea but your reasons for it being idea is the stuff that already happened with the player ran market? If that is the case, then why not are you saying to get rid of the player market period and let rare items stay rare with what drops only?
And ya suggesting that an item that sells for 400inf should pay 400,000 influence? That don't sound like a fair deal and still depended on the market that players run.
Either way the purchase economy should not be player ran. That caused great inflation and the arrival of the gold sellers and bots. There should be another option for players that don't enjoy the market. It's great that some people do, but no way should people be forced to play the market or go without. If IOS wasn't that great, then why the high prices or even being in game in the first place. SOs, when SOs was in game the game got along just fine when a person could purchase the SOs they needed from the NPC or in rudimentary form from another player. No bots, no gold sellers no crazy inflation. With the introduction of IOS they could have kept that system even if the market was added, it should of been optional, truly optional. Not play market or cant partake in IOs.
The inflation was already there, 5 year vets had tons of cash before the market.
The players regulated the market.
You didn't need a team of purpled out players and besides which this is just your anecdotal complaint. My coalition specialised in breaking game mechanics, a full team of fire/rads using only SOs was more powerful than any purpled out team you could put together. We had themed SGs of tanks, dark toons, kins and brutes, electric sets, an SG just for emp defenders - you should see a team of those steamroller content.. but I digress.
If it was all available at an NPC there would be no economy. That's how it was in CoX before the market.
At this stage we've gone way off the original investigation into market pvp and this is now just you saying you don't like the market. I'm not aware of whether there is going to be a market like cox but if so there will definitely be an NPC setup like CoX. All the stuff you *need* will be available from NPCs and / or drops from mobs or tickets/merits/etc all the stuff you *want* will be available on a market or via drops from mobs/tickets/merits/etc.
I also think we're over-exaggerating the "bots and gold sellers were everywhere" aspect. No, no they weren't.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
These two statements are at odds with one another, if you apply them to yourself.
And while I would be delighted to see an additional revenue stream for MWM, I do NOT want to see pay-to-win.
Seriously. I mean, I'm not saying that people never were kicked out of teams for not having purples (by noobs who didn't understand rare set bonuses, I assume), I'm just saying that I never, ever saw it. I never even saw anyone ask for characters with IO sets for a team, and I did my fair share of speed runs and MOs. Maybe it happened on Freedom? (I admit, that's kind of my default assumption for assy behaviour on CoX that I never actually witnessed. Apologies to all the lovely people who played on Freedom, too.)
Being nosy, I used to pass the time waiting for iTrials and TFs to start by reading bios and checking set bonuses. There were an awful lot of 50s out there running quite happily just on SOs, and somehow not being shunned. Once the defenders and corrs had buffed everyone up, who cared about set bonuses?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
The players didn't do a good job at regulating the market and it should have had a little bit more regulation. And again, I never said you needed a team of purpled out toons. Yes again I say, I know it was optional, but purples are something or else there was no need for the high prices and people buying those items. Purples were nice items to have, not needed, but part of the game that many wanted to partake and only way the COX system to partake was through the market. Yet supposedly the market is supposedly optional. Yes optional if one had no desire to purple out their toon.
Who ever said I didn't like the market? I don't recall saying that at all. Although still I think there should be other options.
Just because someone may see an issue with the market doesn't mean they hate it, or didn't have cash or never used it. To me, it just looks like you fear losing the billions of influence and the ability to havea monopoly of what people buy and thus set what ever price YOU feel you want to sell it for. WIth other options me and you both know, that price gouging will be the thing of the past, there still will be a market but a selct fe market players wont be corning the entire market and charging absurd prices just to add to their 20-30 billions they have spread across the toon. Even before the market and when people had money sitting around, rarely were there people with billions. That came after the market and only after the market did items started to be listed for 100s of millions and up. The market caused inflation. All of that was not there before. That was caused by letting players run the market the only source to gain many items and inflation happened because it was not in any ways useful as an influence sink. All it did was transfer 100s of millions among the players while more and more influence entered circulation. With an NPC, that influence is gone, out not in another player's pocket. Thus controlling inflation.
It wasn't something I enjoyed nor was it something I hated. but either way there was no other choice. I'm just saying there should be another choice. If those that WANT to play the market they can. Nothing will stop them. Those that don't, there wont be anything forcing them to get the items they want. Meaning, that if they want purps, needed or not, they can and still have the market optional. Truly an option. People say "they can skip the market." In the COX way, not if one wanted to purp out their toon. They had to deal with the player controlled market. Only way marketers will be affected by this is if they continue to charge high prices and find that people will simply balk at their crazy prices and go somewhere else. As it was, there was no other way. If they offer at a decent price they will sell. If not, then it wont. That is how real life market and economy works. There is a reason monopolies are banned.
Mostly seen it on Virtue.
The set bonuses showed up in the profile .didn't have the right or many set bonuses, kicked from the team also.
You say this, but the players did regulate the market otherwise everything would have been 2 bil, the devs said they would not interfere several times.
I may have misread your intention here but it did seem like this was what you were striving for / expecting. An Uber End Game Purple Team for your ever mission.
The prices weren't absurd or the items would not have sold. The market wasn't cornered or even corner-able I don't believe. CoX provided lots of other options, the only problem I can see is when you want something right now, that is when you'll pay the most for anything.
They aren't.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Well with the market I think the devs probably should have interfered a little bit more even if for inflations control. Just because everything wasn't 2 billion doesn't mean it was all good and perfect. Compared with what the influence per unit was worth prior and after or rather purchasing power of influence after the market hit, economics wise it was a failure. I don't even think the Zimbabwe currency experienced that much inflation is shorter period of time and that economy is considered an utter failure.
And the thing about stumbling over many purpled out toons is you here taking it out of context. You're the one that said that NPC option would make purples not rare. I said in the response it wasn't rare to begin with once they were allowed to be traded on the market. Nothing to do with "need". And no other option to purchase sounds like a pretty good corner to me. And it's not about how long it takes. If something is listed at 400 million to 1 billion they can put their bid in for 1 influence and wait for years, that doesn't mean they will get it anytime soon. And maybe they want it now, so what? Why stop them? If they pay more, then set up an NPC where it's a bit pricey based on influence drops, like Questionite in CO items, and go from there. For those that like to make every purchase a mini game, they have the market. WHat is it that you don't get about that everyone don't want to be forced to go through the market to buy items especially when it was supposed to be optional in the first place? Plus if you like the play the market, how is an NPCD selling the items in any fashion besides maybe price control., will effect you and playing the market? To me, more choices are always good, and not bad. Sure, I could make more money if people were funneled into the market, but over all an MMO have to think more than just about a few people billions of influence for bragging rights on the boards. If they had a choice, then the measure of how fun the market really is can be measured. Or is it fear that the market may not be as fun widespread as people thought? And having an NPC to compete with would destroy that illusion.
