Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: The Effects of the CURB on the BE Profession
Spazzers wrote:
I'm not in the sandbox so I'm just another speculator.
YAY! Dialogue. I'm going to follow your color example here to discuss point by point. Hopefully this won't get *too* complicated. I was hoping if I mumbled to myself long enough someone would come out and play.Since this is speculation, and not voting on change proposals, a consensus isn't as important as the conversation.
"The simplest solution to this, and one I think SOE will use, is to adjust the relative strengths of players to creatures to makebetter use of the 800+ creatures already in SWG."
If this were the case than why go through the hassle of adjusting the animals in the first place? This would imply SOE made an error in judgment when they gave creatures the huge wack with the nerf bat way back when.
Odd, but while I recall pet nerfs, I don't recall wild creature nerfs. I don't recall a specific update in which I could suddenly solo things I couldn't before. But even if that were the case, the game is so dynamic that I would call it an adjustment to current circumstances rather than an error in judgment.
If SOE down grades all the players to come inline with existing nerfed animals all they're really doing is turning back the clock. Wouldn't it have been easier to just un-nerf animals?
Actually, it doesn't matter. I was referring to a difference in *relative* strengths, so whether animals are made stronger or players made weaker still ends up with the same result. I considered changing players, since it is a matter of changing the codes on a handful of professions rather than the strengths of 800 creatures. Also, the balance between players is the primary purpose of the upgrade, so player strengths will be adjusted anyway. I am curious, however, what you think they will do. (Look at my four choices in a late message. I think they are all-inclusive, but it is possible I missed something.)
The aggro roll and the break mask scent roll are two seperate items. I remember a time before the "Great Animal Nerf" (stupid noob BE me) when I tried to sample an ancient krayt. Imasked scent and I was able to walk right up to the animal. I hit mysample DNA macro (there wasn't a default macro back then. You had to make your own). I tried this 10 times before the animal got tired of me and bit me in two. Besides, kreetles break my mask infinitely more often than rancors do. I can see me running in fear from kreetles more so than anything else.
I agree that they are not completely parallel, but they seem to relate to one another (kreetles aside--nasty creatures make me want to reintroduce DDT). I remember those days, too, and I can verify what you are saying. (Hehehe, I need to check to see if I'm using the "sample DNA" command or the macro on my toolbar.) I sampled everything I could. But in those days, my mask held against enraged rancors, too. When mask started breaking, it broke more frequently on the higher-level creatures. You bring up another valid issue, though. If there is decrease in player combat ability relative to creatures, then our chance of dying while sampling also rises, regardless of scent.
"Obtaining 20K of high quality meat 2 units at a time might be nearly impossible."
It's hard to argue with this. The solution is to group with as many scouts as you can and all harvest the same animals. This actually encourages groups which is a good thing. The downside isif it becomes more difficult to obtain animal resources everyone will be effected, not just chefs and bio-engineers. There are people that rely on creature resources as a revenue stream. If it becomes more time consuming, harder, more expensive for the animal resourcer to collect animal products the price will inevitably go up because of the demand. This just puts more stress on BE tissues, chef foods, tailor clothing, armor, doctor buffs...the list goes on. The only solution to that problem is to make the demand decrease. In otherwords make the BE tissues less effective, make food items and doctor buffs less useful, armor less protective...the list goes on.
My point exactly--If you make meat prices rise while demand drops, then we are clearly out of the tissue business. Your solution is similar to mine. I thought perhaps to increase the bonus one gets to harvesting the higher one goes up the scout/ranger tree. In other words, increase the harvesting ability, but only increase low level scouts (like most of us) a little while increasing high level rangers a lot. This helps out another broken profession at the same time.
The real question you have to ask is do these changes make the game more or less fun to play. After all, it is just a game. I can make a very balanced game that suits everyone's needs but if the game isn't fun no one will play it.
PlainWhiteSocks wrote:
1. You can balance the professions while at the same time writing new high-end content so that the high-level combatants will have something to do.
2. You can balance the professions while deferring the high end content until you have programmers available to create it.
