Architect Archive
Thread: A BIG NERF for all players, but a BIG STEP for the game?
Page 1 of 1
Moepple
Mon Aug 30, 2004 11:40 am
#1
For a few months now I have played SWG (actually since release). From the start I was looking at SWG like I see
all MMORPGs since I started to play multiplayergames in the late eighties (yes, there were games, but nothing
you would call massive multiplayer or sometimes not even online). I am constantly asking myself how would I
have been doing this, and why did they do it this way, and not different.
One of my biggest concerns is balancing, and because SWG has a player-driven economy, especially the balancing
of the economy. SWG made a big step here, and a much better one than other games
did, but the single big problem of all games, what I call "The Big Picture", is affecting SWG more than other
did, but the single big problem of all games, what I call "The Big Picture", is affecting SWG more than other
games because of the choosen way. In fact, all classes depend on the economy, because the best fighter is worth
nothing when he can't get the equipment he needs, and if he does not get a decent quality.
A big intro for something that is just a proposal for some changes to the artisan and architect class, but it
affects all players and I don't have the motivation right now to post all my thoughts about SWG and balancing
:-)
The intent of this change is to eliminate cross-server lot-trades for harvesting resources and to introduce
decay on harvesters in a way that is balanced and makes sense.
One of the goals is to not change more than necessary to achieve what's needed and to make the whole concept to
One of the goals is to not change more than necessary to achieve what's needed and to make the whole concept to
fit into existing game mechanics as much as possible.
Lets start with the artisan part:
To reduce cross-server lot-trades on harvesters to a minimum it is necessary to force the players to actually
play the game as intended :-) In other words, to take care of their harvesters. To achieve this with already
existing game-mechanics it is simply necessary to force people to redeed their harvesters. Since this can only
be done by the owner it will instantly kill all "I give you my lots but I dont want to move the harvs"
agreements. This is basically what this is for. The way I want to do this is to simply change the way
harvesters are placed and resources are found.
The Resource-Waypoint
This is the tool harvesters will use to know what to harvest. If you place a harvester, you need a "Resource
Waypoint" from an artisan. The "RWP" contains information about the planet, the location and the resource which
its made for, as well as the concentration of the resource.
The RWP has a number of uses and a range, depending on the skill of the artisan. A master artisan can make RWP
The RWP has a number of uses and a range, depending on the skill of the artisan. A master artisan can make RWP
with 10 uses and a 320m range, a novice artisan can make RWP with 2 uses and 64m range (well, whatever the
maximum range of the tool is).
The bonus of the RWP would be, that the concentration is guaranteed within the range labeled at the RWP. That
The bonus of the RWP would be, that the concentration is guaranteed within the range labeled at the RWP. That
way it should be possible for non-artisans to place their harvesters without being able to survey, thats the
trade-in for not being able to place harvesters without a RWP in the future.
When you place a harvester, you need to select a RWP. It is then checked if you are within the desired range of
When you place a harvester, you need to select a RWP. It is then checked if you are within the desired range of
the RWP, the lifespan of the RWP and if the resource is still available. If all requierements are met the
harvester can be placed with the restrictions to the terrain, just like it is placed today.
To ensure the RWPs dont hang around in the game forever, they have a 20day lifespan, if the lifespan is 0, they
To ensure the RWPs dont hang around in the game forever, they have a 20day lifespan, if the lifespan is 0, they
are deleted by the aystem asap.
To create a RWP no resources are needed. But to implement it the way it should be implemented, a datadisc as
necessary component for the RWP would be nice, craftable at novice artisan. You then have an item the RWP goes
to and which you can craft and sell, and give a name to that makes sense. To create the RWP, you just may put
the datadisc into the survey-tool and survey, the RWP is saved to the disc, there you go.
What would change if this would be implemented?
