Talk:Identification

Statistics on price increases after identification
It would be helpful to players like myself if some statistics were compiled about the value increase when identifying. It says on this page that it's a good idea to identify if an item is worth 25 g or more, but no numbers are shown to back that claim up. Elsewhere I've heard claims that the break-even point (once you subtract the 4 g cost of identifying) is near 40 g.

I would like to see something similar to present drop rate tables elsewhere, with item rarity, price before ID, and price after ID listed.
 * This would be nice to see as I wondered that at first too, and you could easily copy/paste the code for a research table onto a subpage or your user-page if you were interested in gathering results. But I don't think that effort is needed for such a low value difference.  Do a few vanquishes, or even NM quests/missions, and I think you'll find that anything worth more than 25g is almost guaranteed to make at least a 4g increase from an ID.  ~FarloUser Farlo Triad.png Talk 00:10, 7 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Short story: use a 40g cutoff or a 50g cutoff; it's not going to make that much of a difference to you in the long run. It's more important that you have a convenient rule-of-thumb so you spend more time playing (and therefore earning) and less time mini-maxing the NPCs...at least as far as this goes.


 * It's too much of a pain to collect this data reliably; there's just not of enough incentive for even data-freaks like me to collect it...when there are so many other areas in which the data is poorly understood.


 * Anyone claiming there's a known break-even point lacks the data to back up that claim. And there are three factors involved:
 * The cost of IDing (which varies depending on your source of ID kits, but 4 is close enough).
 * The amount of the increase...and the chance that it's worth more than the ID costs.
 * The Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and annoyance factor. It might be worth money to ID or sal some white items, but it sure is boring, too.


 * You can get close enough to the useful truth in this way: I know that 50g whites sometimes ID to 90g. If only one of 10 whites has a price spike like that, it will pay to ID all of them. At least one white always has a similar price increase → It's always worth it to me to ID 50g whites. In contrast, I have richer friends who hate double-clicking (well, triple-clicking in this case); they never ID whites.


 * What about 40g? Well, I dunno. But: I very rarely get < 50g whites from HM areas... and (except for Nick farming) I rarely do much in NM anymore. Therefore, I'm not losing much money by selling those off. What about 25g (the default price for mods). Well, I very rarely see them spike in price, so I never bother — too much trouble for too little gain.


 * On the other hand, when I first started playing, money was horribly tight...and it seemed to me that this kind of data was important to making my first 100k. Turns out, by playing more and theorizing less (on this topic), I hit the first 100k sooner than I thought.


 * Many people would be happy to offer advice on maximizing your income at various stages of the game. IDing whites is a good idea; worrying about whether the efficient cutoff is 40g or 50g isn't cost-effective in itself. — Tennessee Ernie Ford ( TEF ) 03:29, 7 June 2011 (UTC)