- The crafting event does increase crafting, but we're going to increase the crafting bonus and make it more visible.
Meh, honestly, I don't think the event or the current system even deserves the name "Crafting" since all there is to it is fusing mods and inserting gems into sockets. I would rather the focus be on updating the system itself than creating/updating an event that has little to no reason to exist in the first place.
I had some ideas that I thought would be a pretty neat addition to the current Mods/Fusion system, and so have several others. Basically, we could break down Modifications of a certain quality [White, Green, Blue, Purple] to collect a specific tier of Scrap, which could then be repurposed to create Equipment, Action Figures, Costumes, and even other Mods. This Scrap could also be found within the Resource Nodes scattered across the open worlds and would also be separated by your character's selected school. [Arms, Mysticism, Science]
Creating higher quality items would cost more "Scrap" instead of requiring many different materials based on what you are trying to create. A universal Crafting Material based on the Crafting School, so to speak. Fusion could also be updated to allow the fusion of this Scrap to a that of a higher tier, much like it already does for Modifications. Fusion can be done anywhere, but to create an item from scrap, you'll have to be at a workbench just like old times.
What about investment returns coming from this? It's already in-game... for a really steep price currently if I may add. Scrap Fusion would require a different type of Catalyst. Not to mention, updating the normal Mod Fusion Catalysts so that their prices aren't so exorbitant would make them worth the buy for a lot more players. Remember those Harmon Labs Catalysts? You can bring those back from the grave, right?
Please, do consider some form of upgrade to the Mods/Fusion system. That would go miles longer than an event with a misleading name and poor effects.
That's a player controlled market... Discount on Q store costs would be more realistic.
He means the fee to list an item on the auction house. You pay money to out the item up for sale. It can get expensive when you're selling stuff at like 3000g. It's like a 5% posting fee, I think?
Costume drop rate increase (Valerian, Cybermind, regular enemies, all have an increased chance to drop their costume pieces)
Rampage Tokens Drop rate increase week!
50% off power removals in the powerhouse?
Hire this person. I would like to see Rampage Tokens purchasable with Drifter Salvage. It would encourage opening lockboxes.
Also, I'll take what's been said by others a step further. It's time for Auction House fees in CO to disappear entirely. There are no fees to post items in Cryptic's other games. The exchange in Star Trek Online costs nothing to list an item. I'm 99% sure Neverwinter is the same.
In CO, people simply avoid posting items to the auction house because of these fees, since they can just pollute Zone chat with their sale spam instead for free. It makes the Auction House a barren wasteland and kills competition.
The Auction House fees are an important feature of the posting process. I know that we all hate it when you post something for hundreds of Gs, and you lose like 50Gs just to put your item up there and then it doesn't even sell. Yeah, that sucks. BUT the fee is necessary for a reason many do not consider if they are not dealing in a large number of transactions via the Auction House.
When I was perusing the Auction House, I noticed a few different items that were posted that I had the ability to simply buy out and and repost at higher prices. These were pricey items, but I thought, "If I buy them all, I'll have a monopoly and nobody will be able to complain about my increased prices - I'm the only one selling." Guess what? It worked. I then tried to do this with other items, and let me tell you - I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for that meddling Auction House posting fee (and its dog too!). I was able to artificially inflate prices simply because I had a large enough purse to create a monopoly on an item.
Now, you might counter, "Well, someone will just post that same item at a price lower than yours at some point. That is how a marketplace works." Except, that doesn't work because I'd just buy out their item too. For example:
You post an item on the Auction House 10Gs
I will buy your item, repost it on the Auction House at 20Gs
You or someone else post an identical item again at 10Gs - I buy that too, post at 20Gs. This can continue ad infinitum, because I have enough Globals, and there is no downside to me reposting an item that doesn't sell after 15 days.
By doubling the price, even if I only sell HALF of the stuff you post, I make all my money back, and get to keep the other half of your posted items.
The downside to this is of course that anyone else who wants to buy these items will see the prices increased way beyond their value because some girl bought up all the available items and she is the only one selling. There may have been 5 Constitution mods posted at 100Gs each, but I bought them all and reposted them at 300Gs each.
The way to stop this is with Auction house fees. If I post those items at double the price and they DON'T sell, I just lost out 5% of my asking cost. Without that fee, I'll just repeat the steps listed above since if my items don't sell, oh well, I'm still posting at double the market value because they will eventually sell (I'm the only one selling). There is no down side to simply reposting forever and ever.
TL;DR:
Without 5% fee, I could buy any item priced at 100Gs and repost at 125Gs ad infinitum. With the fee, I take a risk doing that, and hardly make any money if I did, thus keep prices lower.
The Auction House fees are an important feature of the posting process. I know that we all hate it when you post something for hundreds of Gs, and you lose like 50Gs just to put your item up there and then it doesn't even sell. Yeah, that sucks. BUT the fee is necessary for a reason many do not consider if they are not dealing in a large number of transactions via the Auction House.
When I was perusing the Auction House, I noticed a few different items that were posted that I had the ability to simply buy out and and repost at higher prices. These were pricey items, but I thought, "If I buy them all, I'll have a monopoly and nobody will be able to complain about my increased prices - I'm the only one selling." Guess what? It worked. I then tried to do this with other items, and let me tell you - I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for that meddling Auction House posting fee (and its dog too!). I was able to artificially inflate prices simply because I had a large enough purse to create a monopoly on an item.