- All players are still able to place harvesters
- Artisans get something they can make some money with
- Resources would not flood the databases anymore, because less resources are harvested
- Economy would be more stable, because there is some effort necessary to get resources, and goods
- Cross-server lot-trades are eliminated where they should be eliminated
- No harvester-fields with 80 or more harvs that never move
- The policy that you need the proper skill to do valuable things has become effective again, you at least have
- Artisans get something they can make some money with
- Resources would not flood the databases anymore, because less resources are harvested
- Economy would be more stable, because there is some effort necessary to get resources, and goods
- Cross-server lot-trades are eliminated where they should be eliminated
- No harvester-fields with 80 or more harvs that never move
- The policy that you need the proper skill to do valuable things has become effective again, you at least have
to buy the service
- The way resources are introduced into the game is still the same
- The way resources are introduced into the game is still the same
At the end of the day, this might be a big nerf for a few people in the game who established a really good
business, but at the cost of a lot of others who play the game as intended. Therefore this would be a change
FOR the game, and therefore a good one.
The Architect Part:
A year ago (I was surprised when I checked the date of that old posting today) I posted a proposal how decay on
harvesters could be achieved
(http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=architect&message.id=31801). This is, more or less,
exactly what I will present again in this proposal, because it got some positive feedback.
The Idea is quite simple, to prevent decay for the Harvesters itself, which would be quite expensive, only a
The Idea is quite simple, to prevent decay for the Harvesters itself, which would be quite expensive, only a
single Part of the Harvesters should be affected by decay and therefore needed to be exchanged.
Every medium or heavy harvester has a component which is responsible for the BER of the Harvester. This one is
Every medium or heavy harvester has a component which is responsible for the BER of the Harvester. This one is
the one which should be affected by decay, because it is responsible for the harvesting-process itself.
The Idea is to simply add a decay-value to these parts and make them exchangeable.
A new product, the maintenance-kit, can be crafted for every type of medium and heavy harvesters. By using the
The Idea is to simply add a decay-value to these parts and make them exchangeable.
A new product, the maintenance-kit, can be crafted for every type of medium and heavy harvesters. By using the
Kit in front of your harvester you are replacing the component within the harvester with a new one.
I will give you an example with a heavy mineral harvester:
The new heavy mineral miners will still have a Value for their max BER, this is to prevent exploiting the
system by making crappy harvesters and then adding a good Ore mining unit. The max BER is the value that the
new ore mining unit in the mainenance kit is allowed to have. A BER 12 maintenance kit will be usable for a BER
13 max harvester, giving him BER 12 for the time that ore mining unit is used, but a BER 13 kit cant be used
with a max. BER 12 harvester.
The ore mining unit will get new values - max possible units and actual units. That value is based on DR and SR
and is experimented together with the BER. For a heavy harvester it might be (10k per % * resource-Value), so a
96% ore mining unit would last for 960.000 units of minerals, assuming resource quality is 1000.
The new schematic, the maintenance-kit, needs identical components of the specific type, in this case the ore
mining unit, to be crafted.
That way it may be only one schematic for med and one for heavy harvesters. Some chemicals and metal, no need
That way it may be only one schematic for med and one for heavy harvesters. Some chemicals and metal, no need
to experiment it, thats it. If it is not possible to get the correct BER rating for the module that way, it
might be a good idea to have a maintenance kit for every type of harvester, where you need the same type of
resources in the same proportions (as the harvesters), so you can get a real BER-value.
After harvesting 90% of the max possible units, the harvester will generate a mail to the owner telling that
there are just n units left to harvest, in the example above this would be 96k left to harvest. Next time the
owner checks the harvester he may need to have a maintenance kit with him.
Max units for heavy harvesters should be 1.000.000, for medium harvesters 500.000 and for small ones 100.000.
Small ones will be "one-way", if they harvested their max number of units, you can just delete them. Fusions
should be 2.000.000 units.
The good thing is, that way all the godmode-harvesters will be taken out of the game too. You may have a max
BER 24 fusion, but only a BER 14 maintenance kit, which sooner or later gives you a BER 14 fusion, as it is
intended.