You'd need to define a bit pricey on influence drops along with defining what items you want the NPC to sell.
Rare items for instance would never be sold by an NPC or they wouldn't be rare.
I stopped going on the forums because they annoyed me in many places, they are not a good representation of the rest of the game.
I don't object to many places that you can obtain in-game items but they were already in-game.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Jag, you're starting to sound a bit combative.
Could you simply state your position/what you'd like to see in the game using bullet points, as I don't really seem to be able to see what your position is.
Reading through the topic,. all I keep coming up with is that you think that a market leads to overpriced goods, and you want to be able to buy everything from an in-game NPC. That might be correct, it might not. I'd just like some clarification.
[color=green]BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER[/color]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42230002/Memes/favicon.ico[/img]
Crafting has been mentioned by a few people in this thread but I'll go ahead and state specifically that, whatever is done with the market, the market needs to remain viable and interesting for crafters. It's a fair bet to assume that the devs are not going to implement anything that will cut the legs out from under crafting.
- - - - -
[font=Pristina][size=18][b]Hail Beard![/b][/size][/font]
Support [url=http://cityoftitans.com/comment/52149#comment-52149]trap clowns[/url] for CoT!
Equal viable alternative to the player ran market system. What ever can be bought and sold on the market should be able to be bought and sold elsewhere.
-Suggestions- #1Ability to buy from NPC. Thus players that dont want to bother with the market for what ever reason, can choose to not do so without being blocked from items that otherwise would be totally or nearly market exclusive.
- #2 Simply players cna buy items with actual cash.
To GH- NPC wont make items less rare. Rare items became unrare with the market. Anyone thta choose to play the market, the only way, could get the item, thus already killing the rarity of said item. If rarity is really the worry and must be upheld, then rare items should not be allowed to be sold on the market either. You keep saying NPC will destroy the rarity of the items when the rarity of items been destroyed when the market came into play.
While there should be no intentions to cut the legs from under those that craft, althoug market and craft are two separate things, and crafting can be done whether the pieces are bought from the market or npc or RL cash. I dont think that for people who may not find playing the market enjoyabel should have their legs cut out from underneath them either just in the name of the market. As I said, keep the market the same, add another option. Simple as that. win win for everyone. With no one getting left out in favor for another. Or is it that people that dont enjoy the market dont deserve to play the game or deserve equal treatment?
And no not getting combative, although I dont understand the thinking that people thta enjoy the market playstyle andl ikes automatically trumps any addition that give players that may not like the market an option. I think both can coexist. I dont understand why the thinking that only the market should be allowed and no one should have any equal option besides the market. AKA forcing players into a system they may not enjoy when an option can be implemented where both can coexist easily. So far the reasons given, are reasons against the extra option, are because the market players would make less money and effects that already existed already without the option anyways, such as inflation, rarity issues, gold sellers, bots, and etc. Basically so far not good reason to step on and take postion of "You will play the market and like it stance or stick to SOs."
Or like this. Things that have been viewed as good (seemingly from most people of COX)
AT-power choice options- viewed as good. In fact, they said they plan on taking it further than COX, which is still viewed as good.
Costumes- From standard tights to cat girls to bots, to normal looking people, to clowns, chickens, and everything in between. Options-views as good.
Mission/leveling path options-viewed as good.
Alignment- hero/villains-good. The additional alignments-viewed as even better.
Playstyle- option to solo and team and still get along relatively well- viewed as good.
PvP or PVE- option also viewed as good.
Economy options- viewed as bad? I dont get it.
the market did not make things less rare, the rareness refers to their drop rate.
If a hundred people play for a hundred hours and rare item 1 drops from 1% of the mob, 1% of the time.. that is still rare whether there are 100 of them on the market or not.
The devs can alter drop rates but their presence on the market does not change their rarity.
And that is the point, a rare drop is just that, not something you can get from an NPC.
HOWEVER you can get it from amerits, ae tickets, through trading with other players, rl cash, as a rare mission reward.
And you can up your chances by concentrating on specific mobs known to drop these items, we'd regularly kill all romans whilst waiting for an ITF to start.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
Well the cash shop was added and populated post-market to provide another stream for goodies so time and patience came first, then came the ability to buy IOs and then later, to buy good IOs.
I did both, because the shop bought IOs were BOP it freed up existing purples that I could sell/reuse on other toons. That along with enhancement changey things was really good for maybe 2 or 3 of my many, many toons. It certainly wasn't game-changing for me.
I don't really understand pay to win. I do understand content and levelling so bad that you feel the need to pay to just be able to play. If it turns out like that then I wont be playing but I don't object to buying boosts and costumes and non-combat pets and other shinies.
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
False.
It was completely possible to have a fully IO'd toon without ever having to even enter Wentworth's, much less use the market. Non-set IO recipes were available for flat-out purchase at the crafting stations in the University and set IO recipes were available via drops and as rewards on task forces, etc. The materials needed to craft these IOs were all available via drops. No market required.
So no, playing the market was not necessary [b]at all[/b] to create a fully IO'd character. Sure, it was [i]faster[/i] to get what you wanted via the market, but it was not [i]necessary[/i] as you are claiming. And that includes purples. The first full purple set I ever had on any character all came from dropped recipes, not from buying them on the market.
Ooook. So then like I said, NPC seller wont make it less rare, as you said, specificially for the drop rate, anymore than than if it was available on the market. I thought you was talking about the rarity in availability.
You basically explained the problem right here. As I said prior many times, of course they drop, that option is available to market people and not. Yet, market players get assess to those things. And I said prior also, besides getting lucky with a drop, the market was the only way to get many IOs that aplayer may want. That includes purps by the way.
You keep suggesting that non-market people should settle for less, as you keep saying, well rather first it was SOs, now it's non-set IOs. I'm talking about equality. Not, market people get the monopoly on fast track for IOs purps while non-marketeers must settle for less and be satisfied. I'm talking about straight pure down the line equality for both. And for many the dropping was not the "fast track" it was the only way. Not everyone got as lucky as you to get a set of purple drops. And like I said, only way they coudl get it was the market whether they liked it or not. And marketeers have the drop rate and extra available to them that they enjoy while ones that dotn enjoy the market are either at the mercy of the drop rate system, like everyone else, or at the mercy of the player market. How can you explain that is equality when it's pretty obvious it isnt?
