masheen [2625139] —
Original article
How many advanced bonuses are you aware of? Which bonuses are the most popular? And how can you identify the right price for Torn's advanced weapons and armors? Read Masheen's guide to find out!
It's been just over five months since Advanced Weapon and Armor caches were introduced to Torn as a reward for participation in Ranked Warring, and since then, the community has been trying to figure out how to value these powerful new items according to the unique bonuses they provide.
Pictured: This one is red. That means good, right? Red is always good.
As some of you may know, I have built a database to help both new and experienced players buy, sell and determine the value of the loot received from these Advanced Weapon and Armor caches. Whereas the item market is not currently optimized for the sale of advanced weapons (pending a future update), my database allows you to sort through advanced items on sale by quality, bonus, damage, and more.
As with all new systems that rely on consumer input, it will take time for the community's knowledge to improve to a point whereby the listings become accurate. The prices people are asking for certain weapons today are very different from those charged even just a few weeks ago. When it comes to advanced bonuses, the community is still in the early stages of knowing which are the most useful in any given situation.
But perhaps we can help with that.
Advanced Bonuses
Not all battles are equal. We know some bonuses excel in certain areas, whereas in others, they have little to no impact. But how many bonuses have you heard of? I imagine most players are aware of the Warlord bonus, as this increases the respect gained in your final hit, making it super useful for chains and wars. And if you haven't heard of this bonus, you probably live on the same island that Tom Hanks & Wilson do in Cast Away.
As for the other bonuses, you'd be surprised at just how few players have even bothered to read up on them, let alone learn which are useful to their particular situation. Most advanced bonuses have been listed on the Wiki, and you can find further details about the rest via the forums. So, with all this information out there, surely the community has taken some time to bone up. Right?
Pictured: Percentage of bonuses known by respondents. Larger Link
This graph was based on data taken from a poll I ran in General Discussion. Admittedly, community polls are often as reliable as the listings on AliExpress, but I hopefully managed to weed out some of the s**tposters by including the option “I like to s**tvote so I vote this.” Outside of this joke option, the results are rather enlightening, as they indicate that the vast majority of Torn players either haven't read up on advanced bonuses or know only a handful.
Just 5% of voters claimed to know all of the bonuses I listed, and an additional 18.3% knew roughly half of them. This means that less than a quarter of those who responded have a decent base of advanced bonus knowledge on which to make purchase decisions. Advanced weapons and armors are still a niche interest in Torn City and look certain to remain so for some time yet.
This isn't surprising, given that even poor-quality advanced items are highly-priced, whether it's a weapon, armor, or the caches themselves. Most players cannot yet justify the costly purchase of an advanced weapon or armor when their current setup has been sufficient for their Torn day-to-day needs for many years. And since most factions allow their members to rent items from their armories for use in wars and chains, weapon and armor bonuses are a bonus rather than a necessity.
Pictured: Weapon and Armor bonuses courtesy of Hemi. Larger Link
If this situation is to improve, the community must educate themselves on the value and usefulness of Torn's new advanced bonuses. To facilitate this, feel free to save the above list somewhere on your bookmarks or PC - just don't go saving it in that hidden folder of jpegs called "essay research." You don't want to accidentally send someone the wrong picture and expose your niche interests.
If you've ever wanted to be that one kid in class who always answered the teacher’s questions, you can also use this set of bonus flashcards and pat yourself on the back once you get all of them right. Then, casually head to the forums or your faction’s discord server and brand yourself as the fountain of advanced bonus knowledge.
Trading Ranked Weapons
Now that you’ve figured out which bonuses are relevant to you and which are absolute dogs**t, you're just about ready to splurge on an advanced weapon or armor. But before you go throwing money at the first trader with a shiny new gun, I would like you to think about the current market experience for buyers.
Here’s how it currently goes: players head to the trading post section, open 15 threads from different people, and find that two or three are trader threads that everyone shares shelf space with. A mega-thread is also available with countless bumps from the previous pages, and you’re left wondering if the price you’re paying is anywhere close to the item's true value.