Now, you might counter, "Well, someone will just post that same item at a price lower than yours at some point. That is how a marketplace works." Except, that doesn't work because I'd just buy out their item too. For example:
You post an item on the Auction House 10Gs
I will buy your item, repost it on the Auction House at 20Gs
You or someone else post an identical item again at 10Gs - I buy that too, post at 20Gs. This can continue ad infinitum, because I have enough Globals, and there is no downside to me reposting an item that doesn't sell after 15 days.
By doubling the price, even if I only sell HALF of the stuff you post, I make all my money back, and get to keep the other half of your posted items.
The downside to this is of course that anyone else who wants to buy these items will see the prices increased way beyond their value because some girl bought up all the available items and she is the only one selling. There may have been 5 Constitution mods posted at 100Gs each, but I bought them all and reposted them at 300Gs each.
The way to stop this is with Auction house fees. If I post those items at double the price and they DON'T sell, I just lost out 5% of my asking cost. Without that fee, I'll just repeat the steps listed above since if my items don't sell, oh well, I'm still posting at double the market value because they will eventually sell (I'm the only one selling). There is no down side to simply reposting forever and ever.
TL;DR:
Without 5% fee, I could buy any item priced at 100Gs and repost at 125Gs ad infinitum. With the fee, I take a risk doing that, and hardly make any money if I did, thus keep prices lower.
That is a very well reasoned argument. I've actually seen that scam in action too, so I can verify it does happen, and did occur far more often before the cap. There was a time when all the Vibora items sold for over a thousand ), and selling for less than that led to them being relisted.
As far as Voyager's point, there is always going to be a secondary market. I myself have significantly more out of game capital than ingame resources. Because of that, I only use the AH when I can't find what I need in Trade. Cosmic Keys are my preferred coin of exchange.
Any reason why this is? My first thought is that it's gonna make the non-event weeks a little dull, but that's just first impression reaction or something.
Ahh, thanks for the update ladygadfly. I see where your going now. I'm with biff here can we have cake and eat it too?
Special weeks, and (better) hourly (see Neverwinter), at the worst it's not like +50% or +100% Q +Qhour combined breaks anything terribly.
Why? As biff mentioned the off weeks get dull, years ago over on STO the old 3-hour bonus mark event always saw a good pickup in play, or people extending their play. The key seemed to be it had a good balanced rotation, long enough you'll hit it, and if you miss it it comes around again soon. Once removed the people spread out, Queues got less and less concentrated activity fleets less populated. It got dull waiting very quickly, (This is well before the current DR redo for people wanting to blame that)
While, I'm not a fan of scheduling your day to the game-clock, the new weekly system actually feels worse in STO. I'm sure the new system helped perceived game numbers (simply put your metric on weekend events), it feels more like "bash your head against event weekends" cause it might not come back for a while.
Can't say that will happen here though, the hourlies are a different beast. (I try to hit them, but can't seem to align schedule anymore here).
That is a very well reasoned argument. I've actually seen that scam in action too, so I can verify it does happen, and did occur far more often before the cap. There was a time when all the Vibora items sold for over a thousand ), and selling for less than that led to them being relisted.
I don't think that is a scam, that's just business - having the money to buy what is on offer and knowing what sells and what sells quickly for a profit. And as stated it is already happening fee or no fee. People with the big resources (ha! see what I did there!) will play the market and can easily absorb that 5%.
Removing the fee means that not only the ones with the medium/big purses can play, but the small guy with the not so big purse.
Unless we want Cryptic acting like a regulatory body that keeps the big boys in play and the small guy in his place.
I don't know man, I'm not an economist/trader/pricing authority, but it was just scary seeing the word "scam" being thrown out there.
And to add a line of text to keep this post relevant to the initial request: I'm fine with just a discounted AH costs weekly event, removal of the fee works for me as well.
I don't like Sigs, but I'll leave this here anyway. At least I'm not to trying to hypnotise you with moving things!
That is a very well reasoned argument. I've actually seen that scam in action too, so I can verify it does happen, and did occur far more often before the cap. There was a time when all the Vibora items sold for over a thousand ), and selling for less than that led to them being relisted.
I don't think that is a scam, that's just business - having the money to buy what is on offer and knowing what sells and what sells quickly for a profit. And as stated it is already happening fee or no fee. People with the big resources (ha! see what I did there!) will play the market and can easily absorb that 5%.
Removing the fee means that not only the ones with the medium/big purses can play, but the small guy with the not so big purse.
Unless we want Cryptic acting like a regulatory body that keeps the big boys in play and the small guy in his place.
I don't know man, I'm not an economist/trader/pricing authority, but it was just scary seeing the word "scam" being thrown out there.
And to add a line of text to keep this post relevant to the initial request: I'm fine with just a discounted AH costs weekly event, removal of the fee works for me as well.
Except that in most business, you couldn't constantly buy everything up since you would have operating cost that would force you to sell your items at lower price in order to keep money flowing in. And yes, someone can still buy up a particular item, but now there is risk involved. It isn't just a 5% risk - it is a 5% risk each time. You can absorb the 5% sure - but what if it doesn't sell? You would have to absorb another 5%, and how many times will you do that before it wasn't worth you time to buy up the item in the first place? Therefore, if you do try to monopolize an item, the posting fee indirectly forces you to charge lower prices because you will only post at a price that someone would reasonably pay. Otherwise, you will have to eat that 5% cost.