There is a fast track for marketeers. How about one for people who may not find the market enjoyable? That is the point i'm getting at. Not settle for less, not settle for non-set IOs instead of purples enjoyed by marketeers, not SOs. Marketeers can purchase purps and all sets on the market. And thus so should that same ability be offered to people who may not find the market appealing. Did marketeers had to settle only for non-set IOs? Not that I recall, so why is it proper or right or considered equal thta those that dont like the marketing mini-game is suppsoed to settle for less?
The drop rate-moot. Both marketeer and non-marketeer can use that equally.
non-set IOs- moot- because settling for less quality items is no more equal than segregation back in the day.
Equality. Marketeers have their perk playground, how about something for those that find market a drag. The market could always get ridden of and everyone have the same chance same drop rate like before. Equality. Not one set of people marketeers get the gift drop fast track whether it's needed or not or balanced aroudn SOs or not, and the other set dont get something equal to it and left out in the cold.
Either way another option for players isnt a bad thing. If the market is as good and great and ejoyable as it supposed to be. it will continue to be so. The difference is that for those that are not as lucky as you with billions of Purps drops to sell, wont have to go to the market to be purpled out, wont affect your game play at all, and they can truel y not have to deal with the market at all. Not in trade for lesser items such as this non-set IOs excuse you keep throwing up.
CoH handled this (in later issues) reasonably well with a broad spectrum of ways to get what a player wanted:
1. random drops of items,
2. guaranteed drops of "merit/ticket" currencies and corresponding NPCs where virtually any item could be purchased,
3. in-game market to enable buy-now or slower strategic trading worldwide, with decent availability for most items,
4. ability to sell or give most items to other characters,
5. ability to craft items, buy some of them in crafted form, and store fairly large quantities of many items for later use or sale,
6. real money shop for high-tier items if all other sources are sold out or too slow,
7. ways to convert some "junk" items into "good" items with a random roll and a cost in some currency,
8. ways to break down or convert some crafted items at a high cost or loss.
If we can generally agree on that point, it seems that CoT would naturally keep those good ideas from CoH, so that everyone has alternatives to the market, for every item.
The major remaining decisions that will impact us as players would be:
1. prices for each item at the NPCs, and which currencies are accepted,
2. are there limits on which items/currencies should be traded/gifted/stored,
3. should the "IO" system be levelless or at least not so level-dependent (IMO, a flaw in CoH's design which was slowly being rectified by levelless IOs),
4. should the "loot Y only drops at level X" limitation be eliminated,
5. how reasonable should breakdown/conversion costs be,
6. how to fairly balance rewards earned by solo and group play in PvE and PvP,
7. whether some aspects of the whole loot/market/crafting/currency/RMT systems must be delayed to later issues.
As I read the kickstarter updates, I note that the dev team has clearly put an impressive amount of effort into other systems to make them equal or better than CoH, so I'm sure this will get the same attention, when it's time.
I could get by with 1st category option 6, with ALL items, not lesser, not only non-set IOs, not select few that no one really uses, were available. Equal to the market.
And the second category, yeah I suppose that stuff will be worked out in due time. Hopefully with every category they are aiming more so for better than COX. It's not 2004 anymore. What used to be novel in 2004 that was found in games then are increasing becoming more standard and I estimate even more so in the next 3-4 years before the game go live. And that goes beyond just updated graphics.
False again. Every single IO, be it common, set or purple, was available without needing to go to the market. If they were not, how did people get the IOs to put on the market in the first place? The market was not the only way to get anything. It may have been the fastest way to get something, but it was not the only way and repeatedly claiming that it was will not change that fact.
Hardly. I simply pointed out that your claim about the market being required was false. You may have a point about the markets being unbalanced, but attempting to argue this point with provably inaccurate claims will not help prove your point. If you want to argue that the effort needed to get certain IOs via drops is inordinately large when compared to the effort needed to get get the same IOs via playing the market, fine. Argue that. But don't make exaggerated claims that cannot stand up to the facts as that just causes people to wonder if your other claims are equally exaggerated.
As was pointed out up-thread, there were many ways of getting the various IOs and rare items. There were drops, of course. There were AE tickets, the various kinds of merits, TF rewards and so forth. Would you also complain that those people who were very good at organizing and running TFs which supplied IO and merit rewards, and thus were able to get the various merit reward IOs quicker than those who did not enjoy TFs, are being unfair and those who are not good at TFs are being left out in the cold?
You keep saying the word equality. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Incidentally, I should point out that as much as I thought that the market in CoH was an improvement over similar markets in WoW, Co, etc, there are a number of things that I think could be improved to minimize the type of massive price swings a few people could influence. They tended to be short-term effects, but some additional functionality in the market design could make it much harder for that sort of thing to happen.
As an example: I'd expand the item history. too often the 5-sale history of an item type only spanned the last few minutes and it could easily be manipulated by a single person buying 5 or 6 of an item at a high price. I'd keep price records going back at least a week, with the ability to see the high, low, average and mean prices for each day. Keeping the data for a month or three would be even better, as you could spot trends. Plus, this would make it much harder for anyone person or group of people from manipulating prices.
You are really dodging the point there. I already said that non market people should have an equal way, meaning if the market is the fast way, then there should bea fast way for non-market people.
None of my claims are exaggerated. There were many Purps I recall that couldn't be bought with merits or AE tickets and ect. And where didn't itmes come from, drops of course if one was got lucky and I also already addressed that. And again, I say, drops is available to marketers and non-market people alike. Market people get the market and non-market have nothing . Meaning the inequality. I don't equality means what you think it means. And not to mention you make assumptions that people that don't like the market also didn't do TFs, or the other stuff where IOs had chance to drop. I already said not everyone is so lucky and thus if they were not lucky to get purple drops and the likes and wanted to get that stuff, the market was the only option that had all items that could be sold, for sale. I'm saying add an option EQUAL to the market, for people that may not like the market. That is equality. Two things of the same value. Not market get all the purps and those that don't like the market must solely depend on drops or SOs or non-set IOs or common SOs or other crap. What dictionary are you reading where that means equality? By your definition, tow people do the same work for the same job and contract but one get paid $1.25 and the other $35 an hour is equal. Yes, they both get paid, sure, but that is not equal.
What I said help prove my points but of course it's will not prove the point you are dodging and trying to twist it into it make it into something else.. That is why you don't see it prove the point. It wont fit into your definition of equality and points that are not the point I'm making. Stop going sideways, stick to the point and it make sense. You keep saying the same thing I'm saying.