This is especially true if the items you want are listed on the item market. Anything posted for sale here will have been price-adjusted to ensure that the buyer, not the seller, is the one who incurs the 3% sales fee. That's an easy three million doll hairs on top for a weapon being sold for $100mil.
Not exactly the best shopping experience...
The current item market and bazaar setups are not well-suited to the sale of advanced items, but fear not, for Ched and his team are working on rectifying this soon. Both item markets and possibly bazaars will eventually have filtering and sorting options, but as Ched's own comments indicate, this may take some time.
Pictured: Mandatory Soon™
In the meantime, I’d like to invite you to visit the database I created here that has filtering, sorting, and searching capabilities for all advanced weapons and armors.
Pictured: Masheen's Weapons Market. Larger Link
At present, my market allows you to search for any individual bonus, filter pricing to be below X, sort the current items per quality %, or filter the database to show a certain weapon type only. This is in addition to many other options you may want to explore, with a full explanation of my website's various functions explained in detail here.
Here is some feedback from those who have used my database:
“I think this market is a wonderful addition to the game, I just wish the game had something like this integrated from the jump. I've probably sold 6 or 7 weapons on her marketplace, netting me at least a few billion in profit and she only charges 1m per listing, which in my eyes, is a bargain. I'd recommend using her marketplace to everyone involved in the RW scene and something like this needs to be implemented into the game.” - Anis
“Masheen absolutely did Gods (or Ched's) work with this site. For a negligible fee of 1m, I can be sure that potential buyers can find my weapons without me having to advertise it through trade chat or the forums. It's neatly organized and clean, nice to look at. I wish all of Torn knew about this, it would make trading ranked weapons a lot easier!” - Matzkops
Weapons and armors that have been marked as sold are kept in a hidden database, and as I gain more entries, I will eventually be able to help sellers and buyers with pricing questions based on historical data. But until such data is available, I am still able to offer up a few nuggets of insight based on the sales I've logged thus far.
The Current Market
There are a few things I’ve noticed in the short time my database has been up. First, and perhaps most obviously, our player base has a preference for primaries (duh!), specifically those with a certain set of bonuses. Some of the most popular buff bonuses I've noticed are Expose (increased crit hit rate), Powerful (increased damage), Quicken (increased speed), Motivation (chance to increase all stats), and Puncture (chance to ignore armor). Weapons with Achilles (increased foot damage) and Cupid (increased heart damage) are also sold often, albeit at a much more generous price.
On the flip side, the most popular enemy debuff bonuses among weapons sold are Disarm (disable enemy weapon), Weaken (-25% defense), and Eviscerate (extra enemy damage). These trends may be indicative of the community's preference at the time of writing, but these preferences are also heavily influenced by the availability of certain bonuses and the weapons which provide them, both of which are too low to provide us with definitive conclusions.
As for the prices being paid, I've noticed a few traders have been successfully flipping items, indicating that some advanced weapons and armors are initially underpriced. But I've also seen some weapons stay on the market for some time, which suggests not everyone has adjusted their pricing according to the market's demands.
As time goes on, everything will fall into its place, and we will stop having outrageous prices for basic weapons. Matzkops' article on how to become an arms dealer contains many useful tips for pricing weapons correctly, so I'd recommend following his advice until further information is available. But of course, I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t provide you with at least some sales data.
Armalite | 75.43D / 61.65A / 120%Q with 25% Specialist sold for 2.2b
SIG 552 | 74.41D / 53.89A / 92%Q with 63% Achilles sold for 500m
Heckler & Koch | 72.88D / 54.67A / 215%Q with 44% Weaken sold for 4.5b
Ruger | 39.24D / 53.19A / 103%Q with 63% Cupid sold for 110m
As you can see, there is a market for every type of weapon, but in lieu of more detailed information, my basic advice for you as a buyer is that you should only buy weapons where the attacking score (damage * accuracy) is at least comparable to your current stock weapon. The only exception to this is if the bonus provided is something you desperately want in your arsenal, such as Warlord or similar.
