Artisan Archive
Thread: Another Attempt at Eradicating X-Server Harv Trades
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HalasterTheBlack
Fri Jun 18, 2004 1:52 pm
#1
OK, to start with, I can't quantify that X-Server harvester trades are a problem. I'm writing this only because I don't like them, and because I want to see them go away.
I guess more than that, I want them to go away in a way that doesn't negatively impact anyone who has a legitimate claim to be mining in a galaxy (in my opinion, of course), which is everyone who actually plays in a galaxy.
Now if I look at the x-server harvester phenomenon, I see fields of harvesters sitting there, week after week, drawing resources. They don't move. They're static.
There are some very distinct things that those rigs being static means to them. The most important one for this discussion is that they aren't necessarily on the highest quality resources available in the galaxy at the time.
Thinking about that a bit more, I got to wondering just how frequently anything of reasonable quality spawned under them. I checked my notes and taxed my memory and came up with a similar situation that I encountered myself. I remember mining some materials near Theed one week, and then several weeks later mining the same type of materials in nearly the same spot. But I mine those types of materials as often as they spawn with good quality and I've been playing this game since retail - 12 months.
So extrapolating upon that, it seems fair to assume that for two weeks out of each year, those static miners might be drawing something of high quality. In the resource business, there is only high quality or grind quality. Mediocre doesn't cut it if you want to sell.
Knowing that they're mostly drawing grind quality resources, what can be done to eradicate those evil, horrid, static miners?
Here's a thought: reduce the demand for what they draw. If demand is reduced, prices will be reduced. Probably to the point that nobody will pay for the crap they draw out of the planets. If nobody's buying their junk, they're not gonna keep at it.
And, yes, they might get a good spawn under them a few times a year. But even if they double my experience and get something good 4 times a year, they're paying 52x for something they can sell 4x. They'll be so expensive on the quality goods, they'll *still* never sell.
So reducing (well, eliminating) demand seems like a viable solution to x-server static harvester trades.
But how do we reduce demand?
Well, I think it's happening already. As the Jedi system switches from profession-grind to quest-based, there will necessarily be less and less demand for grind-quality resources.
But is that enough? Or does more need to be done? If more needs to be done, what more *can* be done without adversely impacting the legitimate (IMO) miners on the servers?
I've heard stories, whines really,about people wanting harvester certs, removing the admin menu, all sorts of ideas that hinder legitimate (IMO) in-galaxy miners. I don't like those because they hinder said in-galaxy miners. And they have the secondary impact of requiring the developers to code something. Sometimes it's more code (certs), sometimes less code (remove admin), but it's always code.
Coding is expensive in terms of developer time, testing, and potential for the introduction of new bugs and/or exploits. I do not like a solution that makes devs code something. If we're going to ask the devs to code something, let's ask them to *enhance* our gameplay rather than reduce the effectiveness of someone else's.
But what can be done sans coding?
Well, we can further reduce the demand for grind-quality resouces, that's what!
How?
Simple.
Change the schematics - not ALL of them, but the popular ones - so that they require higher quality and/or non-generic resources. No more "Organic" for Sitm B's. No more "Ferrous Metal" for vehicles. Instead, how about "Vegetables" for Stim B's (they're still low level, so still not "named"). How about "Cubirian Steel" for vehicles? (Or for that matter how about experimentation on vehicles that affects more than just hit points?)
I believe that changes to schematics do not require changes to code. I believe those are data thata content developer, rather than a coder, can alter. Doing things this way will keep the coders free to enable newer, cooler features in the game. It will also reduce the likelihood that bugs or game-breaking exploits will be introduced by the "fix".
Now I don't know exactly what every schematic should require, nor do I know exactly which schematics should be effected. I'll leave that to the dev team, who have the real data about which items are popular and how frequently certain types of resources spawn.
I'll just ask them to consider the basics of this proposal:
Eliminate the demand for low-quality resources (and thus thelure ofx-server lot swaps) by eliminating their use in popular schematics.
If you do this, you will be eliminating the desire and the feasability of x-serverharvester lottrades. They'll go away.
And that's exactly what *I* want to see happen... 
Message Edited by HalasterTheBlack on 06-18-2004 04:55 PM
Srednii
Sat Jun 19, 2004 9:32 pm
#3
I agree with this for the most part, holo grind is the draw for the flood of grind materials, and when holo grind ends, so will the need for unending bricks of grind materials
Butthe problem with your named resource solution to decrease the need for grind materials... is that most real crafting is done with high quality materials and isn't effected by grind crap anyways.
