Nethergoat

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Something that gets used more than other things, for instance Luck Charms, should be scaled off that. Realistically, a Luck Charm should be worth in the range of 2500 to 5000 influence, not 80k.

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Realistically, things cost what people pay for them.

Only in Fantasyland where the magic ponies roam are luck charms "worth" less than a crummy tech rare.

People who want a store are never going to be satisfied with a market.

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Supply and demand is what dictates prices, that has nothing to do with democracy.

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in broad terms the players decide what is expensive and what isn't by 'voting' with their inf.

Like any comparison between a real world structure and a game structure it doesn't hold up under a microscope, but I think it's viable as an off-the-cuff comparison in a casual discussion.

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I'm an idealist and I think prices on low-level stuff should be lower than high-level stuff, so some more people can actually afford it as they level up.

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You're ignoring the basic structure of the game, where high level characters often revisit the lower levels to run content.
Their inf drives the market for luxury goods.

Anyone at any level can easily afford TOs, DOs and SO's these days. Anyone can afford to frankenslot. The only stuff that is prohibitively expensive is the stuff that delivers a serious performance jolt.

The market is a meritocracy, not a utopia.
Sorry.

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From a market profiteer point of view it would of course be bad, but frankly, I don't care all that much about that group of people.

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Since a major function of the market is to entertain and involve "profiteers", that diversity would seem to be a conscious design element.

I'll take the interest and concern of the devs over yours any day. =)

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Only one level of each unique IO would be great...

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Why?

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And yeah, the unique recipes should still have a specific level so you can't slot a miracle +recovery before level 17...

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Why?

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and probably some kind of tag as well to make them only drop between 20 and 40.

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Why?

I don't see any benefit in these changes- in fact I see it flattening the diversity of the market, making it more of a store and less of a mini-game.
What would you expect to gain from flattening recipe ranges and locking the uniques in at a fixed level?

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Now Champions, time will tell. I'm just really really cautious with Champions because alot of what's being said sounds like what was said about CoH before launch too.

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Given the track record of the lead dev anyone expecting the finished product to measure up to the hype better hide their razor blades.

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I'm playing the game and slot things as I level up, limiting myself to level 33 IOs is not my idea of natural progression. I don't have any interest atm to make twinks for specific level ranges and I don't think I ever will, instead I never go to those zones anymore (and I bet that I'm not alone in that).


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If you don't make the extra effort to be l337 in a certain situation you'll lose to people who do.
I never complained when my pve-specc'ed characters got their butts handed to them by pvp specialists- it's the law of the jungle.
I wasn't interested in competing on their terms, so I didn't complain about the outcome.

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Other than that you make a good point for having the set bonuses last when exemplared: that way the highlevel recipes will be more in demand and actually be the more expensive ones, the way it should be.

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the market is very democratic- the majority of the game's players get to vote on what prices 'should be', and that collective decision trumps your personal opinion.

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Although I've got to admit that I'm biased about this. I'm very annoyed by the double standard that the purples create: on my first visits to pvp zones I got invariably ganked by level 50 heroes that were fully IO'ed; now that I'm 40 and am nearly fully IO'ed myself, I still am a free kill in Sirens/BB since none of my bonuses work there. Instead of just having worse bonuses than someone with purple sets, I have none

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if you like pvp'ing in certain zones, build sets for those levels.

my fire blaster is optimized for level 30 so he has all his goodies when he oro's down for a DA visit.

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The number of complainers sure matters. Its democracy. Majority rules.

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this is the opposite of a democracy.
devs aren't elected, they're hired by a corporation and nothing any of us do or say have any more impact than the devs allow.

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Not ALL of them can be wrong...

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this is another common forum misconception, along with "all opinions are equally valid".

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Again, not everyone feels this way.

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not everyone feels ANY way.
but the psychological foundation of random drops is proven science.

The devs opted to follow the path blazed by other MMOs & supported by clinical studies. And it's working great.

So, uh, good luck with your crusade.

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Example 1) Smoke grenades. As designed they were fine but as implemented they were clearly broken. This was detected (after how long I don't know, before my time), verified and then fixed.

Example 2) SG Bases. Some of the Devs have flat out stated that the players did not use Bases as they'd intended. Ok, I don't know HOW they intended for them to be used but if the playerbase surprised them that much doesn't that mean that their design might have been flawed?

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A bugged power was fixed.
Players did something unexpected with a system that had no precedent.