Read the point stick to the point and you will see what I'm saying it is unbalanced and there should simply be and equal mechanism for people that don't like the market and the market can stay for the people that like the market. When you keep saying no no no, people that don't like the market should not have equal to the market. Then it's very apparent that your view of equality is not only off, but absolutely obviously wrong.
The point being is that even with added option it wont hurt your gameplay. You still will be able to play the market, buy off the market and sell of f the market to your heart content. What I don't get is why are you so adamant on thinking your enjoyment of the market should be the only way, and there should be no other, EQUAL, the keyword there EQUAL,, set up for people who don't want to deal with the player market for what ever reason. And because they don't enjoy the market doesn't mean they don't do TFs and such. What I think and gather is that you know good and well the market being the only way is bull crap and you profited so much and enjoyed it so much you cant even look at the matter in a non biased unselfish way and see any other way as a challenge to your play style. Which it is not. If that was the case, then why have options in any category? Why have different ATs, or different missions or even different alignments. I can tell you why, because contrary to your belief, choices are fun to have. Hell maybe some days I want to play on the market some days maybe I don't, but either way options are good thing to have. Well maybe you don't think so, but I do.
But I do like CO market set up a bit better. None of that auction nonsense. You set the price it sells or don't or you go to buy it's set price and you pay. WoW- meh, about the same level as COX IMO.
No, you are missing the point. You made a claim that was not true. I pointed out that your claim was not true. I said nothing at all about any of the rest of your points in my initial response, just that your claim that the market was [b]required[/b] was false. That point still stands, your claim was [b]false[/b]. You then brought up all of the other stuff, which I had not addressed, so that you could avoid admitting that you were wrong when you made that claim. It's a common tactic (the red herring fallacy), but does not change the fact that your claim was not true.
Also, I never said that people who didn't like the market also didn't like TFs. I used an analogy comparing those who didn't like markets with those who didn't like TFs. (both groups exist, you know) If a group does not want to use a specific element of the game, this does not mean that that element is not available to them, simply that they are choosing not to use it. If someone refused to use SG bases that does not mean that it is unfair that they cannot benefit from the teleport bays that people in SGs use.
And I hate to burst your bubble, but I rarely used the markets. I'd pop in now and again if I was looking for something in particular, but for the most part I used the slots in Wentworths to store spare recipes (since they could stack, unlike in a character's inventory). Sorry I don't match up to your desire to see me as a ruthless capitalist monster out to oppress the downtrodden.
And your claim was still untrue.
How is it false when every items that was available on the market was not available for purchase anywhere else besides if you got a lucky drop? So no, my statement is not false. So there is nothing to admit in the fact that I was wrong.
You still just cant answer the simple question of how is it equal by any means when there is not a market equivalent that is not player controlled for people that don't like to play the market. I suspect why. Because you know good and well it's no where near equal but cant get out your narrow minded thinking and think of a better reason to dodge the point and simply say I'm wrong.
But lets say what you say is true. And every time could be purchased in the game as is. That means what I' m suggesting already existed and your points about why it shouldn't exist and the "World ending affects it would have" is all garbage. You basically just shot your entire argument to hell there buddy. But the fact is that not every item was purchasable. Some things you either had to get lucky and get the drop or buy off the market.
So which is it? Every item could in fact be purchased and thus what I was saying already existed and the apocalypse happening argument you made earlier is totally moot and was trash or every item could not be purchased outside drops and market and you just disagree with given other player equality.
It's not like I said get rid of the market or anything. I say keep the market just add extra option for those that may not like to play the market and how often YOU use it is irrelevant to the fact that the system catering to one enjoyment but not the other is unequal.
You stated that the [b]only[/b] way to get those items was the market. Not 'the only way other than a lucky drop'. Not that it was 'the only way to get the item via purchase'. You said the [b]only[/b] way. That is false. More false when you realize that there were even other ways to purchase them, such as via merits or via the cash store.
Except I never said any such thing. The 'World ending effects' claims were made in posts from other people, not me; and I have not commented on those claims at all, either positively or negatively. You are attributing arguments made by other people to me.
If I had actually made that argument, perhaps. You're doing a wonderful job of beating up on positions I have never held. That's called beating up on a strawman, by the way. (Strawman fallacy)
As long as you are unable (or unwilling) to distinguish what I have said from what other people have said, a rational conversation is impossible.
Trying to pull the irrational/strawman line now. Yeah. The conversation went irrational when you automatically assumed I was wrong because it don't fit in with your playstyle. Admit it, you were wrong in thinking it's equal and wrong for saying every single item can be purchased with tickets and merits.
You're running out of ammo and going to the classical, strawman and irrational statements. You took a few posts longer than I thought but I already knew it was coming. Tap out. The conversation was irrational as soon as you try to say I was wrong as a fact when it's clearly you had and have no clue of what you are talking about, especially when it came to the meaning of equality.
Maybe you'll have your way and everyone is forced into the market as because you like it. Maybe not and people that don't like the market will get some equality regardless of your opposition to equality. I bet if someone said get rid of something you like, because I said I don't like it, it would have been a major issue and you'd be saying I was wrong if I said it was fair and equal.
You couldn't and still haven't explained how it was equal and you're throwing every cliché out there."I'm wrong." "irrational" strawman" and everything you can to skirt around having to explain how it's equal. What's next, you're going say "troll", "wall of text" excuse?
If you wanted an rational conversation first thing you must do, is think rationally first and know the basic meaning of equality. Since you clearly didn't, yopu never said anything rational. Just dodging the point and clichés.
Wouldn't it have been easier just to say, you think what you think and I think what I think and leave it be? But of course seeing as you aint even though given ample opportunity, I guess once again I have to be the bigger more mature person.
You think the way you want, and I have my opinion of what I would like to see, lets just leave it at that. There you go. That's your exit. Now you can stop using strawman, irrational, false and every other thing you can thing of to prevent a civil conversation from going on. Oh right you cant be civil, you don't even know what equality means and while you busy trying to point the finger and telling other people they are wrong irrational or strawman, maybe you look up the word equality and maybe what I'm saying might be clearer if you are willing to open your mind beyond what you like. But that is something you have to do on your own if you choose. See aint it great to have the option to be close minded or not? It would suck if someone took that option away from you and said you should and will think like this in this manner because I like to think in this way and this manner.
Remember when I said you were starting to sound combative?
Yeah.