Take that stim B example you used. That "organic" you want to change to "vegtable" doesn't effect grind materials anyways since if they're making stim B's then they're using high quality materials anyways (unless they're using them to grind medic/doc/cm whatever, in which case it's holo grind, not crafting). High quality organic, or high quality vegtable, all that's changing is making it a little more frustrating to make them.
Legitamate crafting requires very little grind material for most classes. As an armorsmith I need grind materials for psg components, and ubese shirts/bandoliers. And the amounts I need are miniscule. It wouldn't effect me much at all to require durralloy steal say instead of just ferrous metal to make one of the thingamabobs required for psgs. (and thats leaving aside the fact that psg's are practically worthless anyways and arn't worth making, making them harder to make isn't a good idea).
So it wouldn't effect me as an armorsmith at all since I don't use grind crap. It would probably effect 2 proffessions most, tailor, and architect (and maby DE? I dunno, never touched em). And I'm reasonably sure tailors would be happy with being given experimentation and some way to improve their goods so that they didn't have to use grind resources. And architects are a marginal crafting proff which doesn't need further impediments either. Both the heavy grind use crafters are marginal at best in fact.
But I just don't think architects and tailors are such a big part of the grind market nerfing them would effect it much. In my mind the grind market is almost purely holo grinders. When I ground through tailor and then armorsmith at the begining of my career, the amount of grind resources I used is miniscule compared to the holo market, and it was a one time investment. And when I was a tailor since I didn't supply crated components to BE's or Docs or Armorsmiths, I used very very very little in the way of resources.
So all in all I don't really think there is a way to reduce the demand for grind materials amongst the legitimate crafters, without hurting two already marginal crafters. And I don't think those two crafters together make up more then a very small portion of the grind market.
The best thing to do right now about cross server lot trades is to wait 6 months or so till the hologrind and it's effects have diminished and then see if there's still a problem. (waiting 6 months sucks I realize, but as I have no chance of making sony actually assign enough programmers to the game to put out patches in a reasonable time, I see no way around it).
If it's still a problem when holo grindings done, I would suggest something like a 3 or 4 week admin poof time. A harvester after 3 or 4 weeks should have it's admin list clear itself, and that right there would cripple cross server lot trades of harvesters. (cause really... can you see a cross server lot owner actually being willing to log into another galaxy once a month to re admin? They happen because they can be traded (most of them are your lots on my server for my lots on yours type deals) and then forgotten about forever.)
outtacontrol
Sun Jun 20, 2004 3:25 am
#4
HalasterTheBlack wrote:
"OK, to start with, I can't quantify that X-Server harvester trades are a problem. I'm writing this only because I don't like them, and because I want to see them go away.
I guess more than that, I want them to go away in a way that doesn't negatively impact anyone who has a legitimate claim to be mining in a galaxy (in my opinion, of course), which is everyone who actually plays in a galaxy."
Ok now after all the dam arguing we have done back and forth, to and fro, pro and con in the end you agree that there is something wrong in the harvesting realm and you also see a need for some type of change. and as scarey as it is OMG I acutally agree with you this time.
Outta
Velisimner
Sun Jun 20, 2004 4:24 am
#5
as a player who enjoys the mining aspect of this game, i concur with your idea. x-server lot trades are really...immoral, but at the same time they arnt. x-server lot trades for houses and stuff is fine i think, but its still a tough issue to define as to "fairness" of gameplay...soemtihng though must be done. i dont think harvs certs are the answer though i am an advocate of harv certs, simply because i believe a MBH and MC should make thier money doing what they do, and let me do the same. i am not a resource gouger as some people are 10 stat of 1000 stat it cost the same for me to pull up either way...2 cpu i feel is a fair price...i've seen Dolovite Iron go for 30 cpu re-**edit**ing-diculous (IMO)
I do hope the "holo-grind" hault brings fourth a stabalization of the resource market, and I dont think a miner profession is a bad idea.
