Sorry state of materials

[rayner]

So for the past week I've been trying to get back into the groove of PSU after being gone for 7 months. I've had a bunch of boards in storage just waiting to be made. I start checking the prices of 10* Materials, glad to see Catilium down to 60K from when it was over 300K, and other metals also around 60K. My main is a Guntecher and I look around for some [B] Cubo Tuma and I notice that they are REALLY cheap, 10K - 20K. I want to save some of them for grinding when we get a boost or even just 3* luck. I missed the whole event in which Mot Walna dropped in abundance. 10K - 15K each. So I'm off to buy Petanite... 75K each! I have 9 in storage... I need 25, I spend 1 million meseta on Petanite. I get 4/5 of Cubo Tuma ( 1 broke ) and I'm pretty happy.

For weapons that need Gemstones, forget that idea, I have 4 [b] Svaltus Sword and if I wanted to BUY 60 Goldania? That's 10 million meseta. The Sword would have to come out 38% or above to even be worht the materials put in. I met a cool PSO WORLD forum guy and informed me of the Mission: Innocent Girl. So I've been doing that mission ( which is Solo only ) gathering up Par Walna & Nanopolymers to make many of the boards that are just sitting in player shops and finding many of my own and stocking up Materials so I can make more in the future. Innocent Girl A is a great mission for a Gunner-type and those Badges I earn I use in the Lottery hoping for some 10* materials.

This is where the problem starts... I want Hapotite to make Battlestopper I need 35, so I start putting up some of the other won 10* mats to basically trade for the ones I need. I also put up my Nanopolymers, I'm not going to start naming people, but someone would buy all the materials and then re-list them in their shop at a higher price. This has been going on for as long as PSU has been out. But with the state of the game what it is... that it's rare if we actually filled up Universe 1, you wouldn't think that players that have 100's of million of meseta would still be like this? I mean I helped out some noobs this weekend just to have someone to play with... that was before meeting with some of the PSO regulars to do some runs.

I've probably mentioned this before in the years, but why doesn't Sega just make those mateirals available in the NPC stores? I mean if 10* Metals were 50K in NPC Stores you would stop the squatters hording all the NEEDED maerials to make the items we want. Then when said materials are in abundance we either save them or place them for lower than the NPC. Also this would funnel-out some of the meseta in curculation, when I buy from a Player-shop the meseta is just transfered not really "used" This way all those S-Rank boards in shops could actually be made... then grinded and the value of a Weapon / Armor would be in the board not the materials to make it... this way MAYBE people would stop spamming White Beast and start doing runs for the items they want.

I have another suggestion in this regard, why aren't there more "fixed" drops, if I want Petanite... let there be a Guarnateed Petanite in a specific boss drop on a specific Difficulty. Kinda like how that Diad is in White Beast S ( even though it's not 100% ) That way we can play said mission to farm the needed materials for that item... or offer A -> S Metal Conversion Boards ( As a Boss Box Drop, not sold in NPC stores ) because when I get that Terinate I'm really pissed off, I just did this run with low - moderate drops just for the materials and they DIDN'T DROP! I like how certain Gemstones have definite fixed drops, even though Innocent Girl is a bit random, I like getting those 3 Olpad / Copernia / Morbinia, when it's Rubinad or Arminia I'm a bit irked, but Gemstones in general drop frequently in that mission. There need to be more like it and as a multiplayer mission.

[Allison_W]

That would require Sega to give two shits and a fuck about the economy, let alone the regional economy, which is laughable when they're doing their best to destroy the economy themselves JP-side by suckering players into spending their money on that Guardians Cash horseshit instead (seriously, even the Full Custom Power GAS is a crystal-clear attempt to break the wills of players trying to get weapons to 10/10 without spending GC)--the worse the non-GC economy, the better their profits from GC will be, and so they have every reason to let the economy rot. Besides that I could make some terrible insinuations as to what their time at work must be spent doing (Bruce's Ointment + Lumia Portrait + ??? = PROFIT!), but it seems like the actual fact of the matter is that very few staff are allocated to PSU with most of them being allocated to other projects. Which might not be so bad in the long run if they actually manage not to fuck PSP2 up I guess but it's sure as hell annoying right now.

As for how to solve the problem, that's a good question--I don't know if blacklisting prevents someone from purchasing things from your shop, but if it does, your first line of defense is to blacklist people who purchase from your shop and resell at higher prices to cut out competition. If that doesn't work, though, then the only way to do it would be to somehow manage to organize the hive of scum and villainy that is the 360 server to do something right for once and utterly ostracize such people, denying them groups and refusing to buy anything from their shops even if they step up their efforts to kill off lower-priced competitors, until they're broke, friendless, not having any fun at all anymore, and leave the game. While you could use trade boards on forums like this and the official site to organize seller-to-user trades to get around giving such a person the chance to buy and resell from your shop in the event that you actually manage to get such a campaign up and running in some useful capacity, you wouldn't be able to use such boards for the purpose of identifying and ostracizing offenders--I know PSOW doesn't generally want its boards used for putting other players on trial like that. I'm assuming they wouldn't accept a social group aimed at the specific purpose of identifying and cutting out abusive trade sharks that ruin the economy, either, so you have your work cut out for you.

