Smurphy

[ QUOTE ]
Rad/Kin, Ice/Cold, Fire/Dark, Sonic/Rad

enjoy.

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I talked with him in game and we came to the conclusion that this setup was probably best for him to get diversity and kick major booty from the start and throughout the game. I don't think damage is going to be an issue. There's a whole pile of debuffs on the team and 4 Corruptors bring plenty of shooterating. My thoughts were all focused on survival. Specifically surviving the alpha. I think once the debuffs, holds and controls start flying you've got it won. However, someone has to do something first and that usually causes all the bad guys to react. Dark gets Fearsome Stare at level 20 and that will be fantastic for the job. Until then I think the Kinetics is most suited to running in first.

I think going overboard, especially early, on survival might be a good idea. I think you can stack Shadow Fall, Arctic Fog, the cold Shields, and 4x Maneuvers to great effect. These, combined with the Rad and Dark to hit debuffs will floor the enemy's chance to hit you. I actually think it's overboard but sometimes things go wrong. You can always turn off Maneuvers. Kinetics doesn't have any toggles on the enemies and receives the Cold shields. Also, Transfusion, Transference and Fulcrum Shift all focus around the enemy. All great reasons why the Rad/Kin should run in first and take the brunt of the enemy fire. Radiation gets Irradiate, a PBAoE early, to use once it runs to the middle of the pack. Pass the Rad/Kin inspirations, especially oranges, early and often.

The setup pushes Stamina back on the non-Kin. The slotting is setup for early pre-Speed Boost play. After Speed Boost you may wish to change the slotting. The only important IOs are Knockback IOs. I only slotted them to level 22ish but I chose powers 'till 38. I tend to push travel powers back. I was able to take Super Speed on all of them. Fly packs should take you over any obstacles. I didn't take the tier 9s because I don't think you'll really need them. Most of the guys have lots of toggles. Though Tier 9s + Transference are really good. Feel free to drop powers you may not like/use for more Leadership toggles. I took Mutate/Fallout on the Rad cause I find them fun. You can drop them and take Shout or other powers. Early you might want another attack.

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[ QUOTE ]
Well no one likes paying for something out of their own pocket, especially if its fake. I thought this was common knowledge?. The fun part of the game its teaming, killing mobs, looking heroic, using power sets, patrolling, etc. I don't find making 150 mil+ just to get one purple fun. I'm just not that masochistic. Then again I would have to ask, why do you enjoy the market? ultimately your making money off of others in order to IO out your own character correct?. So in the end its greed I'm assuming. You don't have to play the market, yet you defend it as if its your own child. I don't loathe the market, instead I ony find CERTAIN players behind it to be the real problem. The typical "I have more than you" mentallity.

As far as I can tell, JD asked for a lower amount of inf paid for a certain purp. Are you that fake money hungry that you can't see his opinion clearly?. Or do you seriously want to make that much money in order to feed some part of your ego that craves in game money. No where did anyone say the market should be taken out, I atleast didn't. Only that some prices be dropped. Your acting like an extremist over a video game....need a hug?, your acting out simply over someones opinion. Look out your window, its called the real world, I know it looks scary but eventually your going to go out there and play ball.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm going to make an assumption. Please correct me if I am wrong.

You sound like one of those "if we all worked together and sold our Luck of the Gamblers for 10 Influence we'd all have Luck of the Gamblers" people.

You do realize that cannot work? There has to be some method of dividing stuff between players. There are many options: Lottery, Wait in line the longest, Someone arbitrarily deciding need, or whoever pays the most. The Black Market and Wentworth's work on the "he who pays the most" method. Purples prices simply reflect that. If you think purples are overpriced go out into the game, find them, and sell them or send the devs a PM.

Many posters here in the market forum have no issues with the developers increasing drop rate. A drop rate increase does increase the items available for players. A price cap does not. That is where poster's here have issues.

You are whining to the wrong people. Marketeers aren't making things this expensive. The developers create the drop rate. If you have a beef with 150M inf prices whine to them and not to us. Poster's in this section have a beef with players who are unable to comprehend that despite it being explained several times and in different ways.

Why purples are expensive:
1. More level 50s
2. Who generally have more Inf than old level 50s
3. Chasing less purple recipes

Increased Demand + Increased Demand + Decreased Supply

[ QUOTE ]
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I'd be the richest player in City of Heroes by hundreds of miles.

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Whoa man, I'm not saying you wouldn't or couldn't but don't you think there is a difference between confidence and drink too much of your own cool aide?