This is just an extraction of the ideas I played with, I could post pages of ideas, counting the max units
against the UT-value of the harvested resource to modify the decay, for example, but this posting was supposed
to give you a rough idea of what could be changed to get some critical areas of the economy fixed.
This is just a proposal, no petition or something. The best thing that can happen to this post is to get a red
flag by a DEV-post, or that it may hit the "In Concept" forum for discussion.
Feel free to discuss it, but please don't disqualify yourself from the discussin with posts like
"My fighter can't earn money if he does not sell resources, I need those 80 harvs!"......
I posted this to the artisan and the architect forum, cause we dont have a generic forum for such things.
Thank you.
Shubashi/Gorath.
Thanks to Zenyatta and Pawlin to help me with this posting, my english is quitehorrible sometimes :-)
Moepple
Mon Aug 30, 2004 11:41 am
#2
For a few months now I have played SWG (actually since release). From the start I was looking at SWG like I see
all MMORPGs since I started to play multiplayergames in the late eighties (yes, there were games, but nothing
you would call massive multiplayer or sometimes not even online). I am constantly asking myself how would I
have been doing this, and why did they do it this way, and not different.
One of my biggest concerns is balancing, and because SWG has a player-driven economy, especially the balancing
of the economy. SWG made a big step here, and a much better one than other games
did, but the single big problem of all games, what I call "The Big Picture", is affecting SWG more than other
did, but the single big problem of all games, what I call "The Big Picture", is affecting SWG more than other
games because of the choosen way. In fact, all classes depend on the economy, because the best fighter is worth
nothing when he can't get the equipment he needs, and if he does not get a decent quality.
A big intro for something that is just a proposal for some changes to the artisan and architect class, but it
affects all players and I don't have the motivation right now to post all my thoughts about SWG and balancing
:-)
The intent of this change is to eliminate cross-server lot-trades for harvesting resources and to introduce
decay on harvesters in a way that is balanced and makes sense.
One of the goals is to not change more than necessary to achieve what's needed and to make the whole concept to
One of the goals is to not change more than necessary to achieve what's needed and to make the whole concept to
fit into existing game mechanics as much as possible.
Lets start with the artisan part:
To reduce cross-server lot-trades on harvesters to a minimum it is necessary to force the players to actually
play the game as intended :-) In other words, to take care of their harvesters. To achieve this with already
existing game-mechanics it is simply necessary to force people to redeed their harvesters. Since this can only
be done by the owner it will instantly kill all "I give you my lots but I dont want to move the harvs"
agreements. This is basically what this is for. The way I want to do this is to simply change the way
harvesters are placed and resources are found.
The Resource-Waypoint
This is the tool harvesters will use to know what to harvest. If you place a harvester, you need a "Resource
Waypoint" from an artisan. The "RWP" contains information about the planet, the location and the resource which
its made for, as well as the concentration of the resource.
The RWP has a number of uses and a range, depending on the skill of the artisan. A master artisan can make RWP
The RWP has a number of uses and a range, depending on the skill of the artisan. A master artisan can make RWP
with 10 uses and a 320m range, a novice artisan can make RWP with 2 uses and 64m range (well, whatever the
maximum range of the tool is).
The bonus of the RWP would be, that the concentration is guaranteed within the range labeled at the RWP. That
The bonus of the RWP would be, that the concentration is guaranteed within the range labeled at the RWP. That
way it should be possible for non-artisans to place their harvesters without being able to survey, thats the
trade-in for not being able to place harvesters without a RWP in the future.
When you place a harvester, you need to select a RWP. It is then checked if you are within the desired range of
When you place a harvester, you need to select a RWP. It is then checked if you are within the desired range of
the RWP, the lifespan of the RWP and if the resource is still available. If all requierements are met the
harvester can be placed with the restrictions to the terrain, just like it is placed today.
To ensure the RWPs dont hang around in the game forever, they have a 20day lifespan, if the lifespan is 0, they
To ensure the RWPs dont hang around in the game forever, they have a 20day lifespan, if the lifespan is 0, they
are deleted by the aystem asap.