In the discussion about auction fees, they need to stay since it's more or less the only viable cash sink in the game outside of tailor fees. I was under the impression that people weren't using the auction either because a) the UI complaints that are pretty recurring or b) Silver player resource cap, which has been fixed. Might just be me but under most situations I don't feel safe trading but I do feel safe sticking stuff up for auction. And as xrazamax noted, it lowers the allure of market manipulation if there's a fee.
- While some of the events are great as is, others (vehicle mods, crafting, etc.) will be improved to make them more worthy of being full week-long events.
- The crafting event does increase crafting, but we're going to increase the crafting bonus and make it more visible.
The increased drop rate for (regular) mods and the crafting bonus should be fused to the same week. It makes sense to combine the concepts. Granted, people have noted that part of the problem is crafting itself. Regular catalysts have limited worth (3% isn't worth the time, 10% is a disappointing maximum), the 3-10% catalysts can't be bought in the game (goes back to discussions about stuff to buy with resources or Questionite), and there's no option to fuse in bulk. The last one could possibly be an option for fusing at tables since that would make players visible out in the world.
As far as new events, I'd like to see the Forum Malvanum race be reinstated. Heck, maybe it would be something cool to add to the Vehicle Mod week (and call it Race Week or something to step away from the bad taste "vehicle mod hour" has left people with. Make it a way to earn mods, make it a way to earn a new(ish) vehicle (some reskin job like the UNTIL shuttle to a bike, hawkwing, chariot, etc.; a bunch of "baseline" vehicles that wouldn't rival anything sold in the store, lockboxes, or Drifter store). I'm picturing a token system where it would take the better part of a week to earn enough tokens to buy a vehicle. And possibly a Weapon/Mod shop too.
The Forum Malvanum race was something neat and unique that was added to the game, and it was a shame that they only put it in for a short while. It was also a shame that they didn't put much as far as rewards go behind it.
The most interesting thing about the Forum Malvanum race (which I missed due to lack of vehicle) was that they stated plans of possibly having a permanent version added later on. This would be something different from other things in the game, though I'd suggest it not be put in Millenium City since other zones could stand to have more love and it would probably load smoother on a less populated zone.
As far as event ideas, some sort of Nemesis focused event would be great.
"Interesting builds are born from limitations not by letting players put everything into one build."
The most interesting thing about the Forum Malvanum race (which I missed due to lack of vehicle) was that they stated plans of possibly having a permanent version added later on. This would be something different from other things in the game, though I'd suggest it not be put in Millenium City since other zones could stand to have more love and it would probably load smoother on a less populated zone.
As far as event ideas, some sort of Nemesis focused event would be great.
I could get behind this...I could see it being a space race, make use of GATEWAY for something or access to the race can be obtained through using Moon Hideout or something like that.
In fact...you could have multiple versions in different zones...like one in Canada, Desert, MC, VB, Lemuria (:P). Desert especially has some twists and turns which would be good for races.
About the Nemesis idea...just an idea which could be developed into something more...
"Nemesis Take Over Event!" - Your nemesis has teamed up with other like minded super villains (other nemeses) to allow terror to reign supreme in Champions Online!
*Player created Nemeses have taken over all GRAB, SMASH & BURST Alerts for the week. As a trade off for giving greatly increased rewards than the usual alert would give, a total of FIVE nemeses are classed as Super Villain Rank (Skulltech) bosses in the alert. They will appear in twos throughout the alert at random times accompanied by their respective minions. The final nemesis will appear as a lone boss & will be Legendary Rank (as per usual in alerts) and will be accompanied by their own minions.
- GRAB Alert - XP Rewards are triple the XP it would normally grant as well as an empowered XP buff.
- SMASH Alert - Resource Rewards are increased by five times their normal amount as well as granting an empowered Resource Buff.
- Burst Alert - Modifications (regardless of player level) are now Rank 5 with a chance of Rank 6 as well as a temporary percentage increase buff to all crafting whilst the buff is active (could increase a 30% fusion success rate to 45%, so it would act like a catalyst in a sense).
In the event that players who log on and queue up to use this content do NOT have a nemesis, subtract those gawd awful (you know it's true) generic nemeses and replace them with the super villain roster that appears in Bunker Buster & other nemesis missions (Skullder, The Fiend, Landshark, Crimson Dragon etc)
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Alternatively...or even additionally, this could give way to a Nemesis Rampage, starring 5 pairs of nemeses (each players nemesis) with a certain goal in mind or something like that.
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If nothing from this post can even remotely be considered, I'd urge Devs to do this at least:
In the event that players who log on and queue up to use Nemesis Alerts & do NOT have a nemesis, subtract those god awful (you know it's true) generic nemeses and replace them with the super villain roster that appears in Bunker Buster & other nemesis missions (Skullder, The Fiend, Landshark, Crimson Dragon etc)
There is a lot of potential for vehicle race events, and different zones with different tracks sounds like an amazing idea.
