Development Cycle Archive

Thread: 19 Answers 5-26-04

HemiKeeroc
Fri May 28, 2004 10:29 am
#170

Actually, the armorsmith/weaponsmith/chef monopoly may not be around for too much longer.


We see from the new Jedi changes that they can invest more skill points and negate the need for experimentation SEAs.


Joe Nobody Armorsmith can in effect make the same qualityarmor as Mr Leet Haxorz Kingpin 12 point Armorsmith Esquire.





________________________________________________________
TAO
Enix_Dayspring
Fri May 28, 2004 10:35 am
#171






Thunderheart wrote:





RotorofCorRng wrote:
Okay, you said No.

Why not?

Would the database not benefit from this?





It would actually, but the economy would suffer. Don't think of it in terms of how many items you can make as a player, but rather, how many items all players can make. With only a few thousand playersper server,any player can manufacture enough several thousand items, thus making enough items for eveyone on a server. This creates a situation where the players who are part of the most efficient crafting PA's can saturate a market all by themselves and completely squeeze out most other crafters. If you couple this with that same crafter's ability to get the best possible resources at any given time, it is very easy for a a clever crafter to get the best materials and saturate the market with the best items and make it too difficult for anyone else to try and sell their goods.









This is just another case of the Developers being totally out of touch with the reality of the way the game is played.


The theory of item limits keeping the turn over of materials constant (i.e. high quality materials dont last forever because you can only store so much then you run out) is severely flawed because wealthy players ALREADY have unlimited storage. All they have to do is do a couple of cross-server lot trades.


The problem is the Devs are DENYING THIS FACT and continue to act as though everyone only had 10 lots and the above theory was applicable. ITS NOT!



It is also a falsehood that players can develop a monopoly. I played UO for 7 years that had a real economy. Ive played a dedicated Weaponsmith in SWG for 7 months. I have NEVER seen a monopoly or even the hint of one.


The reason is simple. Due to in game limits, you can only make weapon quality so high before it gets capped. This means that you wont be able to always stay 10 steps ahead of the competition. Eventually, the competition catches up.


There are several well known weaponsmiths on Sunrunner who are considered "the best" (mainly because theyve been around since the beginning and have the best resources and built their reputation early on). My weapons are now after 6 or 7 months of resource gathering are very close in quality to theirs (in the meantime, Ive become very wealthy selling slightly lower quality weapons at a fair price).


The more weapons you sell, the more work you have to do. It is not possible, or even desirable to have a monopoly in the game.




**************************************************************************
Pyrrhus
Sunrunner

Nalein
Fri May 28, 2004 10:38 am
#172

i am totally ok with ris armor being the epic armor and happy that there will be a combat balance and a jedi revamp etc etc.



but I DON'T THINKI WOULD FEEL EPIC, IF MY EPIC ARMOR'S LEGGINGS LOOKS THAT IT HAS A COMPARTMENT IN CASE A SUPER BATTLE DROID MAKES ME **edit** IN MY PANTS



pls design a new set of leggings for the ris or add another epic set



thx





Nalein Triple Master Smuggler , Tka , Pistoler
Zaos Master Swordsman Master Brawler Master Rifleman
Mor-Dan
Fri May 28, 2004 10:44 am
#173

you REALLY want to fix the economy? here's what you do. it is VERY simple, in my opinion...

no more admin/hopper rights on harvesters or factories. this virtually eliminates cross server trades, because no one is going to come back week after week to check these things. it generates more income for SOE because lone crafters woul have to buy more accounts to have more than 10 lots, and it reduces the number harvesters in the world reducing the amount of resources that are drawn in.

to dominate a market you either have to A) out pay everyone else for resources, or B) be in a guild where everyone harvs whatever you tell them to.

then, just as you put a 50k cap on 14 day trials, put a 50mil cap on every other account.



Vendor Locations:
-1560 120 in Soal Valley, Corellia
-4700 5600 north of Theed, Naboo
Saratoga
Fri May 28, 2004 10:48 am
#174






HemiKeeroc wrote:

Actually, the armorsmith/weaponsmith/chef monopoly may not be around for too much longer.


We see from the new Jedi changes that they can invest more skill points and negate the need for experimentation SEAs.


