Nethergoat

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Go into atlas now and look how many 20s 30s 40s and 50s you will find looking for team.

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I have. It's way, way down from where it was.


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I don't 'do' Another Fan any more, but can't help chiming in to note that the proof of Uber's statements is in the pudding.

Market prices on recipes that were 'crashed' by runaway farming have bounced back.

Anyone can see this, it doesn't rely on anecdotal MA head counts- stuff that was selling for 10k is back up to 6 million.

Cratered supply = way less farming, period.

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I know I've also seen Nethergoat denounce the lazy/impatient a million times and it'd be nice to get his valid point down in an objective and informative manner so it doesn't piss so many people off.

D

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i've been doing a little bit of research on a potential guide along the lines of "if you can't get rich doing this, buy some rope and learn to tie a noose".

On a new Mastermind I went back to, literally, one of the first niches I ever figured out, one which I've "blown" literally dozens of times on this forum in the years since- the lowly level 50 Flight Speed IO.

Buy for 50-100k, sell for 200-400k.
Daily turnover, consistent return.

Another SUPER lowbie trick that's been working is:

Buy large resistance inspirations for 1k.
combine three to make a large defense.
Sell for 200k.

There are literally dozens of dirt simple, guaranteed tricks like this that anyone can do. And they've all been mentioned here, most of them on a weekly basis.

That's what I mean when I denigrate the poor by choice. If you want to make inf, it's almost literally lying around on the ground. If you're too lazy to bend over and pick it up, your complaints about being a pauper ring hollow.

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Speaking of Nethergoat, I think he was an early market hater. Well, some pro-market guy around here was and I think it was him.

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i was never a hater, thank goodness.

My big early mistake was defending the Black Market vs Wentworth's on the basis that the smaller supply pool and lower overall amount of inf available would result in lower prices. "yeah it's smaller, but players will realize that and price accordingly", or some similar nonsense.

Thankfully, it didn't take me long to wise up.

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But I equally reject the stance that all things can be answered by more money, and that anyone not pursuing that goal is a fool who deserves to be gouged.

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All things?
No.
l337 IO's?
Definitely.

And things on the market are only worth what people will pay for them. It isn't possible to "gouge" anyone- if you price something beyond what the playerbase values it at, you're gonna get stuck with it.

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The super rich will continue to mock the poor for their lack of vision and inability to manipulate.

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Actually, I mock them for their laziness and desire for the best rewards without putting in the effort to earn them.

Well, except for the ones I help earn vast sums...

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I only think something is a grind if I don't enjoy doing it.


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yes.

there are any number of mindlessly repetitive things in the game that I quite enjoy.

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It is an investment. And not a very expensive one, as I recall. When I was doing it, it was something like "buy at 511, sell at 100" until all bids for Improvised Cybernetics were filled, repeat with Spirit Thorns and Regenerating Flesh, come back later and do it again. That gets you a couple of slots (one at 250, one at 1000 according to the wiki) for about half a million inf.

Pricing has changed, the "low cost high turnover" items have undoubtedly changed, and it may be less practical now in general.

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I'm doing this on a brute I'm playing on a bit longer time scale.

So far I've been able to fill all my slots with a common arcane buying at 111. I log in, re-list, and sell them all for 222 (well, usually quite a bit more, but I list at 222).

If I were just after the sales, there are a couple of things I've come across that I could absolutely pick up for a few hundred and insta-sell for a negligible loss.

you're wasting your time Uber, he's immune to logic & reality.

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I think the main reason why the market can be so profitable is because so few people do it.

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This is absolutely the case in my experience.

Take flipping, for example.

I start flipping something, anything.
At first I'm picking it up for 25k and selling it for 300k.
Some savvy player takes notice, and bids more and sells for less.
If I engage them, the buy price keeps rising, the sell price keeps dropping, and both of us keep making less and less off each transaction.

And if more than one other person gets in the mix, the process is vastly accelerated.

useful analogy:


marketeer = white collar office worker

"regular player" = manual laborer


While some people may assign greater moral value to one set of skills or the other, the bottom line is the system doesn't function without both of them.

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I'm not saying that IO's ARE out of reach, but many people PERCEIVE them to be. Which is why there are so many "stuff is too expensive" posts: normal gameplay is no longer rewarding enough to be able to afford the best enhancements in what people consider a reasonable amount of time.

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My 'casual gamer' concept stalker is sitting on 32 million inf at level 30, having done NOTHING other than play 'real' content, ghosting anything he could, selling his drops and crafting recipe drops that didn't require him to buy more than 1 bit of salvage (i/e, he got most of the ingredients as drops).

How much inf do these people think they need, anyway?

What I've noticed is that since I9 a lot of people whine and snivel about how "everything" is too expensive. But when you engage them and tell them in so many words how to, literally, make as much inf as they want, they don't want to hear it.

"I'm a superhero, not a stockbroker!" etc etc etc.

These types, and in my experience most inf whiners are that way, are completely unsatisfiable. They want to be able to buy LotGs at the store for pocket change, or they want guaranteed Miracle +Regens for running a TF.

The only folk who are poor these days are poor by choice.
The only people who don't have as much of "the good stuff" as their heart desires are lazy, or contrary, or both.

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In my opinion, logging a character in for a few minutes a day, flipping slots, and profiting immensely, should be acknowledged by the devs as "aberrant gameplay" and steps should be taken to ensure that it isn't orders of magnitude more rewarding than playing the game "normally."

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That is a ridiculous statement.