3. You can balance the professions and completely ignore the problem of high-end content.
4. You can take advantage of all the unused code by taking the opportunity provided by the combat rebalance to decrease the overall power of ALL professions to spread them out over all the creatures, so that the existing creatures provide low, medium, and high-level solo content as well as even higher level group content.
5. You can change the combat mechanics themselve to "balance" the professions so that you don't have to make changes to existing professions or creatures.
YAY--More dialogue. Or is it trialogue, now?
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here, but it seems like it is either the same as either 3 or 4. I'm not actually addressing the mechanics themselves (although it is certainly on-topic here), but rather the effect of the change on PvE. If it has no effect on PvE, it seems to me to be 3...no additional advanced content. If by changing the mechanics they change the ability to kill creatures, then it would seem to be 4. Whether it is a blanket change in damage or a revamp of each specific attack isn't really what I was looking at. Honestly, I agree that whichever the case, the CURB will be the result of changing each profession in detail, not a blanket nerf.
If they do change the base system for combat will our DNA samples use the same stats. If they do will the mean the same thing?
Oooh. Excellent point. By changing individual mechanics, it may have no effect on how aggressive the creatures are relative to now. Ie. the creatures may not see how much stronger they are. On the other hand, it might change everything entirely. Added to this--presumably CH is part of this upgrade, if only peripherally. If ANY change is made to CH, it is bound to affect us.
I can easily see a combat system change where the DNA we know and love today is not the DNA we will be using. They wouldn't even need to change our crafting or sampling system to make broad sweeping changes. Effects? Well, if they change the way DNA works I for one will have alot of fun trying to figure it all out again.
Again? Does that imply that we now understand it?
Honestly, if THAT is the case, I hope it is easier to figure out the system than it was the last time.
I've heard more than one person tell me "If I can't solo XXX then I'm leaving this game after the rebalance".
I've heard the same thing. Honestly, I don't see what difference it makes whether it is a XXX or a YYY as long as it is the same challenge. Beyond that, it is just a sprite. Perhaps they are thinking of lost payouts.
Some people only have fun when they're beating the biggest creatures the game has. We're BE's though. I've seen alot of posts stating that people stick with BE for the pet making aspect even though there are a myriad of problems with pets and the CH class that uses them. I think that in speculating about the CURB we should put our heads together to see that what they change doesn't take the fun out the game.
100% in agreement here (see my last message.)
Honestly, how many people have fun making tissue schematics for a factory? Heck I don't even care when I crit fail on a tissue. Other than I gotta go though the motions of making it again.
Again, I agree. Tissue creation isn't fun, and a critical fail rate of 1% or 91% won't have much effect on how much fun it is. For me, it is just the way I make money--and lately, not even that.
Currently all I need to sample dna is a shot of brandy. If this requirement changes then my enjoyment of the game will decrease in propotion to what is needed.
Wow, I use buffs, brandy, partial armor, Jawa beer, and scent-enhanced clothing...along with a quick trip to the cloning and insurance terminals and a bit of vehicle damage from use. (I'm talking about mutant rancors, which I see as more or less the standard of sampling.)
Meat prices will rise if it's harder to get. If the usefulness of an item stays the same it's price will rise as well. Will this have any big effect on how we have fun in the game?
LOL, a nice question, but I was hoping for your feelings here. If we lose our tissue market entirely, will it change your fun? I think it will mine for two reasons: I would miss the ability to earn money. Pets never have (even before the nerf) paid enough to justify their difficulty. While petmaking remains fun, I'm not sure it has ever paid for its own expenses for me. Also, tissues provide some degree of diversity in our profession. When losing my only sample of reclusive cavern spider queen DNA makes me want to set my lab on fire, I can always go make tissues for a while.
I'm really enjoying myself here. The discussion is getting really good.
Oh, and I'm dying to ask, are those the SAME plain white socks you've worn every day for the past year?
So many options for changing things, we can only keep guessing. I do think that pet making BE's will get fun new challenges when the CR goes live.
Kivrin wrote:
I'm also curious how it would affect rogue creature spawn rates. If in fact a Seething Bol becomes the new solo target, and savage quenkers become a threat in groups of 3 or more, how will it affect people who currently live on Dantooine? What if your house now was surrounded by randomly spawning rancors? Tough commute.