[/ QUOTE ]

I think Smurphy is already the richest person in Co*

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I'm actually pretty far from it now. I haven't thought of ways to spend Infamy/Influence that make me care enough to get more. I've grown too lazy and apathetic to marketeer. Sorry, making you Infamy/Influence won't return my motivation. I jokingly asked Mod 8 how much Inf would it cost to get my name on the Atlas Blimp once. He tried to make it clear that it was "out of my price range." I don't think I'd have trouble getting a 100 billion by the end of the year Though, it wouldn't be very fun. Maybe an hour a day of actual "work marketeering"

The statement about "richest player by miles" might not be an exaggeration. If price caps are created players are going to look to contact a person they knows has items available for sale. They are going to ask they're friends for names. I think it's a safe assumption to say that I have the largest presence of operating like a business on the two largest servers: Freedom and Virtue. If I wanted to put in the time I think I could operate a mega-store and negotiate with each individual customer. "Hire" a few friends, get a SG base or 12, pop out some google spreadsheets and we would essentially operate like any business. Plant ourselves afk next to BM/WW while we did other things. Buy goods just above the market cap prices. Sell way above that.

The most efficient thing to do would be for this forum to all get together and essentially make the consignment houses forum based. Every item that hits the BM/WW cap would be better traded via the forums and person to person trades. Maintain something close to equilibrium price on the boards.

What you'd do is post a trading price for that item. Players in game, trading amongst themselves would trade at that price. If it's clear that the whole inventory sells out then raise the price. If there are lots of people waiting around to sell the item then lower the price. Try to maintain a small buffer of people. Constantly adjust the price so the buffer stays about the same.

The City of Heroes market/economy is a super simple economy. If anything, it's too easy to apply economic theory.

[ QUOTE ]
The thing is Dumbleberry, some people still like to play the missions portion of the game and would like to be able to slot and build their toons from the drops. Not from running to an auction and trying to find one for what YOU decide i should pay for it. Maybe other folks should pull their tin hats down up and see that NOT EVERYONE wants or likes WW and having to use it for recipes. But since the rates suck, that's what we are left with.

To tell people the WW is the best way to get stuff, well sir, that's YOUR best way. Others best ways would rather be from killing stuffs.

[/ QUOTE ]

The merit system was created specifically with those players in mind.

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Some of what is going on with the higher priced items is obviously flipping.

[/ QUOTE ]

So the fact that all the prices rises have been concurrent with mechanics changes is pure coincidence, then?

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Actually not all of them, some pool As rose in "bidding patiently" price due to flipping as the real bargains only came available when the flippers filled their orders, which was never if the flippers put enough bids up and checked them frequently enough. No game change hit say harmonised healing pool As I9-I13, but the price you had to pay on an "I want it in a week or so" top level recipe seriously went up in that period, and the history would show no recipes available and 3 or 4 of the last 5 bids at a the same weird flipper type price in the 100-300K range, with lots of enhancements available at 2-3M. I used to be able to buy the recipes at 5-30K if I was patient.

This may be the market finding its natural level, but it is stupid to argue that flippers by removing some of the bargains haven't raised the cost of some enhancements to some people.

An anecdote, before the mass outbreak of flipping, a friend bought all 3 of the main healing uniques for a total of 18M, try doing that even immediately pre AE.

[/ QUOTE ]

The nerdy accurate wording is: Marketeers/Flippers/Manipulators are unable to raise the price of an item above equilibrium price and sustain a profit over a significant period of time unless the price elasticity of demand is incredibly inelastic.

Translation: Real marketeers can't raise prices above where they are naturally going anyway.

Flippers can and do raise prices in a shortage and reap a profit. The point is that flippers can't raise prices above where they are going anyway and turn a profit without getting "lucky." Sure you can paint the last 5 and sometimes idiots will come along and fall into your trap but there's no guarantee. If you've successfully identified a shortage, and the shortage isn't going to change, if the shortage is significant the profits are virtually guaranteed.

People seem to be having problems with the character copy tool so we ran on freedom and only had 57 deaths in 70 minutes. Very fun run. Gonna give it some time before doing another.

Your most commonly used click attack powers are your biggest endurance drainers. If you want to be nerdy you can calculate how much endurance you drain just by firing off your attack chain once or twice. Then see how much endurance you save with a little more end rec in that chain. When you compare that saving to end reduction slotting in toggles or increasing your recovery with tiny set bonuses you may laugh

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Look, I'm sure you know alot more about economics than me, but this isn't as complicated as real world economics.

[/ QUOTE ]

Which should, in theory, make it all the more easy to identify and isolate Supply and Demand.