/cheers
Giamai
Sun Jun 20, 2004 5:02 am
#6
this is not a bad idea but a few things should be noted...
one, it really isn't clear that changing schematics is or isn't more difficult at the programming level than removing admin rights. i don't really know how difficult it would be, computer science was my first major and to be honest it was boring.
two, it also isn't clear that all cross server trading results in static harvesters, some of themore diligentresource people may in fact be setting up new harvester spots on a regular basis simply because having seas of harvesters on low % spots for long periods of time costs money. long standing trade off agreements between people on multiple servers? i don't know if this ispossibleor not but i can see it as doable.
three, changing some schematics makes sense but not across the board. architects and tailors were given as the primary users of grinding quality resources in the post-holocron but even architects have a few things they must experiment on. for example, a smuggler can't experiment on spices at this time so any fruit, radioactive and water can be used. so ok make it similar to doctor resources and we can only use corellian fruit, ok fabulous, that would work just fine. but changing some things don't make sense like your example of changing organic to vegetables in stims. any doctor who wants to make the best product is already being selective about the organic being used (must be high pe and oq) so basically that would be much more of a pain in an already somewhat complex crafting tree the doc already has to deal with. changes within professions like this changes those individual markets and could have broader repercussions than you might realize.
i'm in favor of a wait and see for the moment, the next couple of publishes will change the way many of us have been doing business. cross-server lot trades may not end up being as common as they are now simply because it requires more effort and actually moving harvesters to be selective in the resource that are collected. any effort to nerf anyone whether it be through eliminatingadmin rights, limitinglots per account orthe dreadedharvestercertificationsjust creates more dissension among the players, more dropped accounts, less people in the game and ultimately that hurts all of us. so while this can be a good idea, it would have to be implemented carefully, paying attention to what exactly is being changed and what the changes could mean in the long run.
HalasterTheBlack
Sun Jun 20, 2004 5:41 am
#7
Outta, I have *always* said that x-server lot trades are bad and that I want them gone.
I've just also always been saying that certs are absolutely the wrong way to do that, because of how detrimental they'd be to the economy. And in my recent thinking about certs, I've come to believe that certs will actually *encourage* x-server lot trades...
Happymob
Sun Jun 20, 2004 6:10 am
#8
HalasterTheBlack wrote:
Change the schematics - not ALL of them, but the popular ones - so that they require higher quality and/or non-generic resources. No more "Organic" for Sitm B's. No more "Ferrous Metal" for vehicles. Instead, how about "Vegetables" for Stim B's (they're still low level, so still not "named"). How about "Cubirian Steel" for vehicles? (Or for that matter how about experimentation on vehicles that affects more than just hit points?)
Srednii is correct about many of the more generic resources for medical crafting. It doesn't really matter that Stim Bs require "organic", for example, because no serious doctor crafter will use anything with less than OQ + PE greater than 1900. Why? Because quality matters. Static flora farms are of absolutely no use to anyone except possibly smugglers.
As an alternative to narrowing the types of resources that can be used, my proposal would be to make quality matter in more schematics. Why can't quality be introduced into most architect crafting? Make houses have different maintenance requirements depending on quality. There isn't a single schematic in medical crafting where experimentation (and thus resource quality) doesn't matter. Why can't all professions be this way? Ok, admittedly, making quality matter in furniture might be tough.
Second, make quality differences obvious. It's a shame that vehicle deeds don't show vehicle HAM. If they did, more people would pay attention to it, thus decreasing demand for poorly made vehicles.
Increasing the role of quality in crafting also has the side effect of allowing a good crafter to increase their profit margin. Why do harvesters make architects more money than houses? Because people care about quality.
HalasterTheBlack
Sun Jun 20, 2004 6:13 am
#9
Thanks for the feedback.
You guys are right, of course, Quality matters more than "named" resources.
Still, the premise holds.Eliminate demand for what the static lots draw and you eliminate the practice.
Centurion
Mon Jun 21, 2004 9:00 am
#10
Just to add my input let me say that fields of static harvs don't bother me as much as they seem to bother you. And I have been considering a cross server lot swap but I plan on putting my factories on those lots so that I have lots free for the harvs I need to support my BE business and my alt's tailor business as well as my dabbling in the resource market.
Scoooter
Mon Jun 21, 2004 10:54 am
#11
HalasterTheBlack wrote:
Change the schematics - not ALL of them, but the popular ones - so that they require higher quality and/or non-generic resources. No more "Organic" for Sitm B's. No more "Ferrous Metal" for vehicles. Instead, how about "Vegetables" for Stim B's (they're still low level, so still not "named"). How about "Cubirian Steel" for vehicles? (Or for that matter how about experimentation on vehicles that affects more than just hit points?)