[color=green]BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER[/color]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42230002/Memes/favicon.ico[/img]
yeah, now I was after he started to get combative with me. First few times I let it slide, after a while, ok no more sliding. Yet you didn't point that out did you. You didn't say he was sounding combative. But when it continues and I finally return the favor, OH, now you point it out.
At least call down the middle and don't call one side being combative without even acknowledging the person that is causing the combativeness. That is irksome to me, that may get a "combative" reply when you do that.
You're being needlessly aggressive, overly defensive, and extremely sarcastic. Medicant is not.
Step back for the thread awhile and compose yourself, please. It doesn't help your point if view to just be growly and snarly when someone points out that something you said is incorrect.
[color=green]BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER[/color]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42230002/Memes/favicon.ico[/img]
And didnt get that way until he started to attack me, and got aggressive with me. Calling it false, irrational, straw man, That isn't defensive, aggressive, and all the sarcastic remarks he made you somehow missed and never really addressed the point at all?
Well maybe you didn't see it that way and it wasn't to you, but to me, it was everything as you described and thus I started to reply in kind.
It works both ways. Don't come at me aggressive, defensive sarcastic and etc. and I wont come at a person like that. And then some third party when I do reply in kind, make it out like it all just suddenly came out the blue. But then again as I said, maybe different interpretations for it, but I'm telling you that is how I seen it and thus replied in kind.
There is a way with disagreeing with someone option without starting off saying ,"you're wrong" or being snarky just to be snarky and not even have enough respect to at least stick to the point. Like I said the first few times, I let it slide. After a bit I started to reply in the same manner he was replying to me.
I am composed. He should compose himself. He got up tight at the suggestion of an idea an idea that wont even affect his gameplay and started the attacks and sarcasm.
And not to be mean or anything and you're probably trying to help, but you are not helping at all. You're attacking me and ignoring the other side that started it. But the conversation is over. I think we both said our piece and it's done. Lets just leave it be. Please.
He's not attacking you. He's attacking your argument. There's a difference.
It's not a personal attack, it's pointing out problems in your position with the intent of giving you the opportunity to clarify or correct them.
If you perceive him as being rude and return his rudeness, what does that get you? A bit of an aggression spiral.
Maintain politeness, even when someone is being rude to you. Civilized discourse is the best way to get your point across.
[color=green]BIZZARO MEDIA FOLLOWER[/color]
[img]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/42230002/Memes/favicon.ico[/img]
Yup. and I tried being civil at first. It didn't work.
I know there is a difference between attacking argument and attacking personally. And he didn't attack the argument, he didn't even bother to address the point, just more attacks and sarcasm the way I viewed it. And each time in a civil manner, I tried to clarify my point. Even breaking it down to one word, Equality. Yet he kept on attacking, personally and being sarcastic and rude. To me. Only person within that conversation that wasn't trying a single bit to be civil was him. I was asking questions to get a clearer and give him the opportunity to clarify his position in fact, yet he kept on with the attacks. He asked nothing to offer opportunity to clarify my position besides "I'm wrong and he's right." I'm exaggerating and he's perfect" stance.
I will remain civil and take a few more attacks like I did, but if they continue then what is expected? Of course eventually when there is no way to maintain a civil conversation then I might get on their lower level of communication. And prior to getting on his level, I said multiple times, "stay to the topic, stick to the point, stop addressing everything but the point. I thought that was clear enough signal of although I'm remaining civil, I feel that the response is aggressive and personal attack mode. I guess it wasn't clear enough.
If he would have been civil from the get go, then no spiral can happen.
But regardless, of his rude posts and stuff, my stance still remain that there should be equality for both market players and non-market players. And he has his stance and it would have been fine and maybe there would have been some stuff I didn't think of, if he presented them but he didn't. Just attack attack attack attack attack. How much of that is a human expected to take and remain civil? Then when I fired back, THEN it seemed to become an issue. While forgetting what is rude and snark to one may not be to another.
Like I said, maybe I didn't make it clear to him that I perceived his comments as rude as hell and next time I have to find a way to make it very clear if it happens again so that it wont end up looking like I'm the sole aggressor later.
Then you recall wrong. Seriously, there' a point at which when you keep repeating things that people have pointed out are untrue, it stops looking like you just don't understand what you're talking about, and starts looking like you're deliberately obfuscating.
For your information, here is the complete list of items that could not be generated via tickets or various types of merits:
Hamidon Enchancements.
Crystal Titan Enhancements.
Winter's Gift IO set.
Overwhelming Force IO set.
Common thread? These are all drops from specific events, and are meant to encourage people to take part in those events. If you don't like event-specific rewards, that's a game design choice that has nothing to do with the market.
EVERYTHING ELSE was available for tickets or merits (see my previous post for the explanation of the difference between stores using reward-over-time non-transferable currency, and stores using inf). In case you don't believe me, here are the Paragonwiki links for the different reward tables. I've pointed out the vendors with purple and PVP recipes, so you don't miss them:
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Ticket_Vendor
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Reward_Merit_Vendor
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/B.O.T.L.E.R. - Purple and PVP
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Incarnate_Merit_Vendor - Purple, PVP and AT
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
Actually I know for sure because many sets I was looking for at those places had to find elsewhere for a brute I was making. Not obfuscating.
But that is still besides the point of what I am talking about in regards to equality. It's been established already that is not the fast method and thus not equal to the market. I'll try once mroe to make it clearer of what I'm talking about. Not being aggressive or what not, just simplifying the point as simple as I can here.
*Market-spend inf. No extra tricks to go through or what not.
For non-marketeers- there is no place to go and spend inf. like market people are able to do.
Looking for something equal to that for non-marketeers, where they can too just like marketeers, with no extra stuff to do, no extra farming and spend INF just as they would do on the market, except not on the market. That is the bare bones of the point I'm trying to make. Something equal.
I though I knwo good and well nto every single recipe was available though those methods described, as I said, some were available in each category but not all. And that I know, because I tried it personally. But even if it say they were all availabel through those methods, that is still not equal to the ability to walk somewhere and spend inf with no fuss and buy the items like people that like the market have the ability to do.
Hopefully that clears it up and all the side tracking of the idea is now back on track of exactly of what I'm talking about. Equality.
Option-method
Market-Inf
Non-market- not inf.
I'm aiming for:
Market-inf
non-market-inf.
Equality.
Hopefully that clears it up a bit as teh bare bones of it. To keep it dead simple, two people do the same things, both amass soem INF, both want some say purple recipes. One, say the person like the market, simple go to wentworth and buys it with the INF. The other person, that dont go the market cannot go do that anywhere else with his INF. That is the point I'm making where it's unequal. All that extra stuff is what I was talking about dodging the point and addressing everything but the actual point I was actually making.