To create a RWP no resources are needed. But to implement it the way it should be implemented, a datadisc as
necessary component for the RWP would be nice, craftable at novice artisan. You then have an item the RWP goes
to and which you can craft and sell, and give a name to that makes sense. To create the RWP, you just may put
the datadisc into the survey-tool and survey, the RWP is saved to the disc, there you go.
What would change if this would be implemented?
- All players are still able to place harvesters
- Artisans get something they can make some money with
- Resources would not flood the databases anymore, because less resources are harvested
- Economy would be more stable, because there is some effort necessary to get resources, and goods
- Cross-server lot-trades are eliminated where they should be eliminated
- No harvester-fields with 80 or more harvs that never move
- The policy that you need the proper skill to do valuable things has become effective again, you at least have
- Artisans get something they can make some money with
- Resources would not flood the databases anymore, because less resources are harvested
- Economy would be more stable, because there is some effort necessary to get resources, and goods
- Cross-server lot-trades are eliminated where they should be eliminated
- No harvester-fields with 80 or more harvs that never move
- The policy that you need the proper skill to do valuable things has become effective again, you at least have
to buy the service
- The way resources are introduced into the game is still the same
- The way resources are introduced into the game is still the same
At the end of the day, this might be a big nerf for a few people in the game who established a really good
business, but at the cost of a lot of others who play the game as intended. Therefore this would be a change
FOR the game, and therefore a good one.
The Architect Part:
A year ago (I was surprised when I checked the date of that old posting today) I posted a proposal how decay on
harvesters could be achieved
(http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=architect&message.id=31801). This is, more or less,
exactly what I will present again in this proposal, because it got some positive feedback.
The Idea is quite simple, to prevent decay for the Harvesters itself, which would be quite expensive, only a
The Idea is quite simple, to prevent decay for the Harvesters itself, which would be quite expensive, only a
single Part of the Harvesters should be affected by decay and therefore needed to be exchanged.
Every medium or heavy harvester has a component which is responsible for the BER of the Harvester. This one is
Every medium or heavy harvester has a component which is responsible for the BER of the Harvester. This one is
the one which should be affected by decay, because it is responsible for the harvesting-process itself.
The Idea is to simply add a decay-value to these parts and make them exchangeable.
A new product, the maintenance-kit, can be crafted for every type of medium and heavy harvesters. By using the
The Idea is to simply add a decay-value to these parts and make them exchangeable.
A new product, the maintenance-kit, can be crafted for every type of medium and heavy harvesters. By using the
Kit in front of your harvester you are replacing the component within the harvester with a new one.
I will give you an example with a heavy mineral harvester:
The new heavy mineral miners will still have a Value for their max BER, this is to prevent exploiting the
system by making crappy harvesters and then adding a good Ore mining unit. The max BER is the value that the
new ore mining unit in the mainenance kit is allowed to have. A BER 12 maintenance kit will be usable for a BER
13 max harvester, giving him BER 12 for the time that ore mining unit is used, but a BER 13 kit cant be used
with a max. BER 12 harvester.
The ore mining unit will get new values - max possible units and actual units. That value is based on DR and SR
and is experimented together with the BER. For a heavy harvester it might be (10k per % * resource-Value), so a
96% ore mining unit would last for 960.000 units of minerals, assuming resource quality is 1000.
The new schematic, the maintenance-kit, needs identical components of the specific type, in this case the ore
mining unit, to be crafted.
That way it may be only one schematic for med and one for heavy harvesters. Some chemicals and metal, no need
That way it may be only one schematic for med and one for heavy harvesters. Some chemicals and metal, no need
to experiment it, thats it. If it is not possible to get the correct BER rating for the module that way, it
might be a good idea to have a maintenance kit for every type of harvester, where you need the same type of
resources in the same proportions (as the harvesters), so you can get a real BER-value.
After harvesting 90% of the max possible units, the harvester will generate a mail to the owner telling that
there are just n units left to harvest, in the example above this would be 96k left to harvest. Next time the
owner checks the harvester he may need to have a maintenance kit with him.