But even this popular bonus isn't the be-all and end-all, for if the reduced damage and accuracy mean you can't beat your opponent, those respect bonuses will work out as diddly squat multiplied by f**k all. Remember, you must frontload damage as much as possible, as the longer a fight lasts, the greater your chances of being damaged by an opponent or outside hitters.
If you want to optimize your search for advanced items, you can also check out how many rounds, on average, it takes to go through a magazine clip. See the table below for a list of the average scores of certain stock weapons (without mods) and ammo management:
Pictured: Average scores / Ammo management table. Larger Link
The Future
The price of advanced weapons and armors will only drop in future as more and more of these items enter circulation through the popular ranked warring feature - but that doesn't mean you shouldn't engage with this market now. By setting yourself up with the best loadout possible, you could end up helping your faction rise through the ranks and gain even more of these incredible bonuses sooner than if you'd waited.
It's also a good idea to keep an eye out for unpopular but cheap advanced weapons and armors due to the eventual arrival of an exchange system. Chedburn has promised that eventually, players will be able to swap unwanted advanced items for caches or alternatives. Unfortunately, without knowing the exact nature of this system, we cannot predict precisely how worthwhile it is to invest in advanced items solely for this purpose.
It’s almost certain that the exchange system will not be a 1-for-1 exchange; otherwise, the weapons market for advanced items would be destroyed overnight. We will probably see something similar to Fallout 76's legendary item exchange, whereby a certain amount of points are earned for each item, but the value paid is less than is required to purchase a new cache. Or, perhaps you will only be able to swap SMGs and Pistols for Small Arms caches, melees for melee caches, etc.
Whatever happens with the exchange system, it makes sense to involve yourself in the market asap, be that as a buyer, a seller, or a simple observer. Because while advanced weapons and armors may not be the standard now, it won't be too long before such items become a requirement, particularly among the top order of Torn's most established factions.
TL:DR: Most of the player base don't know what the majority of the new specials do. Loot is dropping in price, and you surely need to check out my market. The market is being reworked, and you will soon be able to exchange loot for caches.
Pictured: This one is red. That means good, right? Red is always good.
As some of you may know, I have built a database to help both new and experienced players buy, sell and determine the value of the loot received from these Advanced Weapon and Armor caches. Whereas the item market is not currently optimized for the sale of advanced weapons (pending a future update), my database allows you to sort through advanced items on sale by quality, bonus, damage, and more.
As with all new systems that rely on consumer input, it will take time for the community's knowledge to improve to a point whereby the listings become accurate. The prices people are asking for certain weapons today are very different from those charged even just a few weeks ago. When it comes to advanced bonuses, the community is still in the early stages of knowing which are the most useful in any given situation.
But perhaps we can help with that.
Advanced Bonuses
Not all battles are equal. We know some bonuses excel in certain areas, whereas in others, they have little to no impact. But how many bonuses have you heard of? I imagine most players are aware of the Warlord bonus, as this increases the respect gained in your final hit, making it super useful for chains and wars. And if you haven't heard of this bonus, you probably live on the same island that Tom Hanks & Wilson do in Cast Away.
As for the other bonuses, you'd be surprised at just how few players have even bothered to read up on them, let alone learn which are useful to their particular situation. Most advanced bonuses have been listed on the Wiki, and you can find further details about the rest via the forums. So, with all this information out there, surely the community has taken some time to bone up. Right?
Pictured: Percentage of bonuses known by respondents. Larger Link
This graph was based on data taken from a poll I ran in General Discussion. Admittedly, community polls are often as reliable as the listings on AliExpress, but I hopefully managed to weed out some of the s**tposters by including the option “I like to s**tvote so I vote this.” Outside of this joke option, the results are rather enlightening, as they indicate that the vast majority of Torn players either haven't read up on advanced bonuses or know only a handful.