A brute? I'm going to guess that one of the sets you couldn't find was Kinetic Combat?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
Possibly.
But I rather stick exactly strickly to the point at hand.
The difference of market-spend inf. non-market-no where to spend inf exactly as easily as marketeers that I think should be closed and brought up to the exact same level. If marketeers can go in spend inf. and be done then so should non-marketeers be able to use the exact same currency without going to the market to get that effect.
Not trying be aggressive, but want to prevent the side track again and point get twisted and the following stuff that usually end up non-conductive. Plus of course I'm goign to say thing when the same point keeps getting presented. Just because they repeat it over and over doesnt mean I'm going up and change my mind all of a sudden because they repeat it. They say something I reply, if they say it again they will get same reply and so on. And that is not being dense. Just because someone says "you're wrong" over and over doesnt mean because I reply, "no I'm not wrong each time" means I'm being dense. It means more than likely as much as they believe I'm wrong I believe I'm not wrong and probably best to just leave it as that because they can say "i'm wrong" all day and night doesnt mean I'm going to up say say "You're right" when I either know and or dont believe I'm wrong. It's dense for them to keep insisting especially when it's not even about the main point at hand.
It's way too late to help your brute, but you needed to move the level slider to a level where the recipe dropped. If you didn't, you couldn't see the recipe. By default, the slider was set to 50, so there were quite a few sets that wouldn't show up unless you adjusted the slider.
If you did that, then I promise, all the sets in the game were buyable in some form with tickets and various merits. Saying otherwise is just wrong.
Okay.
Then we're back to the point you never address, which is, what if the devs want to have some items be very rare in the game? What if they want relatively few of them to actually exist? How are you going to make that compatible with your inf shop?
That's the real problem with an inf shop. That's why they're really, really difficult to implement. That's why saying 'an inf shop should exist' doesn't do any good, if you can't explain how your idea for an inf shop will actually function in-game without destroying the concept of rare items.
You're just repeating 'I want an inf shop'. What you aren't doing is addressing the problems that other people have pointed out with the idea. So. How are the prices in your hypothetical cash shop set? How does it WORK?
If you could present some kind of plan that implements a cash shop AT THE SAME TIME as maintaining item rarity, then that would be great! I think that would be cool.
Or, you can just say that you don't care about the effect on item rarity, because you think it's wrong for there to be rare items that are out of the reach of most players. That's a fundamental statement about game design philosophy, and that's cool too. At that point, there's no debate, because you're talking about a completely different kind of game and it's just down to a question of taste.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
As far as I know (remember me? I'm the guy that started the thread...) there were several ways to get things in CoX depending on what you were looking for. The sets you're talking about were available in two places: As drops for playing the game and on the Market.
Like many drops, specific items came along at random times. My toons would often get drops that they had no use for and I'm sure this was common. I would generally mail them to my other toons that could use them or, more often, sell them on the Market.
One of the strengths of the Market is earning power. 150k players earns a LOT of stuff. The only reason anyone sells ANYTHING is that they either need the cash for something else or they simply don't need whatever it is. I had no Stalkers so I sold Stalker sets like mad and so forth. This is how the system works: You sell what you don't want and buy what you DO want.
The problem with having everything available at a Vendor of some kind is that the Vendor's price will be fixed. That Vendor price will more or less fix the price on the Market as well unless there's some outlying factor (like the ONLY vendor that sells Purple Things is way the other side of town and you don't want to bother with the trip).
I used to see Market debates all the time. One guy would claim that he saved tons by constantly tweaking his bids until he bought the item at the lowest possible price. The problem with this philosophy is what ELSE could he have been doing in that time? If he saved 50k and hour min/Maxing his bids but could have earned 100k an hour just leaving them alone and playing the game that's a net loss to him.
I see the same situation here. If the Blue Cape recipe is really popular and yet tough to come by the price will be high because of the law of Supply and Demand. It's hard to come by yet popular = lots of players are willing to pay a lot for it. This means they're willing to spend their Time (a resource) to earn Inf (or whatever we're calling it) in exchange for something they want. There is a chance that they may just get one as a drop but we established that they're rare already. It all comes down to what the player is willing to trade for what he wants.
If there was a Vendor selling the Blue Cape recipe for a million Inf then the Market price would hover just below a million Inf. If the price goes a little higher but the Blue Cape vendor is in the far reaches of the game then that's fine...people are paying more for the convenience.
This is one of the numerous reasons why not everything can be sold at a Vendor...it will fix the Market price and crush free trade. Remember that there are several very important factors at play here:
If Enhancements work the same as in CoX then everything you need to play the game WILL be available at a Vendor. You might find them at a lower price at the Market but a Vendor will likely sell everything you NEED to play the game. This makes the Market totally OPTIONAL.
Other things not sold at the Vendor (like Blue Cape drops in the example) are NOT required to play and will be available as drops. This means the more you play, the more likely you are to get one. If you really dislike the Market that much, then if you get a spare one you can choose to sell it at a Vendor and disregard the Market altogether. Most people who want one will hate you for essentially destroying it but that's up to them.
The other thing to remember is that the BUYER sets the actual price of the item. If Blue Capes are selling at a million Inf then that's what players are willing to pay. Another way to look into it is time invested. I can earn a million Inf playing for ten hours (as an example). In that time, if I get a Blue Cape drop then I'm happy. If not, it's my choice as to whether to buy it or not. I likely will because there is no guarantee that another ten hours of play will get me one but ten hour's of earnings WILL. My choice as to how I spend my hard-earned cash.
The point is that the Market is a completely optional enterprise. As far as I can tell there will NEVER be anything on the Market that can't be gained by simply playing the game. That's how stuff gets ON the Market...people playing.
Again, it's your choice how you play. I will always maintain that drops should be regulated by level so the 50 will never need a thing that only drops to 20s in order to build his Gadget but that's a drop issue, not a Market issue.
I remember when Star Wars was cool...a long, long time ago...
The market is an INF shop just with the added twist of player to player.
I addressed those points. As I said, rarity was already destroyed when it was available to place on the market when anyone thta liked the market could go up and buy it.
I also said that of course items should be high priced enough to keep the rarity thing if that is the goal. Of course I also said that there might have to be inflation control even if solely market method is kept.