Efficient inf earning is no different from efficient XP earning- would you also decree leveling efficiently to be "aberrant" behavior?

The devs have already given the crybabies and entitlement cases merits and tickets. Anyone who still can't get 'the good stuff' has larger problems than the devs or the market forum regs are equipped to solve.

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Look, I think how the devs approached this whole thing was the pinnacle of stupidity, but your stance on it, posted far and wide across the boards here, is ludicrous in the opposite direction. Getting to 50 in under 20 hours is spectactular and impressive exactly because it's not something the general playerbase either knows how to do or wants to futz with learning how you do it. This is "easy" to do in the same sense that beating the STF and RSF is "easy" for the general playerbase.

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Uber inspires me to make a quick addendum to my stand-

The devs are entirely justified in imposing whatever limits they want on leveling speed & other reward structures in the game. it's their game, that's their job.

But players will try to find the fastest, easiest, most efficient way to earn rewards, and when they uncover stuff the devs don't like there are two reasonable paths to take:

- Patch the problem and move on.
This has been their solution priot to I14.

- Post clear guidelines, so players know where they stand. Then when the ban stick comes out and characters get axed everyone knows why.

The current situation (no guidelines + arbitrary, unexplained punishment) is ridiculous and unacceptable.

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I don't think you're telling the whole story. You make it sound like you created this mission and the magic ban stick whacked you in the back of the head without warning. I know players that got over 20 levels in meow farms that didn't get banned. As far as I know, deletions only happened for the most egregious farming benefits (benefits not tactics.

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And again, here we have the stupidity of no reasonable guidelines from above.

20 levels due to an "exploit" (as the devs decreed Meowing to be), no problem.

But 50 levels from a mission that would seem, by any reasonable measure, to be 'legit' and here comes the banwagon?

They either need to spell out their policy in clear, precise language, or give up punishing people because the tool they created and released does things they don't want it to.

And refusing to tell people what they've done wrong even after handing out bans and deletions is absolutely unacceptable behavior from supposed professionals.

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The "you'll get banned" thing is crap. Nobody I know has gotten banned.

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Oh well hey then, it's all good!

*rolleyes*


to OP:
the game's a lot like it ever was with some incremental improvements.

If you liked it before, you'll probably like it more now. If you didn't' like it before, I doubt anything they've done will change your mind.

GRATZ on another ding, Ryu!

Have a good one, here's hoping all your gifts don't yield Crap of the Hunter!

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as an aside I'd be happy to offer my services as an alt inviter to a solo SG
Mainly on Eastern timezone evenings

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if you have anyone on Virtue I'll take you up on that Cat.

my experimental solo stalker could REALLY use the prestige bump to push his base into usability.

this thread delivers the funny.

Haven't gotten any pool C boss drops myself yet.

I'm hopeful my stalker will get one before he grows up- stealthing missions and mowing lots of bosses should maximize his opportunities...

yes, you're the only one who doesn't like boring missions.

/thread

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Everyone saying badge farming and XP farming are the same, you're ridiculously wrong and you know it. Badges are completely cosmetic and serve no gameplay purpose, giving no unfair advantage over non-farmers. XP is of course the total opposite.

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There's no "advantage" to having alot of XP or IOs or whatever either. Unless, I suppose, you PvP.

What your characters have doesn't affect my gameplay one bit, whether it's a badge, or a level, or a purple IO.

Farming is farming. It's cute that some people think it's not farming because they do it, but reality disagrees.

Rewards are rewards. A badge is a reward that some people pursue obsessively. No different from wealth or xp or any other gameplay goal.

People always whine about farmers causing nerfs.
Well, badgers got MA nerfed.
Seems like the devs realize badgers can be farmers too.

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You seem to still be responding to my original "the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, blah blah blah." That statement was in regard to inflation.

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ah, ok- misunderstood your thrust.

sorry.

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What did you guys do to them before I got here? lol

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When they Devs dropped base salvage and replaced it with invention salvage, for some reason the base builders were very upset, and blamed the ebil marketeers for making it happen. I'm not quite sure why they decieded it was our fault and not the Devs, but I'm assuming that the negitivity you see over there is a residual of that.

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if they had to blame someone, they should have gone after the badgers- they were the big base salvage "manipulators" as I recall.

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But the Rikti farms were a different thing. Farming for XP/inf/drops isn't the same as farming for badges. Can't equate the two.

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yes you can.
give badgers an enemy that counts x2 or x5 on their progress bar and watch them swarm it.

farming = repetitive behavior in pursuit of rewards.
badging = repetitive behavior in pursuit of rewards.

it's the exact same behavior engaged in for the exact same reasons.

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You're equating farming for badges with farming for XP and loot, which is not quite the same thing.

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it's exactly the same thing.
Repetitive behavior in the pursuit of in-game rewards.

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I hardly use my Bases, they are useless, until one wanna keep his stuff without behing stolen.

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or likes being able to teleport around the zones, or likes crafting without having to shlep to the university, or likes empowerment buffs, or....

They could do more, but they're very handy as-is.

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I have plenty of alts, so the influence cap is merely an annoyance, not a requirement to spend. I do probably spend half of what I make. But like Fulmens, it does seem like a lot of it is going to the other rich – purples probably represent half of my expenses, and with few exceptions, I use level 50 set IOs.

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anyone at any level can get as rich as they want via pure market games- being 50 does make it easier if you farm, but literally *anyone* can be "rich" if they care to.

Having a fat bankroll makes certain market games easier, but does nothing to make the "poor" any poorer.

Only the obtuse, mentally deficient or lazy are poor anymore.