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We agree that lack of supply is the main culprit, but even when supply of purples goes back up, the supply will remain low enough that it is easy to completely control the price by buying everyone that hits the market IF you are an evil marketeer with billions saved up. When there is only one or two of something listed per month, there is always going to be someone out of the thousands that play this game that is willing to pay it...even if it means buying inf from a .com, which is even worse for the game.


[/ QUOTE ]

And when I buy 6 for 200M and sell one for 300M how did I make any profits?

*EDIT*I am aware and I do know marketeers who do artificially raise prices above Supply and Demand just to tick people off. However, no profits are made. Essentially they are throwing money into the wind.

[ QUOTE ]
Market manipulators" don't make the prices climb.

[/ QUOTE ]

To be fair, this statement is not accurate. Many marketeers have identified prices in a shortage, raised the price, and profited. A "shortage" being a price where more items were willing and able to be bought than willing and able to be sold.

The most famous example of this is low level Luck of the Gamblers in pre-merit days. They used to appear on the market and sell for 5-20M or less. They would always sell out instantly. Some enterprising marketeers bid 20-30m across the board and listed the items for much higher. Prices were raised. Profits were achieved. Equilibrium was established.

Think about these interesting conundrums.

1. Why don't ebil marketeers cause other items to go higher in price? Why don't ebil marketeers cause common salvage to go for 100,000,000? Perhaps there is some "force" restricting them.

2. Many purple recipes are sold out. If they are sold out how are ebil marketeers manipulating them? "But Smurphy, they are just buying them all and selling them for more!" No, that doesn't work. How do they make a profit and prevent competition. A marketeer needs to sell 10% higher than the price he buys. So if a marketeer buys at 50,000,000 he needs to sell at 55,555,555 just to break even. If the marketeer is buying at 50M, why aren't you buying at 50M + 1 and screwing him over?

3. If marketeers were manipulating prices above Equilibrium price they would be buying more than they sold. Is this occurring? Where are all my excess piles of recipes I should have

4. Why do obvious increases or decreases in Supply and Demand alone seem to have their obvious effects on the market? Is this a conspiracy between all the marketeers to "adjust" their prices to make people like me merely "think" Supply and Demand work? Is it really them just pretending.

Take these examples:
Costume Recipes: Supply Increases, price decreases.
Mission Architect: Supply deceases on purples, price increases.
PvP IOs: Supply decreases due to drop changes, price increases.
Halloween Events: Supply increases, price decreases over event week.
Knockback IOs: Tickets allow easy bronze rolling, Supply increases, price decreases
2XP Weekend: Everyone earns double infamy but same items, demand increases, price increases.

Is it all just a giant marketeer conspiracy or does Supply and Demand actually work? Why can I make all the prices go to 2 billion and make a profit?

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[ QUOTE ]
Ebil manipulators do NOT cause prices to rise above where Supply and Demand dictate the prices would go.

[/ QUOTE ]

LOL...ok.

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I am willing to prove this to you at my own expense. I am willing to prove this to anyone at my own expense.

Put up or shut up.

*EDIT*
Really, ask any economics professor at any university. Ask them what occurs when prices are above Equilibrium Price. Ask them what symptoms would be like in such a market.

Ask them how one could artificially raise prices above equilibrium price AND maintain that price AND make a profit. Write to any of them. Please, show me the letters and show the responses.

Run the experiment yourself. See how long you last making profits. I'll give you money.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The price caps are COUNTER productive. One of your suggestions helps. The other hurts. Adding a bad idea and a good idea together doesn't make the bad idea acceptable. It's still a bad idea that doesn't work.

I said "one part of your idea is incredibly stupid, pointless, and actually counter-productive at achieving your goals." You said "but the other part is good so that makes it ok". No, no it doesn't make it ok. The one part is still stupid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_ceiling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_shortage
http://economics.fundamentalfinance....ce-ceiling.php
http://ingrimayne.com/econ/Allocatin...sRationer.html
http://student.ccbcmd.edu/courses/ec...7/market05.htm

If you would like I can explain the concepts of "Shortage" in exact detail for you, step by step.

[/ QUOTE ]

Lol...Wikipedia makes everyone en expert. Look smurph, if they tripled the drop rate of purples but didnt have a price cap, the market manipulators would just buy them up and flip them still demanding 200 million to a billion inf for one IO.

Perhaps your getting so worked up becuae you realize a price cap would ruin the market manipulators because the only way to make money off the market would be to go out and earn drops rather than use your vast amounts on Inf to push up prices for everyone else.