And while it is off topic, I totally agree with zamuelpwe that catalyst should be purchasable via NPCs or the Questionite Store - preferably the Q Store. The Q store desperately needs some more Questionite sinks since the consumables are not cutting it, and especially if the rewards for these upcoming events are Questionite.
The Auction House fees are an important feature of blah blah blah...
This is just patently and provably incorrect. As I said, the Auction fee does not exist in Cryptic's other games. The skies have not fallen there. The exact opposite of what you claim will happen in CO has happened in STO. Their Auction Houses are far healther as more people are willing to post items without fear of depleting their resources. If you buy up all the items and relist them at ridiculous prices, someone else will come along and undercut you. And someone else will undercut them. Why? Because there was no punishment for posting at a lower rate.
As far as buying everything in the auction house up and relisting it, there will be a finite limit to the number of items you can scoop up and relist. You don't have unlimited resources. You want to buy all the Rank 7 con mods and reslist them at 5000G each? It obviously won't sell. People will undercut you. Again, this happens in Star Trek Online. People do post items at ridiculous prices, but those items never sell. Other people come along and list competing items for much, much lower. The overpriced items simply time out and end up in the poster's mailbox a week later.
Many items in CO have simply disappeared from circulation entirely because they are so rare and valuable that no one can afford to list them with the auction house fee. Those old legacy crafted travel powers which are rightly valued at upwards of 35,000G simply can't be posted because of the prohibitively expensive auction fee and the risk that no one will buy it. Instead of being available in any form at all, they are permanently extinct.
Do you know what happens when more people post more items? You get competition. You get undercutting. You get lower prices on items you want as people become more willing to post their items for a lower price than someone else. You reduce the likelihood of people spamming zone with sales because their items have been posted at Auction instead.
You have to weigh the cost of posting versus the cost of failing to sell it and being left with less. How many times have people avoided posting something to the Auction House because of a fear of being left with less G than they started, because it was too risky to participate? How many times have people been unable to post things at all because they don't have the resources? And what do they do instead? They run to Zone chat because spamming a chat channel with a sale is free.
Greater and fiercer competition leads to decreased prices as people undercut one-another. The current system of 5% fee DOES NOT WORK. The CO Auction House is a wasteland of inactivity controlled by a tiny handful of people.
The Champions Online auction house fees need to fall in line with Cryptic's other games. The fee must be eliminated.
Their Auction Houses are far healther as more people are willing to post items without fear of depleting their resources.
That doesn't really have anything to do with AH fees. It has to do with player count. The CO AH would be far healthier if there were more people playing the game, even if absolutely nothing else changed about it (there are other things that could help the AH -- for example, if costume parts could be filtered by "only items I don't own" -- but at least AH fees do some filtering on trash).
The fee does not keep trash away. It only serves to keep those who don't want to loose that extra bit of resources in Zone Chat/ in hideouts.
Without the fees, those zone traders will post in the AH and flood the market with their low offering rendering those traders who can absorb the 5% easily with less power over the market.
And trading will be more secure.
That fee is just a perceived barrier and not a real one.
I don't like Sigs, but I'll leave this here anyway. At least I'm not to trying to hypnotise you with moving things!
The Auction House fees are an important feature of blah blah blah...
This is just patently and provably incorrect
Buying out items does happen in Cryptic's other games, and there are items that are rare enough that their prices have been manipulated by the marketplace due to monopolies on them. Many MMOs use Auction House fees, it is a basic money sink needed to control inflation of in game currency and prevents marketplace bullying.
And yes, compared to many other players, I (and a dozen or so other players) will have practically an INFINITE amount of times we can buy up items that undercut our prices, ESPECIALLY on items that are limited or sell really low. There are only so many Con 7 mods going around - And costume sets? On low priced items - wow it is sooo easy. I can buy 100 rank 4 mods listed at 4 Gs each and sell them at 8 Gs each. It is such a low risk for a chance to double my money. The only one this hurts is new players to who 8 Gs for a rank 4 mod is a fifth of their total Global amount.
That fear of losing your money when posting is the only thing that prevents people with big wallets from price manipulating. And yes, some people will lose their money, and that stinks for them, but it really hurts a lot more for people who post large priced items (usually the rich guys) and that keeps them in line. Rift has AH fees, as does WoW, as does Lord of the Rings Online, as does GW2, The Secret World, FFXI, the list goes on. I'm not sure that STO or NW are the best examples to use seeing as how their AHs are used as a secondary bank - post your items for a billion credits and nobody will buy it, come get it later when you need it. The only good thing that the lack of a fee does for STO is keep crafting items low since people will remove their post and uncut, then get undercut, repost, in this continuous loop. But CO doesn't have a true crafting system - people are not buying rank 4 mods to craft into rank 7. They usually just buy the kind of mod they are going to use (it would cost more to do this anyways as the 5 mods fused together usually are equal in value to 150% of the next mod - and you may lose some while fusing).
But what you are saying right now is that the AH needs more competition and opened up so more rare items will be post, and I have to just disagree with you that the fee prevents either of those. What the fees are doing is preventing the big guy from eliminating their competition and from those rare items being only in the reach of other big spenders. So even if more people did post, the price on everything would go up once clever people start manipulating an unregulated market, and rare items wouldn't be posted low with intention of more people being able to afford it, but as high as possible until someone buys it at your price.