Just 5% of voters claimed to know all of the bonuses I listed, and an additional 18.3% knew roughly half of them. This means that less than a quarter of those who responded have a decent base of advanced bonus knowledge on which to make purchase decisions. Advanced weapons and armors are still a niche interest in Torn City and look certain to remain so for some time yet.
This isn't surprising, given that even poor-quality advanced items are highly-priced, whether it's a weapon, armor, or the caches themselves. Most players cannot yet justify the costly purchase of an advanced weapon or armor when their current setup has been sufficient for their Torn day-to-day needs for many years. And since most factions allow their members to rent items from their armories for use in wars and chains, weapon and armor bonuses are a bonus rather than a necessity.
Pictured: Weapon and Armor bonuses courtesy of Hemi. Larger Link
If this situation is to improve, the community must educate themselves on the value and usefulness of Torn's new advanced bonuses. To facilitate this, feel free to save the above list somewhere on your bookmarks or PC - just don't go saving it in that hidden folder of jpegs called "essay research." You don't want to accidentally send someone the wrong picture and expose your niche interests.
If you've ever wanted to be that one kid in class who always answered the teacher’s questions, you can also use this set of bonus flashcards and pat yourself on the back once you get all of them right. Then, casually head to the forums or your faction’s discord server and brand yourself as the fountain of advanced bonus knowledge.
Trading Ranked Weapons
Now that you’ve figured out which bonuses are relevant to you and which are absolute dogs**t, you're just about ready to splurge on an advanced weapon or armor. But before you go throwing money at the first trader with a shiny new gun, I would like you to think about the current market experience for buyers.
Here’s how it currently goes: players head to the trading post section, open 15 threads from different people, and find that two or three are trader threads that everyone shares shelf space with. A mega-thread is also available with countless bumps from the previous pages, and you’re left wondering if the price you’re paying is anywhere close to the item's true value.
This is especially true if the items you want are listed on the item market. Anything posted for sale here will have been price-adjusted to ensure that the buyer, not the seller, is the one who incurs the 3% sales fee. That's an easy three million doll hairs on top for a weapon being sold for $100mil.
Not exactly the best shopping experience...
The current item market and bazaar setups are not well-suited to the sale of advanced items, but fear not, for Ched and his team are working on rectifying this soon. Both item markets and possibly bazaars will eventually have filtering and sorting options, but as Ched's own comments indicate, this may take some time.
Pictured: Mandatory Soon™
In the meantime, I’d like to invite you to visit the database I created here that has filtering, sorting, and searching capabilities for all advanced weapons and armors.
Pictured: Masheen's Weapons Market. Larger Link
At present, my market allows you to search for any individual bonus, filter pricing to be below X, sort the current items per quality %, or filter the database to show a certain weapon type only. This is in addition to many other options you may want to explore, with a full explanation of my website's various functions explained in detail here.
Here is some feedback from those who have used my database:
“I think this market is a wonderful addition to the game, I just wish the game had something like this integrated from the jump. I've probably sold 6 or 7 weapons on her marketplace, netting me at least a few billion in profit and she only charges 1m per listing, which in my eyes, is a bargain. I'd recommend using her marketplace to everyone involved in the RW scene and something like this needs to be implemented into the game.” - Anis
“Masheen absolutely did Gods (or Ched's) work with this site. For a negligible fee of 1m, I can be sure that potential buyers can find my weapons without me having to advertise it through trade chat or the forums. It's neatly organized and clean, nice to look at. I wish all of Torn knew about this, it would make trading ranked weapons a lot easier!” - Matzkops
Weapons and armors that have been marked as sold are kept in a hidden database, and as I gain more entries, I will eventually be able to help sellers and buyers with pricing questions based on historical data. But until such data is available, I am still able to offer up a few nuggets of insight based on the sales I've logged thus far.