[/ QUOTE ]

A Price Cap would be a blessing to market manipulators. We want a price cap. A price cap would line my pockets full of cash. I'd be the richest player in City of Heroes by hundreds of miles. Players would flock to me and beg me to sell them items at insanely ridiculous prices because they cannot be obtained on the market. Your choices would be to stand in line with everyone else for the items that sell out instantly where everyone has 100 bids out and none are ever for sale OR you can buy from me at whatever price I think I can gouge people for. *EDIT* A vender selling IOs at low price would absolutely butcher marketeers, however.

Supply and Demand cause prices to go where they go. Ebil manipulators do NOT cause prices to rise above where Supply and Demand dictate the prices would go. You can see this on the market when you consider the ramifications of what would occur if evil marketeers did take such action.

When prices are "too low" a shortage occurs. In a shortage items are usually sold out and it is super hard to find any items to buy. When prices are "too high" there is a surplus. In a surplus many items are attempting to be sold at market prices but few are actually being sold. Is this occurring in the City of Heroes markets? No. Items are being sold very quickly. An abundance of availability is not building up.

You can run an experiment at MY expense so you can learn that Supply and Demand do work in the City of Heroes markets and that Ebil Manipulators are not causing prices to rise above Equilibrium Price.

I will give you a pile of money. You pick a salvage of some kind. You buy and buy it then try and sell it for 10% higher. Start low and see what happens. At the low price you will probably buy very few but sell what you get very quickly. As you increase your price you will, at some point, get near a point where you buy roughly as fast as you sell. This point would be "Equilibrium Price". As you keep increasing the price you will see that buy MUCH faster than you sell. Sure, you've increased the price but because you are buying more than you sell you aren't making money. You have a huge inventory build up. If you tried to sell all of these at the same time you would be unable to do so at your inflated price.

The trick is understanding that Equilibrium Price is always changing. Marketeers understand this concept and buy at the lowest points and sell at the highest points.

Both can work. If you are going to do all bosses in AE I'd choose Fire. It's AE and you can pick what you fight. I'd prefer a huge pile of resists to a defense based set. A 1 in 20 chance of being hit is going to last long against 10 Bosses.

The price caps are COUNTER productive. One of your suggestions helps. The other hurts. Adding a bad idea and a good idea together doesn't make the bad idea acceptable. It's still a bad idea that doesn't work.

I said "one part of your idea is incredibly stupid, pointless, and actually counter-productive at achieving your goals." You said "but the other part is good so that makes it ok". No, no it doesn't make it ok. The one part is still stupid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_ceiling
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_shortage
http://economics.fundamentalfinance....ce-ceiling.php
http://ingrimayne.com/econ/Allocatin...sRationer.html
http://student.ccbcmd.edu/courses/ec...7/market05.htm

If you would like I can explain the concepts of "Shortage" in exact detail for you, step by step.

[ QUOTE ]
Playing the market is just one small aspect of a larger game. I'm not asking for instant gratification. All I'm saying is the Devs might wanna think about creating some boundries that stop a minority from greatly affecting the majority in a negative way. IMO setting a price cap and adjusting the drop rates is a good place to start.


[/ QUOTE ]

I cannot comprehend how a rational person could contemplate price caps being a good idea to increase the availability of items after receiving an explanation of how they work and what would occur. If by price caps you mean "vendors selling at specific prices" then that actually would work. However, if you mean actual price caps on the market then you need to stop and think.

[ QUOTE ]
Some of what is going on with the higher priced items is obviously flipping.

It takes money to make money.
The price that items sell for is what people are willing to pay for them (the high price) or the price that someone puts something on the market because they want it to sell (the low price).

With Purples, ebil marketeers (as they have been called) can find the sweet spot to set up "price traps" to purchase all of these at what they are willing to grab them for and then re-mark the pricing to whatever they think will eventually sell.

If you are on the low-end in the market, you usually want to turn things fast to make a profit, but - if you are able to make a hundred million plus on one transaction - that slot can sit there for a while.

I know I've done this. I don't usually slot purples. I have slotted them, but it was more by accident than anything else. To me, they are much more useful in milking inf out of the players that want to be L337, Uber, or whatever you want to call the dime-store sucker I'm getting rich off of.
I craft that baby purple and start my search for a good price point. I go high. It might take a month or a month plus to sell, but I'm patient and crafty.

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Ebil Marketeers are not to blame in the manner you suggest they are to blame. Supply and Demand cross at a certain price. That crossing is where prices "tend to go" in any free market. Prices below that point cause "shortages". Shortages exist when more wish to buy than to sell at that specific price. In a shortage items are difficult to find and there is little availability. Shortages, colloquially, mean "sold out" stuff.

Prices above the crossing of Supply and Demand (known as Equilibrium Price), are Surplus prices. Surpluses exist when more wish to sell at that price than wish to buy. Surpluses tend to have items overly available. Lots and lots of items sit around waiting for a buyer to come along.