Max units for heavy harvesters should be 1.000.000, for medium harvesters 500.000 and for small ones 100.000.
Small ones will be "one-way", if they harvested their max number of units, you can just delete them. Fusions
should be 2.000.000 units.
The good thing is, that way all the godmode-harvesters will be taken out of the game too. You may have a max
BER 24 fusion, but only a BER 14 maintenance kit, which sooner or later gives you a BER 14 fusion, as it is
intended.
This is just an extraction of the ideas I played with, I could post pages of ideas, counting the max units
against the UT-value of the harvested resource to modify the decay, for example, but this posting was supposed
to give you a rough idea of what could be changed to get some critical areas of the economy fixed.
This is just a proposal, no petition or something. The best thing that can happen to this post is to get a red
flag by a DEV-post, or that it may hit the "In Concept" forum for discussion.
Feel free to discuss it, but please don't disqualify yourself from the discussin with posts like
"My fighter can't earn money if he does not sell resources, I need those 80 harvs!"......
I posted this to the artisan and the architect forum, cause we dont have a generic forum for such things.
Thank you.
Shubashi/Gorath.
Thanks to Zenyatta and Pawlin to help me with this posting, my english is quitehorrible sometimes :-)
LonelyGhost
Mon Aug 30, 2004 2:27 pm
#3
Prices will go up as long as the earning potential of any decent combat template can grind out over 2 MILLION credits in a single buff session. Thats about 5 million creds in 6 hours. Thats insane.
Prices will only go up when the Demand for the Goods is greater than the Supply of the goods. As long as people pay the high prices, people will charge the high prices.
This sort of change would be good for the game, in the long run. The first 4 months or so would see much upheaval in prices and supply, but it would settle down as people adjust to the new reality.
Its been made pretty clear by the Devs talkig about the Combat Revamp that it will be, literally, a whole new game afterwards. This is a good thing. This is what keeps people interested in the long run.
Crimsonsplat
Mon Aug 30, 2004 3:10 pm
#4
The problem with forced redeeding is that it makes NO distinction between cross-server lot trades and same-server lot trades. I am starting to rent lots from my guildmates in order to expand my business and to build up a stockpile of resources in case the cross-server lot trades are nerfed. I'd have to pay an insane amount to get them to hook up with me once a week and move those harvesters.
All forced re-deedingor decay does is make our jobs harder. It's not enough additional income to make up for the lost business, nor the hassle of dealing with runs of OMU's that don't crate.(did itever occur to anyone supporting harvester decay that we have to come up with the resources to replaceeveryone's harvesters? From harvesters that are decaying andneed to be replaced themselves?) I might agree to the decay IF we get repair kits to sell, and the decay doesnot affect the BER.
In all likelihood i will not though. The reason is simple--decay andespecially forced re-deedingwill start driving resource prices up, which will bring the "combat miners" back in force. No skill in surveying whatsoever, but they plunk mines down and make a fortune charging us for the resources we can't mine ourselves anymore due to thelot trade nerfage. Based on theMerchant vendor nerf, I think Artisans have every right to demand that non-survey skilled miners should be prohibited.
Orew
Mon Aug 30, 2004 3:47 pm
#5
don't forget that one of the biggest problems this game has is the lack of money sinks
in this respect, thousands of inneficient harvesters may be a good thing
Moepple
Mon Aug 30, 2004 4:11 pm
#6
Hi Crimson,
well, decay, as it is defined in this proposal, will NOT affect BER in that way, that the BER goes down when the decay of the OMU goes down. It will only affect BER when you get a crappy omu for your harvester.
I dont know how many of you can remember the time when heavy harvesters had a BER of 7...... Yes, ressource-prices will go up, but hey, we have more than twice the resources we had before the harvesters were changed, and they gave up on the BER-priced Maintenance because it did not work.