What's any of that got to do with the market?
It was built off a proven real-world framework, is working just as you'd expect given its ground rules, and in spite of the wailing and gnashing of teeth from certain quarters it isn't bugged.

You may not like the way it works, but you're dreaming up this complex solution to something that isn't a problem.

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If numina's +rec/regen dropped as much as costume pieces i would love it for all my characters. But beyond outfitting all my toons I would simply delete any others i get. I most certainly would not be putting them on the market if the most I could get for them was a ridicuoulsly low price.

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This is another point- the rarity of the 'good stuff' is also a balance issue. They're as powerful as they are because not everyone will get them.

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I just don't see why the game has to continue dropping Snipe sets at the same rate when there are 1000 of them for sale right now.

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because they keep the rare stuff rare.
the psychological effectiveness of a random drop system is in the 'random'. flatten the randomness and it's less appealing to players.

Let's take Ryu.
Ryu has run who know how many TFs in pursuit of those few lottery drops everyone wants. A few hundred? More? A lot, anyway.

He did this because he didn't get what he wanted.
If he'd gotten some sort of "balanced" drop rate he would have gotten what he wanted and stopped running TFs.

The same thing is true for any drop- the less random you make it, the more predictable the outcome is, the less appealing & addictive it will be to your players.

'balanced' drops resulting in more 'good stuff' reduce incentive to play the game.

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somebody out there is huffing paint to sticky this thread.

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whew, they sobered up.

I was worried for a minute there.

somebody out there is huffing paint to sticky this thread.

if you want a flat pricing structure where everything is always available, you build a store not a market.

please to file 'some stuff is rare and expensive' under feature not bug.

wow!

epic win.

why does useless garbage like this live forever, while genuinely useful thread are constantly being pruned from the sub-forums?

Gah.

quality work, Squez!

Sounds good!

Solves the exploit without punishing people who have teammates drop or quit for whatever reason.

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Who will catch the bouquet?!

5-1: Silver Mantis

10-1: Fusionette

50-1: Becky

100-1: Hamidon

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Azuria will catch it and promptly have it stolen, triggering an entire arc of post-wedding missions.

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<AR>

The thing is Nethergoat I'm not to worried at this point because this patch just out is so very nice and full of good content. I'll give them a costume and emote sales pack if they continue to put out patches and issues as good as they have.

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Oh I'm not worried.

We'll still get all our regular stuff same as always, I'm not one of the tinfoil hat brigade (on this topic, anyway).

They want to make profit and they do that by shearing the sheep, not by slaughtering the herd.

I'm just pointing out it's in their interest as a business to find the balance point where profit taking and customer unrest intersect.

This paid bonus pack offers less than the last one, and if it goes over gangbusters they have no motivation to deliver a better offering next time. Heck they might say "geez, they paid ten bucks for THAT? let's see if we can get away with ONE costume and a couple of emotes!"

=P

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EDIT: for this pack 5$ would have been better.

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For five bucks I'd have picked it up for my one character who could use a fancy tux.

For ten, I'm passing.

NC Soft is a business, they have shareholders and they're under constant pressure to deliver profits.

If they can throw together a couple of costumes and a few emotes and make a profit, yes we'll see more of this kind of thing.

And as this chunk of paid content is a step down from the last one (GvE, with two costumes, a jump pack and the Pocket D teleporter), why is it unreasonable to suggest they'll test the limits of what the playerbase will cough up ten bucks for?

Yeah it's possible to take this to a paranoid extreme, but pay for extras cat is out of the bag and only a sucker thinks they won't be testing the limits of this technique.

I'm not against it- if I think it's worth ten bucks I'll but it, if I don't I won't.

But we're going to see more of these things.
If they make a good chunk on this pack, with substantially less content than the last one, who's to say the next offering won't be even more piebald.

I'm not opposed to paying extra for certain types of content.

But the value bar has been set by the GvE pack.

I got two very nice sets of costume parts that I use frequently.
I got a jump pack thingie that's very helpful at the lower levels and for my super speeders.
I got a Pocket D teleporter than was a huge QoL upgrade and that I can't imagine being without.
And I got a badge.

That, for me, was well worth my ten bucks, and I will happily slap down ten more for any 'premium' content pack that delivers equal or greater value.

This pack has two costumes and basically two emotes (am I the only one who's noticed the throw emotes are all the same?)

For me, profoundly Meh.
YMMV.