Architect Archive
Thread: Whats Next?? Getting our Voices Ready...
Flatfingers wrote:
Elyssa wrote:
Simple solution to cross-server lot swaps: Forced re-deeding of harvesters to change the resource being extracted.
I agree that this is simple, but I don't agree that it's a solution becauseI don't think itaddresses the real problem.
The real problem is not that some players (typically in PAs) are able to do better than individuals. That's not a problem -- it's a Good Thing. Achievement should be rewarded.
The real problem is that a few players are able to do HUGELY better than individuals -- we're talking two to three orders of magnitude better. Because they have access to hundreds of lots, they can afford to crank out vast amounts of any item at basically rock-bottom prices, to the point that there's no way a small crafter can even survive economically, much less compete effectively.
If this is because of guild support or smart business organization, then the game is being played as intended. A large organization will always do better than an individual.
If this is a result of cross-server swapped lots, the player is gaining an unfair advantage from absentee ownership and such a thing should be eliminated.
And that's a problem because SWG is a game. In RL, I'd say "work harder!" because it's possible to create capital in RL. But you can't do that in SWG; there's no way to add to the sum total of capital in SWG. Which means that it's a zero-sum game -- I can only win if you lose. For me to make money on sales, I have to take sales away from you (and vice versa).
When a few players are able to take away the majority of sales, the economic game in SWG -- the thing that makes many of us willing to pay a $15/month subscription fee -- is destroyed.
And the cause of this problem is that there is no limit on the number lots a person can be admin'ed to and operate.
So let's be clear: I'm not talking aboutcapping harvester lots at 20 or 30. Doing thatreally would hurt the typical PA, and I don't want that.I'm talking about limiting -- noteliminating, but limiting -- the ability of theorder-of-magnitude players to utterly dominate a server.I'm thinkingmore like 50 or even80 harvester lots as a limit-- anything beyond that is simply unfair to the other people who pay to play SWG.
Somebody is going to have to explain to me how merely limiting an individual character'sharvester lots to such a large number would "kill" PAs. I'm open to such an explanation, but I haven't heard it yet.
Limiting admin will have no significant impact. If you give 1 character an 80 admin limit, they'll have an alt and that'll give them a 160 admin limit. It's simply not worthwhile to pursue because there are such easy ways around it and it does nothing but inconvenience the 'middle of the pack' players. The ones who run too large an operation to be considered small, but not large enough to be able to dominate the economy. In fact, I would be willing to bet that these 'order of magnitude' people are getting additional benefit from cross-server lots and curtailing that practice would bring them more into line with others.
Potential outcomes:
- A single account may continue to access all lots to which they are entitled.
Elyssa, I'm really trying hard to understand your insistence that there are things in SWG to which you're "entitled" (such as 10 lots per character, and 8 characters per account), but I'm just not seeing it.
Is it your feeling that these numbers establish some kind of contract with players, which SOE is not permitted to alter?
Under what circumstances would you feel it was acceptable/allowable to reduce any number?
If it's acceptable under any circumstances at all to reduce some number, why is it not at least discussable to consider reducing the maximumnumber of lots to which one player may be admin'ed?
I insist on those numbers because that's what the game went live with and established a baseline. The $50 I paid for the game back in 2003 gave me access to 8 characters. Each of those characters has a carefully balanced set of attributes. Their lot count is one of them.
To reduce the number of lots available to any one of those eight characters is the functional equivalent of giving it less than 250 skill points. As a subscriber, I am allowed to play all 8 of those characters any way I see fit (within the terms of the EULA).
Nobody will complain if tomorrow SOE says "we're gonna give you 10 characters and 15 lots each." They will scream bloody murder if they say "we're cutting you back to 6 characters and 5 lots each."
As I mentioned above, setting a cap on "admin" access will accomplish nothing because it's much much too easy to circumvent.
What must change: Re-deed costMUST be removed.
Potential impact:
- Owner would simply have to pick it up and put it back down at no cost in order to change resources.
- Cross-server trades become too cumbersome to deal with.
- Same-server rental requires more work.
I don't believe this would make cross-server trades more cumbersome than they are now.
If I understand you correctly, you're talking about adding astep (free redeeding) that would be a new requirement before an admin'ed user would be allowed to change a harvester to a new resource. Is this a correct interpretation of your suggestion?
If so,how is also having to redeed that harvester (especially if it's mademerely a matter of picking it up and putting it back down) any more of a real imposition on a harvester tender? How does adding astep-- whichyou are explicitly making very simple --impose any kind of cumbersomeness on admin'ed players, who already have to visit each harvester after a resource shift?