And it will work like the market. A person go up with their inf just like market people and buy the stuff they need, the only difference is instead of going into another player's pockets, it's basically put out of rotation, the currency that is. But I did not address how the price could be set but it could be set just like SOs and the other items already available is set. The better andm ore rare it is suppose to be, the pricier it gets. Just like the market. And I also said the potential affect that it may have is that market prices may not have the fluctuations issues if somewhere else such as the suggested market non player controlled market npc have a set price.
I'm indifferent to the rarity thing and things being out of reach for most players. Although on one hand it do sucks that things are out of reach for most players who paid and played just like anyone else but find stuff out of reach compared to someone else. But at the same time, sometimes rarity gives players somethign to work for. Thus addition to the market, not in place of, and NPC allow it with the proper price, for players to work towards something just as much as players wrok towards gaining inf to buy things off the market. The only difference as stated earlier is that the inf is not going into another player's pocket. The price can be set according to influence reward rate and calculated by the average reward of inf at certain levels. Like how I suspect SOs, DOs, TOs, were priced prior to the market. Now of course when the market happened and inflation took over, the price of SOs were a drop in the bucket to most people's pockets and thus the inf sink that it was designed to be was literally nullified. But it it was only one way to purchase items and besides drops, that was it. Then the market came along, and while the extra option was great, it left the idea of other options in the dust. While someone could buy SOs off the market with inf just as they could at the NPC, a non market person couldnt walk to an NPC with inf and buy the stuff they need.
As I said though if rarity was the goal, then rare items shouldnt have been on the market either. Because then it made them less rare. There were some people that stayed SOs, but majority of folks I seen had at least an IO set or two, especially blasters and other squishies. And people with multiple sets were common. It was rare to see a level 50 with strictly SOs. Thus while rare on paper, the market it made it non-rare due to availability of purchase. And since it's already non-rare due to the market, then an added NPC will not destroy the rarity of the item. It would have been different if only way to get the rare items was a way that truely kept them rare, and only on lucky drops. Then yeah, an added NPC would kill the rarity, just like the market did.
So no, I'm jsut repeating "I want an INF. shop." even though ironically that is exactly what the market is although player to player. I already addressed most of those stated points, and just in case it was missed or buried, I restated them again. The first time, ok, maybe the point got lost in the sauce. This time, if it's called simply as "I want INF shop." that means it's clear that the point dont matter and whether or not I go into little detail or great detail, their mind is already made up and there is nothing to discuss because they wont see my view and I'm not changing my view just because they dont to at least consider it. Out of all the things I readdressed only one is new. But now whether or not it was addressed or not earlier is moot because it's addressed now.
And like you say that saying simple "saying 'an inf shop should exist' doesn't do any good", neither do saying "There should be no equal to the market" Now, I explained and re explained how I think it would work.
Now before dismissing the idea, it would be nice for once to extend that same rule of explanation thst is expected of me to be applied to people that keep saying "there should be no market equal." and explain of why there should not be a market equal. Real textbook dictionary equality. Market-go spend inf. non-market-go spend inf. There might be a very good reason for that view but it cant be seen if not explained. Hell, even maybe some mid way alternatives that I havent thought of would help too instead of the usual "you're wrong." and or straying from the point.
Or I could have just missed it, but just as was expected of me, maybe a re explanation of why an equal system to the market is bad and or even better and more coductive, other alternatives to obatin market-inf purchases non-market inf purchase equality. Of course even even better if the snark and attacks are withheld.
I was never a fan of the "market flippers" in CoH and never really bothered trying to manipulate the market like that in any way. I made my billions on the market the old-fashioned way - I bought raw recipes and sold crafted enhancements. I accept why some people loathed the very concept of flipping and can even share some sympathy with why they think it's something to be controlled or eliminated. But by the same token I don't really accept the premise that market flipping was ever really unredeemably "evil" or something that needed to be regulated with stronger mechanisms than already existed in CoH.
Sure there were times when a few people attempted to manipulate prices and occasionally it was mildly annoying. But for all the shenanigans that ever went on I'd confidently assert my speculation that 98% of the time it was a total non-issue for anyone. Once again I'll make it clear I never quite understood the mindset of the flippers and could not imagine gaining any joy or even long lasting benefit from engaging in those activites. But it's pretty much for those reasons alone that I couldn't care less about the scourge of the "market PvPers" and can't really agree with asking for stronger "solutions" that might ultimately cause more harm to the game's economy than good.
Basically I think all this talk about "eliminating market flipping" is a solution in search of a problem.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Because you're basing part of your argument on 'the market was the only way to get some sets in CoX, and that's why prices were so high'. Which is wrong.
Look, I'll help you out. Here's the list of all items that were not available from a particular vendor. That should make it really easy for you to find some examples of all these IO recipes that weren't purchasable with tickets or some kind of merit. Just click on an IO recipe name, and at the top of the description will be the vendors where you could buy it :
http://paragonwiki.com/wiki/No_Vendor_Purchase
Rarity has nothing to do with whether or not something is available on the market. Using that definition, SO were some of the rarest items in the game, because there were usually very few of them on the market.
Rarity is how many of a particular item exist in the game in total and how often these items drop. Very Rare recipes had a drop rate of ~1:5000. This is what rarity means.
The 'drop rate' (the rate at which items enter the game, by any method) is not affected by the market. The market does not create items. The market only moves items around. The market has zero effect on rarity.
Tickets and Merits DO affect drop rates, BUT they do so in a controlled way. First, they are NON-TRANSFERABLE. Secondly, the devs can set reward-over-time limits on how quickly players can get the tickets/merits. Note: the least controllable method (ticket accumulation) also had the LEAST PREDICTABLE reward shop (not everything was available, and recipes were all random rolls).
An inf shop that sells items at or below market prices SUBSTANTIALLY affects drop rates. Players can accumulate inf at rates that are outside developer control, and use it to buy items at rates outside developer control. Item rarity is no longer something that the devs control.
I did. It's here:
http://cityoftitans.com/comment/24123#comment-24123
If you can come up with a way to create an inf shop without damaging item rarity, it would be lovely to hear it. This isn't the same as handwaving 'prices should be set to something that's a good price'. WHAT price? HOW is it set? If a purple recipe costs 150 million inf on the market, how much should it cost in a shop?
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
I agree. And flipping isn't really the same thing as trying to manipulate prices, anyway. Flippers buy and relist. Manipulators attempt to reduce supply, thereby pushing up prices, which requires them to buy stock and junk it or store it long-term. Because they can't change underlying demand, only pay to change supply, this has obvious limits. Outright manipulation tends to be hit and run, before the niche collapses when it becomes too expensive to sustain, or attracts competition that kills profits. Flipping goes on in stable niches, often lasting for a long time, because the niche is sustained by real supply and demand.