TL;DR
I understand the point you are making, but CO is a different beast than STO and NW and it requires AH fees like the majority of MMOs.
The Auction House fees are an important feature of blah blah blah...
This is just patently and provably incorrect.
And this statement is patently and provably incorrect. Just try undercutting the going rate on any lockbox ship in the Exchange on STO by more than a trivial amount; not only will the ship immediately be purchased and relisted for the going rate, those who sell ships on the Exchange will immediately start in with butthurt comments about how you're trying to "ruin" the Exchange by selling ships for cheap.
Most items in STO can be sold in the fashion you describe only because a) they're pretty common, and b) they're needed for crafting recipes. (You can, for instance, go into the Crew Deck of your ship and talk to your Chef, assuming you have one; (s)he will need certain food items to craft certain recipes, which some people do because of course they do. I can make a pretty penny selling Livonian Beet Roots on the Exchange!) Neither of those apply here. And for those items which are less common, such as advanced Warp Cores or Dual Heavy Cannon with good advantages? Those tend to go for hundreds of thousands of EC, and if you list for less it's purchased and relisted almost immediately. (I've made some good money that way, too, because honestly I don't care if you're going to make more off of it than I did. 100,000 creds is 100,000 creds, ya know?)
"Science teaches us to expect -- demand -- more than just eerie mysteries. What use is a puzzle that can't be solved? Patience is fine, but I'm not going to stop asking the universe to make sense!"
About the Nemesis idea...just an idea which could be developed into something more...
"Nemesis Take Over Event!" - Your nemesis has teamed up with other like minded super villains (other nemeses) to allow terror to reign supreme in Champions Online!
Alternatively...or even additionally, this could give way to a Nemesis Rampage, starring 5 pairs of nemeses (each players nemesis) with a certain goal in mind or something like that.
--
If nothing from this post can even remotely be considered, I'd urge Devs to do this at least:
In the event that players who log on and queue up to use Nemesis Alerts & do NOT have a nemesis, subtract those god awful (you know it's true) generic nemeses and replace them with the super villain roster that appears in Bunker Buster & other nemesis missions (Skullder, The Fiend, Landshark, Crimson Dragon etc)
Yes to all of this. Of all the ideas suggested about Alert events.. I think having a special Nemesis event is the most exciting. Players love their Nemeses and we don't see them enough. Also the Nemesis system is a unique selling point of CO - one that the game doesn't take enough advantage of.
Of course my other suggestion is to also make Nemesis Missions part of the dailies offerings we already have. That's seems a lot more convenient than forcing players to blow up chairs in the city center.
Of course my other suggestion is to also make Nemesis Missions part of the dailies offerings we already have. That's seems a lot more convenient than forcing players to blow up chairs in the city center.
So much this. I get that Nemesis minion attacks are based off the idea of them happening during open missions or outdoor farming but it usually turns into "blow up chairs" since Nemesis Clues can be taken by other people and don't expire in real time. Just having MCPD Captain Martin give out Nemesis Clues as a daily would help out so much.
"Interesting builds are born from limitations not by letting players put everything into one build."
Is the overview journal window working properly at the moment? Or should there be images up like we see in the news post for event updates? I highlighted what I am referring to below
Is the overview journal window working properly at the moment? Or should there be images up like we see in the news post for event updates? I highlighted what I am referring to below
That looks like the pre-patch layout. I've been getting empty spaces on the new layout every now and then myself when I open the mission window. The Open Calendar should be next to the welcome window button.
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Re suggestions: I'd also like to see a reduction in costs to remove mods from equipment. Maybe it's already part of the crafting overall you are planning, but just is case it is not, do consider it.
And if you must charge us for removing mods from gear, allow us to also use resources for those higher mods or bump up the double option to at least mod 5.
I'd prefer pay with resources than with Q till a certain point - I can't imagine what the 8K+Q in resources will turn out to be.
Changing mods is something I do on a regular basis and I'd like to do it more often for tweaking builds, but those charges are a killer.
I don't like Sigs, but I'll leave this here anyway. At least I'm not to trying to hypnotise you with moving things!
In the discussion about auction fees, they need to stay since it's more or less the only viable cash sink in the game outside of tailor fees.
There are a couple of others, but yeah, I overlooked managing the economy of the game and also ... no fees means the AH can be used as a storage bin which can have an impact on the performance of the game.
I don't like Sigs, but I'll leave this here anyway. At least I'm not to trying to hypnotise you with moving things!
Comments
Given that the boost is $20 I don't think that would be a problem, even a 2% xp bonus would be better then what it is right now.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeesssss! I second this.
and add to list discount on AH costs.
@ladygladfly Also, many thanks for the clarification on how the special events work.
Meh, honestly, I don't think the event or the current system even deserves the name "Crafting" since all there is to it is fusing mods and inserting gems into sockets. I would rather the focus be on updating the system itself than creating/updating an event that has little to no reason to exist in the first place.