This way, we might have a solution which makes us and the devs happy. If thats the case, we dont have to be afraid of what the devs might plan behind our backs *g* and they dont have to worry about this problem anymore. It's balanced, it's good, it's done. That's what we have to achieve.
Shubashi
Moepple
Mon Aug 30, 2004 4:48 pm
#7
Hi,
in fact, there are more than enough money-sinks. Statistics show that more money leaves the game than is earned by missions and loot.
The reason for having too much money in the game is simple: Money Dupes.
Thats shown in a friday feature, check the archive.
We have to plan for the normal operation of the game, not for the case of game-breaking exploits.
Shubashi
Kaiva
Mon Aug 30, 2004 5:06 pm
#8
Whoa... the "artisan nerf" looks deadly to new characters, along with the "harvester nerf" with the RWP. Sure the cross-server exchange thing could be delt with, and the borrowing lots could also, but why bother with the RWP? Anyone can just up and take novice artisan to make one. The disturbing thing (which i may have taken wrong) was the "eliminating the loads of resources on the database".
That's kinda spooky, immediately i think of the richer, already accomplished master crafters buying all the resources from everywhere and selling them for rediculous prices. If the harvesters had a higher decay rate, all the newbie arts would suffer greatly and maybe justa small jab to experienced crafters. Balancing but risky... talk about a BIG NERF if it actually happened 
My two-cents about your two-cents 
MeciniaLua
Mon Aug 30, 2004 6:59 pm
#9
I've heard a rumour that there is a hard limit coming to the amount of lots you can have administer on. Coming probably next year. It will be probably 20or maybe 30. ( 20 so that married couples could put each other on all their lots. Up to 30 perhaps to allow for guild sharing of guildhall, and city structures like cantinas )
( The coming vendor limits is also one way they are trying to limit cross server trades but it won't it will only increase them......)
YDI-Inc
Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:16 am
#10
Architectural goods, especially Harvesters, should wear out, plain and simple. Each timeyou redeed them they should lose quality. This quality would need to be repaired just like a weapon or armor or droid. The code for doing this is already in the game, it just isn't applied to architectural goods. Anything that can be sent through the redeed process should lose quality each time it does so.
To address the cross server lot trades, have the player choose the type of resource to be harvested at the time they place the deed, not after the harvester is placed. This would force a redeed in order to change resources and therefore cause wear and tear on the harvester, thus limiting the lifespan of the harvester and desire of people doing cross server lot trading.
OckVofad
Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:26 am
#11
I am a lot swapper. I have admin rights on about 40 lots right now. The large majority of these lots are pulling up steel, fiberplast, and fusion power.
The devs have hinted that they are planning on limiting lot swapping in some way so I see a nerf as inevitable.
But...
I come back to the arguement that prices of goods will go up if you limit the access to resources. Inflation that will hurt the economy not stabilize it. Our economic model is very similar to the real world. You cant expect for there to be less building materials and pay the same price for the building.
I think your idea about redeeding structures is original and could work. It would at least make it much less convienent to have 40 harvs. The resource waypoint thing seems a little too complicated for my taste. I also like the fact that my harvs dont decay hehe.
Personally, I'd rather that architects have building repair kits to sell instead of there being building maintenance fees. then the money would go to you guys instead of being flushed out of the economy.
With all that said I hope they dont get around to nerfing lots for a while LOL!
Veers_Intrepid
Tue Aug 31, 2004 12:34 pm
#12
cross server trades indeed are bad for the economy and like it or not they are NOT intended.
but to fix this u need just to cvhange it that for harvesters u can have only 1 admin. perid. simple and solves alot problems.
and add some decay on a real redeed, then also the other problem is solved, like let a hatvesters decay every redeed and after 30 times its gone. period and simple.
maybe some things can be adjusted but i thik this would be easiest system to solve problems plus np to implement.
regards
ask a Dev
ravingbantha
Thu Sep 02, 2004 1:03 am
#13
Hears a much more simple idea to end lot swapping... A resource can only be chosen when the harvester is first placed, and cannot be changed after it's initially turned on.
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