Bio Engineer Archive
Thread: Seems to be a very heated topic on Test Center....solo-grouping
Taalar wrote:
...And another thing, do you want to fly around dathomir for several hours just -looking- for a mutant rancor? I rely on "solo groups" to get missions for creatures I want to sample.
Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 11-11-2004 08:59 AM
ArthurDentOnBria wrote:
As far as the reduction in pay for solo groups, that's fine. It will no doubt ripple down throughout the economy,
putting pricing pressure on goods, but should also reduce costs of meat and such, so that's mostly a positive for bio engineers I would think.
Message Edited by ArthurDentOnBria on 11-10-2004 11:44 AM
???
How much do you pay for a good spawn of Dath carn meat? How much do you pay for Corellian or Naboo carn meat with the same stats, or how much would you have to offer to get the same quantity? If this goes into place, the price of meat will jump substantially. When I make on offer for meat, I take potential mission payouts into account. Since creatures do not drop adhesives/+25 SEAs/holocrons/crystals etc, mission payouts are a big a selling point for getting people to hunt for me. Already my scouts are complaining thatfaction basesyield better xp andmore valuable loot. Unless they make some changes toPvsNPC combat too, we'll come out pretty bad on this.
It's really more of a workaround than an exploit. As numerous people have noted, the major reason why people solo group is the difficulty calculations are broken. People who want high difficulty missions for XP (levelling up or FS grind), loot or harvesting have to solo group. Under the proposed changes they will still have to; the best XP missions are already not the best paying. Those who want money will be better off actually going solo.
I would love to see solo groups disappear. I would love to get in a real group like I used to do, instead of having my own guildmates refuse to run missions with me as they would suffer a harvest penalty. These changes will not achieve that.
Spazzers wrote:
Someone in my galaxy server did the math for a 10 member solo group doing three sets of dual missions every day for a week. He picked three because boredom usually sets in after that point. Basically, each member takes two 30K missions and runs off in different directions. They do this three times an evening during the week. On the weekend they run 10 sets per day. At the end of the week each member of the solo group came away with a little over 2 mil in their pocket. This is peanuts compared to what many crafting types can make in one week.
Its also peanuts to what some combat professions make in harvesting, loot, and missions. We can't start comparing someone that does missions for credits for a maximum of 45 minutes each day to someone that has spent months building up a customer base to sell their products to and spends possibly hours on average each day running their business. You get what you work for.
With Master Swordsman and buffs I could easily make 9-10 million credits in a week(1.5 hours average of running Janta/Mokk missions). A lot of high end crafters even have a hard time doing that since a large portion of a crafters sales is not profit. A huge majority of the 9-10 million is profit. In that week I may use up 1-2 weapons, 5-6 stacks of Brandy and a crate of ahrisa. Total cost with doc buffs would be around 200k. Armor decay is next to nothing against Jantas.
the devs are sealing up a "credit faucet"...fine, no more massive influxes of credits coming in on a daily basis (never mind that a lot of people don't do this unless their really low on credits which prohibits tham from having PvP and other types of fun).
problem is that theres already a rather large amount of credits in the game...large crafters, loot campers, and other such players have already amassed upwards of 100 million credits...
so the big questions becomes...how does a new player compete?
if this change goes through the ultimate equilizer (run solo janta missions for a few hours) goes right out the window. sure prices will eventually drop...but the key word is eventually...it will take many many many months for prices to stabalize again, and that means all the old practices of price wars/undercutting...and old feuds over prices of tissues, and other such cross profession subcomponents will surface again as some crafters are forced to find ways to cut costs.
sealing this credit faucet is flawed in sooooo many different ways, that its positive effects won't be seen until many many months (probably 4 - 6 months) of really bad effects as credits very very slowly leave the economies.
as others have brought up the point of credits ending up locked up in the crafter side of the economy...it also becomes important to look at the benefits/reasons why this is:
1) if crafters hoard all those credits without ever really spending them...thats one extremely effective credit sink for inflated economies...after all 100 million credits in a crafter's account that doesn't spend them is 100 million less credits in the economy.
2) why don't they spend those credits? after a crafter has amassed huge stockpiles of the resources needed for crafting and attained their 12 exp points...well theres not much left to buy (and subsequently they need these things before they ever really get those huge account balances).
plugging a credit faucet (much like the propsed vendor nerf in its original form) will only hurt the little guy, when the devs probably intend it to hurt the big guys...
if inflation of the game economies is really so bad...why not put in some fun/effective credit sinks...for example:
1) limited use schematics on npc vendors
2) extremely resource intensive NEW crafter items (similar to shipwright chasis requirements)
3) option to purchase insta-travel tickets at extra cost (maybe 3x more)
4) decrease stomach timer (if people can take more food, they will...and the more consumables that are used...)
I'm sure there are a lot more...but whats needed are more/better credit sinks...fun ones (and no increasing maintenance rates is not a fun credit sink...effective but not fun).
Dsabre wrote:
I think the one major impact that this change will make is being largely overlooked...
if inflation of the game economies is really so bad...why not put in some fun/effective credit sinks...for example:
4) decrease stomach timer (if people can take more food, they will...and the more consumables that are used...)
I'm sure there are a lot more...but whats needed are more/better credit sinks...fun ones (and no increasing maintenance rates is not a fun credit sink...effective but not fun).
Honestly Dsabre....this is not such a bad idea. As a BE, I drink and eat alot when crafting. I'm not sure if the bug for Pyollian cake has ever been worked out. However, I can say with great confidence that since I have been eatingPyollian before I assemble, I have had 0 (ZERO) critical failures on assembly. If this is some kinda of luck with placebo effects....I will continue to use it...lol. I also drink alot of Bespin for experimentation.
The point is.....If my stomach were bigger?....hmmm....scratch that.....lol......if I could eat or drink more, I would be spending more credits on consumables. As it stands, I just wait for the food to wear off before crafting anything else. Bespin and Pyollian generally wear off pretty quick. I think reducingthestomach timer would be a very decent idea.
As far as the "grouping" changesgoes.....There is no doubt that this sort of thing will have an impact of epic proportion on the game. I think Janta/Mokk missions for cash will be less used. I think hunting for meat, bones and hides for income will increase. The huge payouts for loot will "eventually" decrease because, playersare notgoing to be buyingexotic merchandise when they don't have an equal amount of return cash flow. Consumers will definitely become less frivolous spenders and your friendly neighborhood competition will indeedbecome"that cut throat bastrd on the other side of the shuttle". I just hope thatCombat typesdon't quit the game in frustrationoftheir cash flow situation.
I love Free Enterprise....lol.
Spazzers wrote:I am not an advocate for solo groups so don't misunderstand me, butI don't think requiring 10 people to group to get a 30K mission that one player can complete on their own is right either. If you are required to group with 10 people just to accept a mission the mission should be difficult enough to require 10 people to complete as a group.Besides, the money issue won't remove solo groups. The money is not the primary reason combat types use these tactics. They need the high level missions to max out their xp quickly so they can trade it in at the village.
Well, the ability to even complete a 30k mission by a single person was made possible by buffs that the Dev's choked on and admitted they never expected us to get them that good. But then again, they also noticed that Jedi with buffs can actually kill without being killed when doing the things "Jedi should be able to do". That was reflected with the same buff size the frogs gave you on the test servers.
But also, I don't buy this thing about these solo group missions being needed for faster FS xp. You can get it faster doing roba's on endor or most any 9k+ ham creature cause the xp you get from any kill caps at less than 5k. My xp caps at 500k and thats when I have to go and trade it in for FS xp. Endor provides that with 4 lairs and its inhabitants.
Wokka-wokka