Because admin'd players can NOT pick up a harvester. Only the owner can do it. It would require the cross-server player to log on every time there was a resource shift and go through the hassle of re-deeding the harvester.
If you own the harvester, except for the nearby creature spawns, this step is trouble free for you. If someone on your server owns it, they will have to make a trip to the harvester and do it.
This will require those 'order of magnitude' people to do a little more work in gathering their resources and it will most likely cause them to scale back.
Underan "80 admin cap" one player can control 80 harvesters and every time there's a resource shift they can change the resource being extracted and start it right back up again.
Under the "forced reedeed" idea, one player can control and unlimited number of harvesters but can only restartTEN of them when a resource shifts.
Here's an alternative suggestion: Instead of percentages being a straight line, make it an exponential curve -- if a 100% resource spotyields 100 units/time, then instead of 50% being 50 units/time, it's more like 30; 25% would be 8; 15% would be about 3. In this model, even if you're using a BER 13 heavy, if it's on a 12% spot because you can't move it, you're not going to get enough resources out of it to pay for maintenance and power on it.
Yes, this would mean more work to really keep harvesters tended... but isn't that what this proposal is trying to accomplish? Howwould the approach I'm suggesting here be anyworse? Wouldn't it actually be better because it would directly reward active players who move their harvesters to the best current locations?
No, this proposal is not trying to require more work to keep YOUR harvesters tended.
It is trying to introduce an added layer of complexity for using harvesters that don't belong to you in an effort to curtail the rampant fields of static harvesters.
In essence it does away with the idea of static harvesters and forces it into a mobile harvester system. As the owner of the harvester, you are free to set it right back down where you had it before if you so choose. You are also free to add power and maintenance to any harvester you have admin access to. However, the owner of the harvester is required to change a resource.
Awaiting the incoming fire....
--Flatfingers
Now that I've had more time to think about it, I don't like the "pick it up" idea.
The simple answer is to lock admins out of changing the resource and make it an owner-only action.
Ultimately that serves the same function without forcing a legitimate owner to fight off creature spawns to set their harvester right back down.
In fact, if you did that you wouldn't even need to do away with the re-deed cost.
There you have it... my new proposal: Only the owner should be allowed to change the resource being extracted. All other things remain the same as they are now.
I like this one. I think it's the best yet. If a lot trader is logging in every spawn to do some operation on their "swapped" harvesters, they are essentially playing the toon in both servers for mutual benefit. This is still a bit of a downer for the clans, but not too bad. The mine master would still do all the leg work deciding what to do with the harvs, they'd just have to mail the list of owners with their responsibilities, while still closely managing the resources themselves.
I also support the assertion that SOE needs to stay true to the original SWG product that I bought as much as is reasonable.
Pawlin wrote:
....
You believe that galaxy wide vendor search is hurting you the most right now. Well can you 'prove' that? How? I don't think you can really prove it. Any more than I can prove that lot trades hurt anyone.
....
Did I 'prove' anything? Probably not. But thats my argument / viewpoint on it. Prove I'm wrong.
The reason I believe that GWVS is hurting me the most right now is because the only sales I am able to complete come from either the Coronet Bazaar (which for Architect only a very few things can reside on) or my repeat customers that I have a relationship with. Before the GWVS came into existence, I would see many new customers on a weekly basis buying furniture, vehicles, a couple harvestors, maybe some small houses. Since the GWVS, I have only seen one or two new customers. Now, that could be contributed to the CU making a lot of players quit, and other players respecing into something that they don't need the service of an Architect anymore, I am not 100% sure, but when my sales on Coronet Bazaar on a nightly basis out sells my Vendor, then there is something wrong. Another thing I have noticed, is that the prices for Architect (and all other crafted goods) is going down since the GWVS. Again, this could be because of the economy going down from the CU, I am not 100% sure, but it is kind of strange that now, any Joe Schmo can go to Coronet Bazaar, and just look for items based on price. I think that hurts Architects more then any other crafting profession out there. With Weaponsmith, Armorsmith, Chef, etc., there are stats that the player has to look at in addition to price. He has to compare and decide if 3.2DPS more and 1 SAC less is worth the additional 2000 credits he is about to spend on the weapon. With Architect goods, there is no differenciating between a Novice Architect Small House, and a Master Architect Small House (except the Master probably ran it through a factory). So he just does it Galaxy Wide, finds the lowest price, hops in his Y-Wing, travels to Dantooine, hops on his Swoop and goes to the vendor. If he needs another house a couple of weeks later, he doesn't return to the same vendor. He goes back to a Bazaar, and searches the Galaxy again to find the lowest price again. That forces Architects to lower their prices to meet with the people that are undercutting them. I hear on some servers now, they sell 13BER Harvestors for 65k (Thank God not on Wanderhome or Eclipse yet). And its not the Cross-Server Lot Trades that is causing it. Its the GWVS.