Joe Nobody Armorsmith can in effect make the same qualityarmor as Mr Leet Haxorz Kingpin 12 point Armorsmith Esquire.







As with all publishes I will wait till it arrives on live. Still a brand new AS, WS, or chef cannot compete even if they have the 12 points to experiment because they do not have the high qulaity resources that spawned eons ago. They might be able to compete in 6 months when a sufficient amount of new resources have spawned with high quality. In order to give new players a level playing field they would have to increase the amount of higher quality spawns. Maybe just reduce the % as mentioned above to control the amount of that resource.


One solution would be to get rid of experimentation points altogether or give everyone 10 to start with. A novice WS can make the same qualityDH17 carbineas a master depending on resources. The novice just cannot make the T 21. To compensate make the failure rate at novice much higher than at master which would be as close to zero as possible. The old experimentation tree would be the failure reduction tree.


I still think the swappable parts idea on harvesters is better than out right decay of the whole harvesters. It would make much more sense that one part wears out than the whole piece of equipment. It would reduce the cross server harvester sharing and give architects more business. The architect industry is already in recession. Player cities are built, BER 13 harvesters are everywhere, and lights dont turnoff at condition 0 unless you pick it up. I wish they would allow players to place cantinas and clinics without being in a city. andlower the lot requirement. 5 lots for a cantina where one can use a 2 lot house for the same thing is not right.


Just throwing ideas out there to discuss.





Triston Jedi Fugitive (retired)
Nagamitsu 12 point WS/AS + arch (retired)
Jengi wookiee ranger (retired)
Medreka Doctor/musician (retired)
Caillech MBH (soon to be retired)
Minerunner
Fri May 28, 2004 10:51 am
#175

Probably already been said, but I remember when max resource container ammount was 250.


100k ain't nothin.


Especially when you once mastered Architect useing thousands of blocks of 250.


But then again I'm not a crafter of any sort now, I just wanted to put that perspective up.







Roogah Heeveah : Starsider, Alien Master of the Force : Roleplayer
Leoaf Be'lya : Bothan Ace Alliance Pilot : Eclipse
Minerunner : Test Center


"Cast aside your preconceptions and you will be delivered from this sin of assumption."
FulminataXII
Fri May 28, 2004 11:42 am
#176




First, I'm happy to see the reasoning behind this decision. This is the kind of communication that we need.


Second, I'm sorry to see that the reasoning is flawed. Combined with earlier posts of this kind (such as the reasoning behind the briefly implemented crafting changes), it becomes clear that the devs do not have a clear picture as to how this game is actually played, at least the crafting part of the game. I have a feeling that too many of these decisions are being made by looking at the "big picture" numbers and charts, without enough weight being given to individual player experience. These things need to be given equal weight.


In the end, while I tend to agree with the goals of the devs (partially levelling the playing field to make it possible for newer crafters to compete), every decision made seems to actually take the game further away from these goals. As others have pointed out, the current system merely allows those who can afford massive cross-server swaps, or who have a large guild backing them, to get around the artificial limits imposed by stacking sizes, while the smaller crafter has to struggle to maintain his inventory and has to sacrifice game immersiveness by filling his home with stacks of resources instead of furniture.


There may be a good reason for limiting the resource stack size, but it is clearly not the reason given. If that is truly the only reason that you are limiting stacks, then the limit should be raised to that proposed in the threads on the issue in the core systems forum.
LLJK_Griz
Fri May 28, 2004 11:52 am
#177






Thunderheart wrote:





RotorofCorRng wrote:
Okay, you said No.

Why not?

Would the database not benefit from this?





It would actually, but the economy would suffer. Don't think of it in terms of how many items you can make as a player, but rather, how many items all players can make. With only a few thousand playersper server,any player can manufacture enough several thousand items, thus making enough items for eveyone on a server. This creates a situation where the players who are part of the most efficient crafting PA's can saturate a market all by themselves and completely squeeze out most other crafters. If you couple this with that same crafter's ability to get the best possible resources at any given time, it is very easy for a a clever crafter to get the best materials and saturate the market with the best items and make it too difficult for anyone else to try and sell their goods.





This makes no sense. Crafters are FORCED to stockpile huge amounts of resources because the resource spawn system is erratic and only spawns really good resources once every couple months. Whenever a new best-on-server resource spawns, every crafter must collect as much as possible or risk running out and losing all their customers to others who didn't run out.