I had some ideas that I thought would be a pretty neat addition to the current Mods/Fusion system, and so have several others. Basically, we could break down Modifications of a certain quality [White, Green, Blue, Purple] to collect a specific tier of Scrap, which could then be repurposed to create Equipment, Action Figures, Costumes, and even other Mods. This Scrap could also be found within the Resource Nodes scattered across the open worlds and would also be separated by your character's selected school. [Arms, Mysticism, Science]
Creating higher quality items would cost more "Scrap" instead of requiring many different materials based on what you are trying to create. A universal Crafting Material based on the Crafting School, so to speak. Fusion could also be updated to allow the fusion of this Scrap to a that of a higher tier, much like it already does for Modifications. Fusion can be done anywhere, but to create an item from scrap, you'll have to be at a workbench just like old times.
What about investment returns coming from this? It's already in-game... for a really steep price currently if I may add. Scrap Fusion would require a different type of Catalyst. Not to mention, updating the normal Mod Fusion Catalysts so that their prices aren't so exorbitant would make them worth the buy for a lot more players. Remember those Harmon Labs Catalysts? You can bring those back from the grave, right?
Please, do consider some form of upgrade to the Mods/Fusion system. That would go miles longer than an event with a misleading name and poor effects.
And I will always be @DZPlayer122.
Get the Forums Enhancement Extension!
He means the fee to list an item on the auction house. You pay money to out the item up for sale. It can get expensive when you're selling stuff at like 3000g. It's like a 5% posting fee, I think?
Hire this person. I would like to see Rampage Tokens purchasable with Drifter Salvage. It would encourage opening lockboxes.
Also, I'll take what's been said by others a step further. It's time for Auction House fees in CO to disappear entirely. There are no fees to post items in Cryptic's other games. The exchange in Star Trek Online costs nothing to list an item. I'm 99% sure Neverwinter is the same.
In CO, people simply avoid posting items to the auction house because of these fees, since they can just pollute Zone chat with their sale spam instead for free. It makes the Auction House a barren wasteland and kills competition.
When I was perusing the Auction House, I noticed a few different items that were posted that I had the ability to simply buy out and and repost at higher prices. These were pricey items, but I thought, "If I buy them all, I'll have a monopoly and nobody will be able to complain about my increased prices - I'm the only one selling." Guess what? It worked. I then tried to do this with other items, and let me tell you - I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for that meddling Auction House posting fee (and its dog too!). I was able to artificially inflate prices simply because I had a large enough purse to create a monopoly on an item.
Now, you might counter, "Well, someone will just post that same item at a price lower than yours at some point. That is how a marketplace works." Except, that doesn't work because I'd just buy out their item too. For example:
The downside to this is of course that anyone else who wants to buy these items will see the prices increased way beyond their value because some girl bought up all the available items and she is the only one selling. There may have been 5 Constitution mods posted at 100Gs each, but I bought them all and reposted them at 300Gs each.
The way to stop this is with Auction house fees. If I post those items at double the price and they DON'T sell, I just lost out 5% of my asking cost. Without that fee, I'll just repeat the steps listed above since if my items don't sell, oh well, I'm still posting at double the market value because they will eventually sell (I'm the only one selling). There is no down side to simply reposting forever and ever.
TL;DR:
Without 5% fee, I could buy any item priced at 100Gs and repost at 125Gs ad infinitum. With the fee, I take a risk doing that, and hardly make any money if I did, thus keep prices lower.
That is a very well reasoned argument. I've actually seen that scam in action too, so I can verify it does happen, and did occur far more often before the cap. There was a time when all the Vibora items sold for over a thousand ), and selling for less than that led to them being relisted.
As far as Voyager's point, there is always going to be a secondary market. I myself have significantly more out of game capital than ingame resources. Because of that, I only use the AH when I can't find what I need in Trade. Cosmic Keys are my preferred coin of exchange.
Ahh, thanks for the update ladygadfly. I see where your going now. I'm with biff here can we have cake and eat it too?
Special weeks, and (better) hourly (see Neverwinter), at the worst it's not like +50% or +100% Q +Qhour combined breaks anything terribly.
Why? As biff mentioned the off weeks get dull, years ago over on STO the old 3-hour bonus mark event always saw a good pickup in play, or people extending their play. The key seemed to be it had a good balanced rotation, long enough you'll hit it, and if you miss it it comes around again soon. Once removed the people spread out, Queues got less and less concentrated activity fleets less populated. It got dull waiting very quickly, (This is well before the current DR redo for people wanting to blame that)
While, I'm not a fan of scheduling your day to the game-clock, the new weekly system actually feels worse in STO. I'm sure the new system helped perceived game numbers (simply put your metric on weekend events), it feels more like "bash your head against event weekends" cause it might not come back for a while.
Can't say that will happen here though, the hourlies are a different beast. (I try to hit them, but can't seem to align schedule anymore here).
TLDNR: Both Please, With better "hourly" schedule
I don't think that is a scam, that's just business - having the money to buy what is on offer and knowing what sells and what sells quickly for a profit. And as stated it is already happening fee or no fee. People with the big resources (ha! see what I did there!) will play the market and can easily absorb that 5%.
Removing the fee means that not only the ones with the medium/big purses can play, but the small guy with the not so big purse.
Unless we want Cryptic acting like a regulatory body that keeps the big boys in play and the small guy in his place.
I don't know man, I'm not an economist/trader/pricing authority, but it was just scary seeing the word "scam" being thrown out there.
And to add a line of text to keep this post relevant to the initial request: I'm fine with just a discounted AH costs weekly event, removal of the fee works for me as well.