Hylidex wrote:
PlainWhiteSocks wrote:1. You can balance the professions while at the same time writing new high-end content so that the high-level combatants will have something to do.2. You can balance the professions while deferring the high end content until you have programmers available to create it.3. You can balance the professions and completely ignore the problem of high-end content.4. You can take advantage of all the unused code by taking the opportunity provided by the combat rebalance to decrease the overall power of ALL professions to spread them out over all the creatures, so that the existing creatures provide low, medium, and high-level solo content as well as even higher level group content.
5. You can change the combat mechanics themselve to "balance" the professions so that you don't have to make changes to existing professions or creatures.YAY--More dialogue. Or is it trialogue, now?
I'm not sure I understand what you are saying here, but it seems like it is either the same as either 3 or 4. I'm not actually addressing the mechanics themselves (although it is certainly on-topic here), but rather the effect of the change on PvE. If it has no effect on PvE, it seems to me to be 3...no additional advanced content. If by changing the mechanics they change the ability to kill creatures, then it would seem to be 4. Whether it is a blanket change in damage or a revamp of each specific attack isn't really what I was looking at. Honestly, I agree that whichever the case, the CURB will be the result of changing each profession in detail, not a blanket nerf.
I've heard the same thing. Honestly, I don't see what difference it makes whether it is a XXX or a YYY as long as it is the same challenge. Beyond that, it is just a sprite. Perhaps they are thinking of lost payouts.
Lost payout could translate into less money in the ecconmy overall. A good thing I think.Some people only have fun when they're beating the biggest creatures the game has. We're BE's though. I've seen alot of posts stating that people stick with BE for the pet making aspect even though there are a myriad of problems with pets and the CH class that uses them. I think that in speculating about the CURB we should put our heads together to see that what they change doesn't take the fun out the game.
100% in agreement here (see my last message.)
Honestly, how many people have fun making tissue schematics for a factory? Heck I don't even care when I crit fail on a tissue. Other than I gotta go though the motions of making it again.Again, I agree. Tissue creation isn't fun, and a critical fail rate of 1% or 91% won't have much effect on how much fun it is. For me, it is just the way I make money--and lately, not even that.
Currently all I need to sample dna is a shot of brandy. If this requirement changes then my enjoyment of the game will decrease in propotion to what is needed.
Wow, I use buffs, brandy, partial armor, Jawa beer, and scent-enhanced clothing...along with a quick trip to the cloning and insurance terminals and a bit of vehicle damage from use. (I'm talking about mutant rancors, which I see as more or less the standard of sampling.)
I've been very very very very (and very even) lucky in the MR sampling thing. They rarely broke mask scent when I just had me and my clothes. If I use jawa beer it's almost like I'm invisible. Still lots of failures though. Oh yeah I didn't reall ycount my mask scent clothes. I've been wearing them so long usually forget I have them.
Meat prices will rise if it's harder to get. If the usefulness of an item stays the same it's price will rise as well. Will this have any big effect on how we have fun in the game?
LOL, a nice question, but I was hoping for your feelings here. If we lose our tissue market entirely, will it change your fun? I think it will mine for two reasons: I would miss the ability to earn money. Pets never have (even before the nerf) paid enough to justify their difficulty. While petmaking remains fun, I'm not sure it has ever paid for its own expenses for me. Also, tissues provide some degree of diversity in our profession. When losing my only sample of reclusive cavern spider queen DNA makes me want to set my lab on fire, I can always go make tissues for a while.I'm really enjoying myself here. The discussion is getting really good.
hmmm.... my fellings..... well, since I get little or no enjoyment from making tissues, I think not selling many of them wouldn't change my outlook on the game much at all. On the other hand getting that 80units of meat for a razorcat might be interesting in the future.
Oh, and I'm dying to ask, are those the SAME plain white socks you've worn every day for the past year?
hmmmmm well, I've had the Plain White Socks online handle since 1989. I guess you could say I've had on the same white socks for 16 years. (iewwww)