Look at the market now. Look how many purple recipes are sold out. Marketeers aren't buying them and waiting and waiting for buyers to come along. Many purple recipes are sold out or almost sold out. That is a strong indication that flippers are NOT driving prices above the Equilibrium Price, also known as the price where Supply and Demand cross, also known as the price that a free market will gravitate towards, also known as the price that SHOULD exist, also known as "price."

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I see what your saying, but 5 mil and 150 mil are not the same thing. Most casual gamers can't afford 150 million inf, so I don't think the scenerio you speak of would happen. All it would really do is cap the rarest of the rare at $150 instead of some IOs climbing into the 300s, 400s, and beyond. I mean how far are we from billion inf IOs? There is a point where you gotta just say this is broken and alienating too many folks.

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You are simply wrong. What I said would happen. Prices are a factor of BOTH Supply and Demand. You appear to be struggling to comprehend the "Supply" side of the equation.

If only 1 item of a certain type is found and willingly sold that item will be sold to the single one person willing to pay the most. Purples work like this "one item a month". Incredibly few are found. They are sold to the incredibly few people who are willing to pay the most.

They are expensive because they are rare. It takes a rare bidder to be able to afford one. Supply and Demand.

If you feel that Purple recipes should be more accessible that is understandable. That isn't an issue solved by the Black Market/Wentworth's nor constraints placed on the BM/WW. That is an issue solved by adjusting drop rates.

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What will probably happen is Tankers and Scrappers will get a self heal in place of Conserve Power. Villians will still be stuck with Conserve Power.... like licking a poopsickle.

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You're probably right. It's no secret that the Devs have always hated Villains.

/e hopes to get a rise out a dev who is reading this thread but being silent.

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Probably got a shake of the head and a "wow you are delusional."

We'll be shooting for the first one at 1PM Eastern time. Roughly an hour and a half from this post.

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I'm sure it has been mentioned, but is a price cap pretty much frowned upon? If $150 million was set as the absolute highest price you could list something at, it would help a little. I think $150 million infamy is quite a bit, and personaly don't feel any one item should be selling for more than that. Just my opinion of course, but I'm curious what kind of feedback a price cap has recieved in the past?

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No, a price cap would do the opposite of helping. A price cap actually makes prices go higher. A vendor who sold IOs at a certain price would limit market prices to that amount. Forcing the market not to allow prices over a certain amount would not limit prices, however.

Imagine Luck of the Gambler: Increased Recharges being forced to sell for only 5,000,000. Many people would be willing and able to buy them. There'd be lines for miles and miles. This price cap would create an economic shortage. A shortage is a price where more are willing to pay than to sell. You, and many others might be willing to pay 5,000,000 but they are all sold out. When one appears on the market it sells instantly.

What will happen is LotGs will begin to be sold off market in a true "black market." You can wait in line with the other gazillion people to try and buy at 5,000,000 or you can buy from me, off market, for 100,000,000. Only one of the methods is actually going to get you the IO you want in a period of time not measured in years.

Recovery should be at the bottom of the list especially on a Kinetics.

825

My opening bid is 750M Infamy on Virtue Villains of mine for 1 Billion Freedom Influence of yours

I'd just like to state that I don't care and honestly, I don't want to know, what you are bringing. It doesn't matter. We don't need anything. Whoever shows up (as long as they aren't a sissy) works.

I look forward to meeting lots of crazy people and blowing the **** out of them. We're going to shoot a lot of bad guys and not run past them The normalish time is an hour and a half and 50 deaths. I've had teams way below and way above that

I like to run crazy Imperious TFs on lots of servers. I like teaming with new people. I don't have guys on all the servers... yet. But I can meet new crazy people on test server

I run Task Forces a little differently than most. I tend to open the door and shoot the bad guys. None of that "strategy" nonsense. None of that "team need blah blah blah" silliness. Everybody attacks the bad guys. If you want to join a bunch of people who like to play super aggressively and blow stuff up then this team is the place to be.

Here's how I advertise on a few servers:

Imperious TF. Invincible/Relentless. Any archetype/level welcome as long as we get mentors. No sissies. I will actively try and kill teammates. Sissies include "I just heal", "I just taunt", "I just buff", "I glue rocks to my face" or anyone who doesn't actively attack the bad guys.

If you'd like to come start getting your test server up to date On monday the forums are likely to be down and the Test server gone to Closed Beta. So let's have some fun blowing each other up all weekend. I'll be doing lots and lots of TFs all weekend usually in the afternoon and night Eastern time. Possibly latenight too

I'll post more accurate times when we are forming up