Then again, it sounds like your economy is still better than the one we have on the PC/PS2 side. A quick check turns up Petanite for as low as 52k right now, but the Mot Walnas are at least 50k each, Cubo Tuma boards no less than 90k, and those 60 Goldanias would cost at least 13 million and change over here (assuming the lowest-priced shop has 60 of them).

Please pardon my French, by the by. This is one of those issues that really pisses me off.

[rayner]

I try not to buy from the "re-sellers" in the incident that happened yesterday I took my meseta out of my bot and then did a conditional search for "Hapotite" and it was the same person that just bought all my Ydral, Catilium & Petanite, along with all my Nanopolymers ( 29 @ 75K each ) So I waited a bit... did some True Darkness S2 runs got a few and then noticed that there were a few "new" lower Hapotite listed so I bought them. It can't be that difficult to add an item to the NPC store... or at the very least a A -> S Metal Boards as rare drop. That would solve this problem.

I may just blacklist these re-sellers, just out of principle. I mean when a newbie gets that shinny S-Rank Board and then realize that they have to break-the-bank just for the materials, they might stop altogether. I like the lottery but would like if they split-up the entry... like Metals / Wood / Polymers. As much as people run White Beast you would think that Neu Walna would be cheap, but it's 50K a piece.

[BIG OLAF]

As much as people run White Beast you would think that Neu Walna would be cheap, but it's 50K a piece.

Neu Walna doesn't drop from White Beast, save for the boss boxes, and then, it's only one, usually. That's the problem. Neu Walna only drops regularly (when I say "regularly", I mean more than one per run) from rocks/trees on "wooded-area" missions, like Sakura Blast, or Flowery Pursuit. The problem is that anything that doesn't drop from White Beast is expensive (unless it was dropped in an event, in which case it's price has been crushed downwards).

[rayner]

Neu Walna doesn't drop from White Beast, save for the boss boxes, and then, it's only one, usually. That's the problem. Neu Walna only drops regularly (when I say "regularly", I mean more than one per run) from rocks/trees on "wooded-area" missions, like Sakura Blast, or Flowery Pursuit. The problem is that anything that doesn't drop from White Beast is expensive (unless it was dropped in an event, in which case it's price has been crushed downwards).

I missed the last event... how often did Mot Walna drop? It's currently @ 12K - 15K each and that's a really good price. I bought a stack just for future boards. Innocent Girl has an average of 5 - 6 Par Walna a run and 2 Nanopolymers. We need something like this for each planet.

[Ceresa]

Ragnus clearboxes have petanite and hapotite all the time.
Bladed Legacy clear box has tons of cat along with several boxes in the mission...
Mother brain has tons of kladorian
Sleeping Warriors has tons of boxes for every mat
Seed Express and Scarred Planet area drop goldania and moribinia out the ass
True Darkness B2 has a box for most of the materials right at the start.
Breaking trees in Sakura and Most moa missions gives Walna.

How hard did you look?

[Allison_W]

Bladed Legacy clear box has tons of cat along with several boxes in the mission...

The problem with farming the clear boxes in Bladed Legacy is the Magashi gangbang at the end.

[rayner]

Ragnus clearboxes have petanite and hapotite all the time.
Bladed Legacy clear box has tons of cat along with several boxes in the mission...
Mother brain has tons of kladorian
Sleeping Warriors has tons of boxes for every mat
Seed Express and Scarred Planet area drop goldania and moribinia out the ass
True Darkness B2 has a box for most of the materials right at the start.
Breaking trees in Sakura and Most moa missions gives Walna.

How hard did you look?

How often do you do these runs? Or did you just want to troll me?

Ragnus Clearboxes is not "all the time" I see Teranite all the time.
Bladed Legacy... yes that is where I farm Catilium.
Mother Brain... I don't really like this mission.
Sleep Warrior... You can go an S2 run and not get a Single 10* Metal or Nanopolymer... I've done so hundreds of times ( Psycho Wand hunting )
Scarred Planet drops Goldania and Morbinia... frequently... not "out the ass"
True Darkness S2 drops Hapotite, Catilium & Ydral... I mentioned this in my post.
Breaking Trees for Walna is not Guaranteed either, I do Sakura Blast S2 for Neu Walna.

This post is not a "whine" post it's that certain missions are easier than others in getting said materials and when you want to sell & trade to get the ones you need there are people who just buy them to re-sell them, you basically have to buy when they are doing runs. Just put them dam materials in the NPC store... it will reduce the amount of meseta in circulation and newbies will be happy. I hate doing runs which I don't find fun to get a *chance* for a material... it's too often I get nothing I came looking for.

[Allison_W]

I missed the last event... how often did Mot Walna drop? It's currently @ 12K - 15K each and that's a really good price. I bought a stack just for future boards. Innocent Girl has an average of 5 - 6 Par Walna a run and 2 Nanopolymers. We need something like this for each planet.

Belatedly, on this I agree. Getting Ortaresins or Metaresins on the PC/PS2 side is just nuts compared to getting Nanoresins, for instance.

[Ceresa]

They drop often enough to cover a board every hour or so, as long as your runs aren't slow as hell.

And nothing stopping you from buying from resellers, when you do make sure you leave a thank you note for having 99x7 in one shop so you don't have to visit a dozen shops selling 2 each. Make sure to thank them for keeping the price stable so people can keep selling them for a decent profit too. Game isn't just about buying you know.