Flipping is a really easy, low-maintenance way to make inf, especially for people who have very little gaming time and want to maximise effort for return. Some people who flipped slow-moving, high-value recipes or IOs only checked their niche once every few days -- perfect if your RL obligations only give you an hour or so of gaming time a week.
I never flipped much, also because I found crafting was more fun. For some reason, I enjoyed 'log in, pick up salvage and recipes, craft and list' a lot more than 'log in, flip stacks from to buy to sell ', even though it's more or less the same process, just with an extra step.
That said, I flipped the hell out of salvage during the peak of AE exploits, when all the farming and PLing moved to AE and uncommon and common salvage prices went crazy. That was so fast-paced, it somehow became really entertaining just sitting in Wentworth's, watching stacks of bids and sales simultaneously filling and emptying. Weirdly hypnotic.
Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for? - Robert Browning
Well I'll appologize for loosely equating all "flippers" as "manipulators". I suppose just because manipulators tend to use flipping as a tool doesn't mean that all people who flipped were neccessarily agressively trying to negatively affect prices.
In any event my main point was to leave everyone to their own devices. I could make a few billion a week by spending roughly 10 minutes a day crafting a few key recipes. Just because I personally felt the act of flipping was mind-numbing doesn't mean I think the Devs should try to keep people from doing it regardless if they're trying to manipulate the market or not.
CoH player from April 25, 2004 to November 30, 2012
[IMG=400x225]https://i.imgur.com/NHUthWM.jpeg[/IMG]
Yeah that is rarity when dealing with drop rates. I'm talking rarity in availability.
You claim the NPC market will affect that based on drop rates. I said the market already affected that based on rarity in the term of availability. By that definition, in order to keep those items rare, then the market shouldnt have existed in the first place. I think we are speaking about two different versions of rarity.
Yeah setting above the market rate could work but the market prices fluctated so much that eventually no matter the price set it could potentionally be below the market price because it seemed as in COX at time go one, the items start to get more expensive.
And I already said in explaining my position earlier, saying what you said in "a) to have the prices in it be way above market rates," That is when I said yeah it probably should be above market rate. A price that is not too easy to obtain but not unobtainable. That is also when you a while back suggested 1000% above market prices and I said that would be too high.
I already explained how the price could be set. "The price can be set according to influence reward rate and calculated by the average reward of inf at certain levels. Like how I suspect SOs, DOs, TOs, were priced prior to the market. If i could remember the exact price for SOs, I probably could give better estimate of the range." and that was in the last prior post. Plus there had to be a reason why a purp cost 150 million on the market then I think something like 300 million from the NPC would be proper. A bit more but still obtainable. But if going by the market rate then the market would have to have something to stabilize the prices or else, as I seen some IOs go way above 300 million and fluctate sometimes within the same day between 150 million sometimes and 500 million. Then that would mean even if the price was set at 300 million then it still owuld be at times below market prices. Although I think the addition of the NPC would help stabilize the prices.
And if players already can use the market to gain influence in a rate rate outside dev control, then why is it accecptable for it be liek that for the market but a negtive thing for an option outside the market? Prior to the market it was something to have 25-30 million. After the market 30 million was nothing.
Alright hopefully it clears it up, now so since my idea is a "terrible, horrible, pitfall-riddled system to try to implement" What do you suggest to make it equal? Well I'm assuming you do support equality between market-place ot spend inf on recipes and non market-place to spend inf for items.
And extra option will not create extra ijnf made outside dev control in fact it will remove more inf than the market ever did. The market caused inf to be earned in vasts amount outside dev control. And who said stuff that is bought from the NPC was sellabel on the market. That would defeat the purpose of it being there.
But I'm interested in you idea of how to close this inequality gap? Instead of it being market-place to spend inf on the items from common to rare. Non-market-no place to spend inf to gain those items the market people have access to in the same equivalent manner. I would love to hear you idea on how to fix the inequality. In short, you view my idea as "terrible, horrible, pitfall-riddled system to try to implement" So what do you propose that is a better idea?
Ok you can have your inf shop but the items the devs decide is rare by drop rate have to be 3 bil each.
Fix't
If people won't pay enough to finance its creation, it is not worth creating.
/Segev
If the item in question is actually worth 1 billion.
But of course if someone started to sell said item at 3.5 billion the npc shop price should not change because someone wanted more for that 1 billion item. And of course if ya could sell that item to the NPC for at least 1-1.5 billion. Then, yeah it's fixed.
How much items are "worth" on the market is dictated by the upper limit of how much players are prepared to pay.
And yes, I have seen players pay over the odds for stuff that can be bought from vendors because the Market was in a more convenient place than the vendor.
Once again, players are lazy, and if that one person is prepared to pay *way* over the odds... then in my mind, that player has more money then sense.
Some players will pay more for convenience... even if they might not always get the best deal.
All a vendor price will do is effectively set that recommended higher price limit on the market. It wont necessarily stop flippers, they will just operate on a lower margin.
And as long a players are lazy, there will be people out there who will pay more than vendor price for stuff. This even happened in CoX with TO's/DO's/SO's... although the market was limited for them, I still managed to sell a few for more than the store rate, not many, just a few.
Pretty much. Perhaps we should use the term rarity for the actual scarcity of the item in the game and availability to describe what jag40 is talking about. The market certainly improves the availability of rare items, as it allows people who get drops that they do not need to reach a much larger group of players with whom to trade.
Not quite accurate. The shop would affect rarity, not drop rates. (Unless the devs decided to reduce drop rates to compensate for the increased number of items being bought in shops) Even a shop that sold items at substantially above average market prices would affect rarity and influence those same market prices. It would introduce an effective upper bound on what the item would sell for in the marketplace. In essence the item's market price would exist in a range between the sell to vendor price and the buy from vendor price.
Ah, that's the post I was looking for last night when jag40 was confusing what I was saying with what you had said.
I agree. And to prevent confusion when talking about it I suggest that we use 'rarity' when talking about how rare the item is in the game (how often an item gets created via drop rates, etc) and 'availability' when talking about how hard it is to obtain an item (getting an item via drop, market, merits, etc).
So: The market has no effect on rarity, but increases availability. A shop increases availability but decreases rarity when buying, and increases rarity and decreases availability when a player sells.
If I understand correctly, jag, you're not that concerned about rarity, but you are concerned about increasing availability outside of the market. Correct?
Pages