Except that in most business, you couldn't constantly buy everything up since you would have operating cost that would force you to sell your items at lower price in order to keep money flowing in. And yes, someone can still buy up a particular item, but now there is risk involved. It isn't just a 5% risk - it is a 5% risk each time. You can absorb the 5% sure - but what if it doesn't sell? You would have to absorb another 5%, and how many times will you do that before it wasn't worth you time to buy up the item in the first place? Therefore, if you do try to monopolize an item, the posting fee indirectly forces you to charge lower prices because you will only post at a price that someone would reasonably pay. Otherwise, you will have to eat that 5% cost.
The increased drop rate for (regular) mods and the crafting bonus should be fused to the same week. It makes sense to combine the concepts. Granted, people have noted that part of the problem is crafting itself. Regular catalysts have limited worth (3% isn't worth the time, 10% is a disappointing maximum), the 3-10% catalysts can't be bought in the game (goes back to discussions about stuff to buy with resources or Questionite), and there's no option to fuse in bulk. The last one could possibly be an option for fusing at tables since that would make players visible out in the world.
The most interesting thing about the Forum Malvanum race (which I missed due to lack of vehicle) was that they stated plans of possibly having a permanent version added later on. This would be something different from other things in the game, though I'd suggest it not be put in Millenium City since other zones could stand to have more love and it would probably load smoother on a less populated zone.
As far as event ideas, some sort of Nemesis focused event would be great.
-Sterga
I could get behind this...I could see it being a space race, make use of GATEWAY for something or access to the race can be obtained through using Moon Hideout or something like that.
In fact...you could have multiple versions in different zones...like one in Canada, Desert, MC, VB, Lemuria (:P). Desert especially has some twists and turns which would be good for races.
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About the Nemesis idea...just an idea which could be developed into something more...
"Nemesis Take Over Event!" - Your nemesis has teamed up with other like minded super villains (other nemeses) to allow terror to reign supreme in Champions Online!
*Player created Nemeses have taken over all GRAB, SMASH & BURST Alerts for the week. As a trade off for giving greatly increased rewards than the usual alert would give, a total of FIVE nemeses are classed as Super Villain Rank (Skulltech) bosses in the alert. They will appear in twos throughout the alert at random times accompanied by their respective minions. The final nemesis will appear as a lone boss & will be Legendary Rank (as per usual in alerts) and will be accompanied by their own minions.
- GRAB Alert - XP Rewards are triple the XP it would normally grant as well as an empowered XP buff.
- SMASH Alert - Resource Rewards are increased by five times their normal amount as well as granting an empowered Resource Buff.
- Burst Alert - Modifications (regardless of player level) are now Rank 5 with a chance of Rank 6 as well as a temporary percentage increase buff to all crafting whilst the buff is active (could increase a 30% fusion success rate to 45%, so it would act like a catalyst in a sense).
In the event that players who log on and queue up to use this content do NOT have a nemesis, subtract those gawd awful (you know it's true) generic nemeses and replace them with the super villain roster that appears in Bunker Buster & other nemesis missions (Skullder, The Fiend, Landshark, Crimson Dragon etc)
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Alternatively...or even additionally, this could give way to a Nemesis Rampage, starring 5 pairs of nemeses (each players nemesis) with a certain goal in mind or something like that.
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If nothing from this post can even remotely be considered, I'd urge Devs to do this at least:
In the event that players who log on and queue up to use Nemesis Alerts & do NOT have a nemesis, subtract those god awful (you know it's true) generic nemeses and replace them with the super villain roster that appears in Bunker Buster & other nemesis missions (Skullder, The Fiend, Landshark, Crimson Dragon etc)
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And while it is off topic, I totally agree with zamuelpwe that catalyst should be purchasable via NPCs or the Questionite Store - preferably the Q Store. The Q store desperately needs some more Questionite sinks since the consumables are not cutting it, and especially if the rewards for these upcoming events are Questionite.
This is just patently and provably incorrect. As I said, the Auction fee does not exist in Cryptic's other games. The skies have not fallen there. The exact opposite of what you claim will happen in CO has happened in STO. Their Auction Houses are far healther as more people are willing to post items without fear of depleting their resources. If you buy up all the items and relist them at ridiculous prices, someone else will come along and undercut you. And someone else will undercut them. Why? Because there was no punishment for posting at a lower rate.
As far as buying everything in the auction house up and relisting it, there will be a finite limit to the number of items you can scoop up and relist. You don't have unlimited resources. You want to buy all the Rank 7 con mods and reslist them at 5000G each? It obviously won't sell. People will undercut you. Again, this happens in Star Trek Online. People do post items at ridiculous prices, but those items never sell. Other people come along and list competing items for much, much lower. The overpriced items simply time out and end up in the poster's mailbox a week later.
Many items in CO have simply disappeared from circulation entirely because they are so rare and valuable that no one can afford to list them with the auction house fee. Those old legacy crafted travel powers which are rightly valued at upwards of 35,000G simply can't be posted because of the prohibitively expensive auction fee and the risk that no one will buy it. Instead of being available in any form at all, they are permanently extinct.
Do you know what happens when more people post more items? You get competition. You get undercutting. You get lower prices on items you want as people become more willing to post their items for a lower price than someone else. You reduce the likelihood of people spamming zone with sales because their items have been posted at Auction instead.