I believe that changes to schematics do not require changes to code. I believe those are data thata content developer, rather than a coder, can alter. Doing things this way will keep the coders free to enable newer, cooler features in the game. It will also reduce the likelihood that bugs or game-breaking exploits will be introduced by the "fix".
Now I don't know exactly what every schematic should require, nor do I know exactly which schematics should be effected. I'll leave that to the dev team, who have the real data about which items are popular and how frequently certain types of resources spawn.
I'll just ask them to consider the basics of this proposal:
Eliminate the demand for low-quality resources (and thus thelure ofx-server lot swaps) by eliminating their use in popular schematics.
If you do this, you will be eliminating the desire and the feasability of x-serverharvester lottrades. They'll go away.
And that's exactly what *I* want to see happen...
Message Edited by HalasterTheBlack on 06-18-2004 04:55 PM
Well with the holo grind gone IMHO that will eliminate enough of the grind resource.
Altering "popular" schemitcs is not really a great idea. Why are they popular? Because they sell.
In your example of STIM B. To make a STIM B worth selling requires advanced components anyway which are very specific and contiins rare resource. Those that are making them with 100% non advanced compoonents are the novice medics that cannot afford to buy them. Changing a low level schematic hurts new comers. Those that are selling them are using quality resource already. Higher level schematics are very specific anyway.
Actually I think what we will see is this as the miners move to higer quality resource instead of grind.
1) Realistic prices for quality resource
2) Many elite crafters will stop mining because the price of thge quality resource will be cheaper and the resource available. A lot of mining is done by elite crafter that do not really want to mine, but they have to out of necessity because of availability and price.
joined42904
Mon Jun 21, 2004 2:07 pm
#12
I don't really think that removing admin from harvesters would be all that hard a coding issue or require all that much work.
Making things not work doesn't seem to be too difficult for our devs. Just look at all the specials that don't work. Lol. It would be as simple as just not making the entire administrative rights tree appear in the radial menu. Problem solved.
I think these devs are much more likely to get something wrong and make it not work if we try to change all the schematics. Let's not do that. If it had been done initially, that would be fine. But it wasn't. So let's do things that are nice and easy like certifications and no admin rights and a limit to totall lots per account.
Now folks are talking about cross-lotting factories. Good grief. That's not something there is an easy way around without really hindering crafters. Because using your guildmates' factories seems legitimate. Rental of factory time likewise seems legitimate. If you can trade schematics and use schematics belonging to professions you've never mastered, surely you can rent factory time. (I'm not saying that this trading of schematics is a good thing...personally I rather wish you couldn't see the "start manufacturing objects" option come up if the schematic isn't in your profession.)
Maybe the only real solution is St. Gabriel's: Have harvester lots separate and distinct from other possible lot uses and make them things that are earned through the expenditure of skill points but with a cap of 10 or so on them. This would limit harvesting to those who spend skill points to be able to do it. And presumably those points which would allow harvester lots would not be in professions like "commando" and "bounty hunter."
I still want cross-server lot exchanged harvesters nuked by any possible means. And saying that we should "wait and see" is the same thing as saying that we should let people continue to exploit the system with cross-lotting for many more months before doing anything about it. I reject that notion. Hopefully the devs will too.
Veers_Intrepid
Tue Jun 22, 2004 5:28 am
#13
well, x-server lots ARE a problem and not intended. period
but one point is not only the grind stuf or market floating with resources.
for me as architect where we need really HUGE amounts of resources the x-server lots leaded to a real ruined economy on architect prices. not only cause people are selling cheap resources. nope, cause some architects got x-server lots and maintain a fleet of even u[p to hundreds of harvestern, which leads them to be able to mine more resources then anybody without x-server lots.
so with to get enough cash to maintyain them they simply undercut everyone and sell cause of that alot.
that hurted every normal architect and the average prices so that its sometimes scuh rediculous low as pure resources for grinding. like 1,5 to 2cpu
x-server lots are definately also NOT intended, thats why the devs even try to manage lots with jedi chars (in pub9 they will have to share the 10 lots with the main char). shows that devs dont intend x-server lots
but only viable soloution i see is limiting admin on harvs to just the owner. so u cant plop just harvesters on other servers and let other person maintain and empty them.
i am sure some folks dont care and would even take that extra work, but the majority i am sure cant and wont, so the x-server lot problem would be mostly solved with such imo.
regards
ask a Dev 
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