The Current Market
There are a few things I’ve noticed in the short time my database has been up. First, and perhaps most obviously, our player base has a preference for primaries (duh!), specifically those with a certain set of bonuses. Some of the most popular buff bonuses I've noticed are Expose (increased crit hit rate), Powerful (increased damage), Quicken (increased speed), Motivation (chance to increase all stats), and Puncture (chance to ignore armor). Weapons with Achilles (increased foot damage) and Cupid (increased heart damage) are also sold often, albeit at a much more generous price.
On the flip side, the most popular enemy debuff bonuses among weapons sold are Disarm (disable enemy weapon), Weaken (-25% defense), and Eviscerate (extra enemy damage). These trends may be indicative of the community's preference at the time of writing, but these preferences are also heavily influenced by the availability of certain bonuses and the weapons which provide them, both of which are too low to provide us with definitive conclusions.
As for the prices being paid, I've noticed a few traders have been successfully flipping items, indicating that some advanced weapons and armors are initially underpriced. But I've also seen some weapons stay on the market for some time, which suggests not everyone has adjusted their pricing according to the market's demands.
As time goes on, everything will fall into its place, and we will stop having outrageous prices for basic weapons. Matzkops' article on how to become an arms dealer contains many useful tips for pricing weapons correctly, so I'd recommend following his advice until further information is available. But of course, I’d be doing you a disservice if I didn’t provide you with at least some sales data.
Armalite | 75.43D / 61.65A / 120%Q with 25% Specialist sold for 2.2b
SIG 552 | 74.41D / 53.89A / 92%Q with 63% Achilles sold for 500m
Heckler & Koch | 72.88D / 54.67A / 215%Q with 44% Weaken sold for 4.5b
Ruger | 39.24D / 53.19A / 103%Q with 63% Cupid sold for 110m
As you can see, there is a market for every type of weapon, but in lieu of more detailed information, my basic advice for you as a buyer is that you should only buy weapons where the attacking score (damage * accuracy) is at least comparable to your current stock weapon. The only exception to this is if the bonus provided is something you desperately want in your arsenal, such as Warlord or similar.
But even this popular bonus isn't the be-all and end-all, for if the reduced damage and accuracy mean you can't beat your opponent, those respect bonuses will work out as diddly squat multiplied by f**k all. Remember, you must frontload damage as much as possible, as the longer a fight lasts, the greater your chances of being damaged by an opponent or outside hitters.
If you want to optimize your search for advanced items, you can also check out how many rounds, on average, it takes to go through a magazine clip. See the table below for a list of the average scores of certain stock weapons (without mods) and ammo management:
Pictured: Average scores / Ammo management table. Larger Link
The Future
The price of advanced weapons and armors will only drop in future as more and more of these items enter circulation through the popular ranked warring feature - but that doesn't mean you shouldn't engage with this market now. By setting yourself up with the best loadout possible, you could end up helping your faction rise through the ranks and gain even more of these incredible bonuses sooner than if you'd waited.
It's also a good idea to keep an eye out for unpopular but cheap advanced weapons and armors due to the eventual arrival of an exchange system. Chedburn has promised that eventually, players will be able to swap unwanted advanced items for caches or alternatives. Unfortunately, without knowing the exact nature of this system, we cannot predict precisely how worthwhile it is to invest in advanced items solely for this purpose.
It’s almost certain that the exchange system will not be a 1-for-1 exchange; otherwise, the weapons market for advanced items would be destroyed overnight. We will probably see something similar to Fallout 76's legendary item exchange, whereby a certain amount of points are earned for each item, but the value paid is less than is required to purchase a new cache. Or, perhaps you will only be able to swap SMGs and Pistols for Small Arms caches, melees for melee caches, etc.
Whatever happens with the exchange system, it makes sense to involve yourself in the market asap, be that as a buyer, a seller, or a simple observer. Because while advanced weapons and armors may not be the standard now, it won't be too long before such items become a requirement, particularly among the top order of Torn's most established factions.
TL:DR: Most of the player base don't know what the majority of the new specials do. Loot is dropping in price, and you surely need to check out my market. The market is being reworked, and you will soon be able to exchange loot for caches.
Original article
Comments
Post a Comment