You have to weigh the cost of posting versus the cost of failing to sell it and being left with less. How many times have people avoided posting something to the Auction House because of a fear of being left with less G than they started, because it was too risky to participate? How many times have people been unable to post things at all because they don't have the resources? And what do they do instead? They run to Zone chat because spamming a chat channel with a sale is free.
Greater and fiercer competition leads to decreased prices as people undercut one-another. The current system of 5% fee DOES NOT WORK. The CO Auction House is a wasteland of inactivity controlled by a tiny handful of people.
The Champions Online auction house fees need to fall in line with Cryptic's other games. The fee must be eliminated.
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Block timing explained
Without the fees, those zone traders will post in the AH and flood the market with their low offering rendering those traders who can absorb the 5% easily with less power over the market.
And trading will be more secure.
That fee is just a perceived barrier and not a real one.
Buying out items does happen in Cryptic's other games, and there are items that are rare enough that their prices have been manipulated by the marketplace due to monopolies on them. Many MMOs use Auction House fees, it is a basic money sink needed to control inflation of in game currency and prevents marketplace bullying.
And yes, compared to many other players, I (and a dozen or so other players) will have practically an INFINITE amount of times we can buy up items that undercut our prices, ESPECIALLY on items that are limited or sell really low. There are only so many Con 7 mods going around - And costume sets? On low priced items - wow it is sooo easy. I can buy 100 rank 4 mods listed at 4 Gs each and sell them at 8 Gs each. It is such a low risk for a chance to double my money. The only one this hurts is new players to who 8 Gs for a rank 4 mod is a fifth of their total Global amount.
That fear of losing your money when posting is the only thing that prevents people with big wallets from price manipulating. And yes, some people will lose their money, and that stinks for them, but it really hurts a lot more for people who post large priced items (usually the rich guys) and that keeps them in line. Rift has AH fees, as does WoW, as does Lord of the Rings Online, as does GW2, The Secret World, FFXI, the list goes on. I'm not sure that STO or NW are the best examples to use seeing as how their AHs are used as a secondary bank - post your items for a billion credits and nobody will buy it, come get it later when you need it. The only good thing that the lack of a fee does for STO is keep crafting items low since people will remove their post and uncut, then get undercut, repost, in this continuous loop. But CO doesn't have a true crafting system - people are not buying rank 4 mods to craft into rank 7. They usually just buy the kind of mod they are going to use (it would cost more to do this anyways as the 5 mods fused together usually are equal in value to 150% of the next mod - and you may lose some while fusing).
But what you are saying right now is that the AH needs more competition and opened up so more rare items will be post, and I have to just disagree with you that the fee prevents either of those. What the fees are doing is preventing the big guy from eliminating their competition and from those rare items being only in the reach of other big spenders. So even if more people did post, the price on everything would go up once clever people start manipulating an unregulated market, and rare items wouldn't be posted low with intention of more people being able to afford it, but as high as possible until someone buys it at your price.
TL;DR
I understand the point you are making, but CO is a different beast than STO and NW and it requires AH fees like the majority of MMOs.
Most items in STO can be sold in the fashion you describe only because a) they're pretty common, and b) they're needed for crafting recipes. (You can, for instance, go into the Crew Deck of your ship and talk to your Chef, assuming you have one; (s)he will need certain food items to craft certain recipes, which some people do because of course they do. I can make a pretty penny selling Livonian Beet Roots on the Exchange!) Neither of those apply here. And for those items which are less common, such as advanced Warp Cores or Dual Heavy Cannon with good advantages? Those tend to go for hundreds of thousands of EC, and if you list for less it's purchased and relisted almost immediately. (I've made some good money that way, too, because honestly I don't care if you're going to make more off of it than I did. 100,000 creds is 100,000 creds, ya know?)
- David Brin, "Those Eyes"
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Yes to all of this. Of all the ideas suggested about Alert events.. I think having a special Nemesis event is the most exciting. Players love their Nemeses and we don't see them enough. Also the Nemesis system is a unique selling point of CO - one that the game doesn't take enough advantage of.
Of course my other suggestion is to also make Nemesis Missions part of the dailies offerings we already have. That's seems a lot more convenient than forcing players to blow up chairs in the city center.
take a look at the Featured event on the picture. The once every 10 hours or so event?
as for the AH charges- on NW- VIP bonus number 8- No AH posting fee.
https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter/news/detail/9492533
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-Sterga
That looks like the pre-patch layout. I've been getting empty spaces on the new layout every now and then myself when I open the mission window. The Open Calendar should be next to the welcome window button.
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Re suggestions: I'd also like to see a reduction in costs to remove mods from equipment. Maybe it's already part of the crafting overall you are planning, but just is case it is not, do consider it.
And if you must charge us for removing mods from gear, allow us to also use resources for those higher mods or bump up the double option to at least mod 5.
I'd prefer pay with resources than with Q till a certain point - I can't imagine what the 8K+Q in resources will turn out to be.
Changing mods is something I do on a regular basis and I'd like to do it more often for tweaking builds, but those charges are a killer.
There are a couple of others, but yeah, I overlooked managing the economy of the game and also ... no fees means the AH can be used as a storage bin which can have an impact on the performance of the game.
Thanks for all the great weekly event suggestions folks!