Elyssa wrote:
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There you have it... my new proposal: Only the owner should be allowed to change the resource being extracted. All other things remain the same as they are now.
/sign
/seal
/hand over to KStarfire to deliver to DEVs
First off, BRAVO Elyssa. I think this solution is the one everyone was looking for. And to be honest, it was right in front of everyone's face, but none of us thought about it really. This, to me, is the best solution to our problem (if we HAVE to have this as a problem). I still think though, that this should be removed from our list of issues and given to KStarfire over on the Core Systems. Couple of reasons. First off, this affects everyone. While it may mostly affect Architects, it affects every crafting position. Second, it really isn't our system. We make harvestors, but we are not the only player that uses them. Heck, not even crafters are the only type of profession that uses them. And finally, lets see, we have had Furniture Colorization, Fusion Experiementation, OMU Crating, and tons of other things on our Top 5 for how long?? Maybe if we give it to KStarfire and Core Systems submits it to the DEVs, this may actually be looked at.
Pawlin wrote:
Well lets see how much Cafa likes it...
Elyssa wrote:
my new proposal: Only the owner should be allowed to change the resource being extracted. All other things remain the same as they are now.
I think I can get behind thisone, too. It supports active play, mitigates somewhatthe cross-server lot tradingissue to helpthe little guys survive, and flattens the difficulty curve from independent/novice crafter to PA-backed ubercrafter while still rewarding effort and achievement.
Thanks, Elyssa!
(And I also still think this should go to KStarfire as a Core Systems issue.)
--Flatfingers
Message Edited by Flatfingers on 06-08-2005 05:31 PM
Dvnce wrote:
the main reason why I keep bringing up the lot swap issue.. Is I wish you all could see How many times I get told No because of peoples abiltiy to Horde. Soe says we have too many resources ... well.. why? this is the discussion. .. Look at some of the answers some people got at fanfest.. the amount of resources pulled into the game prevents us from getting alot..
If this is how the DEVs truly feel they should treat it like economists treat inflationary currency situations in the real world. They should slowly cut the resource harvesting rates of existing and future harvestors. Then they should adjust the resources needed for schematics appropriately.
Is there a clear explanation of SOE's position on hording? Why is it such a big deal? etc.. If we understand their problem we can look at our requests in that context.
It's human nature to try to collect stuff and make a hoard. Firewood is a good example of human hoarding for survival. Players will naturally attempt to do the same in the game. My impression was that the ten lot limit was there for exactly this reason. The only other option I see is to make it harder to get the resources.
I'm not sure how big a deal the lotswaping is in this regard, but it seems to make more sense just reducing the concentrations of materials in the spawns if hording recourses is the core issue SOE has with our requests.
Edit: Or just change the cost of schematics like TK42I says.
Perhaps reduce the stats of the common resources if they think there is too much good stuff out there.
Message Edited by Anthemion on 06-08-2005 07:55 PM
TK42I wrote:
Dvnce wrote:
the main reason why I keep bringing up the lot swap issue.. Is I wish you all could see How many times I get told No because of peoples abiltiy to Horde. Soe says we have too many resources ... well.. why? this is the discussion. .. Look at some of the answers some people got at fanfest.. the amount of resources pulled into the game prevents us from getting alot..
If this is how the DEVs truly feel they should treat it like economists treat inflationary currency situations in the real world. They should slowly cut the resource harvesting rates of existing and future harvestors. Then they should adjust the resources needed for schematics appropriately.
Coming from a position where I've seen Ionite Intrusivespawn ONCE in 9 months, I again look at this response (channelled through Dvnce 
) and wonder if they actually play the game or get their resources froma blue frog. It's DIFFICULT to get stuff that only spawns good once every 3 or 4 MONTHS. People (now I'll say this with emphasis) WANT TO BUY THE BEST AND CRAFTERS ACHIEVE THROUGH MAKING THE BEST. For the most part, if they would leave it alone things would stablize. Right now, for example, people still think they're going to get 5 or 6 mill for a BARC, but the people that could afford to buy at that price do not hoard them. They buy enough for their character(s) and no more. Auctions go up, no one bites, prices come down.
I just never will agree that this is a zero-sum gain. There is an unlimited amount of credits. The limit is effort to get them. Hoarding resources is NECESSARY is order to make the best products over the two-year life of this game. No matter what you change the scale to, the market will reflect the same dynamics, IMO.
Fivo Asia