Yes, 800k reactive gas is quite a lot and probably more than the players were "intended" to have. But when the game goes four months without a good new spawn and I go through over 600k of it, it becomes obvious that huge stockpiles of resources are the only way to stay competitive in the long run.


The devs seem to be under the impression that cornering the market is very easy, when in fact it almost never happenswith anything besides armor (due to huge quality increase from 12 points compared to other things like weapons). All weaponsmiths with the same resources can make weapons with the same damage/speed which are the only stats anyone cares about, so for every huge PA trying to get a monopoly, there's ten other small guild or independent crafters making the exact same weapons. Customer base is determined primarily by reputation, not by number of items produced.



POKEY THE PENGUIN SIG REMOVED BY GARVA BECAUSE "Just because you are crafty enough to get around the technicality of it being a .jpg or .gif does not mean it is not an image, it is not ascii art, it is an image" SO HERE IS MY NEW SIG.
HUGE UGLY SIG
LLJK_Griz
Fri May 28, 2004 11:56 am
#178






HemiKeeroc wrote:

Actually, the armorsmith/weaponsmith/chef monopoly may not be around for too much longer.


We see from the new Jedi changes that they can invest more skill points and negate the need for experimentation SEAs.


Joe Nobody Armorsmith can in effect make the same qualityarmor as Mr Leet Haxorz Kingpin 12 point Armorsmith Esquire



If those stack with SEA tapes (which I expect they will since they are on "force experimentation" skill and thus not affected by the +25 cap on individual experimentation skills) it will have the opposite effect and make crafting impossible for anyone who doesn't have both the +16 FS experimentation and +25 in SEAs for 14 points.


A hard-cap at 12 points would be required to prevent the total collapse of the armor/chef/med market (weapons/buildings/droids receive little or no benefit from extra points and would not be affected).



POKEY THE PENGUIN SIG REMOVED BY GARVA BECAUSE "Just because you are crafty enough to get around the technicality of it being a .jpg or .gif does not mean it is not an image, it is not ascii art, it is an image" SO HERE IS MY NEW SIG.
HUGE UGLY SIG
Mor-Dan
Fri May 28, 2004 12:08 pm
#179



Keltorr wrote:

Thunderheart wrote:
The reason stomachs don’t clear is so you can’t stack them after death and it’s partially a small death penalty.
(emphasis added) We can't stack foods after death even ifour stomachs cleared oncewe clone. Upon cloning, all foods' effects are canceled anyway, so allowing the stomach to clear isn't going to cause a ton of food stacking...





he's talking about the stack itself. like when you take two brandies. just because you die doesn't mean your stomach empties. maybe they could work a system where the stomach decreases by 25%-50% in the future, but dont count on it. they are calling this stomach timer a balance, which means they like it even if no one else does. and well all know taht unless they feel 50% of the paying customers are going to drop their accounts, they aren't going to change.



i said it before and i'll say it again. this 19Q thing is the biggest waste of time, and a lame effort at trying to prove the dev team wants to communicate with us. SOE wants your money. they will continue to make all decisions based on keeping you paying them money, not enhancing your experience. proof is they have done NOTHING to draw back the people who left in droves, but instead have pushed the further and further towards oblivion. now they tell us "wait for the combat ervamp". that is code for "huge nerf". armour will be downgraded. all buffs will be downgraded. combat will be made harder for anyone who is not a jedi or does not have any force sensitive skill. JTL is 90% space, 10% other stuff. ground combat for anyone not a jedi is not going to be helped, as they want everyone in space, not on land.

SWG:AED has kind of been like watching your favorite football team struggle. they are constantly behind, and everytime they have a chance to score big, someone drops the ball or just flat misses the kick. the devs work hard, but it is one of those non-gratifying "hards". we see no results like what we are looking for. we see no true progress. and everytime we get something we like, it gets taken away for "balance" reasons. then when people complain they say, "goto test center and help test".

19Q's was a good idea if they decided to actually be open and honest, which they never had any intention of doing. they aren't going to tell us what is in store for the combat balance, because it would ruin the surprise (and they don't want 2 months of our feedback on how lousy it will be). they aren't going to fill us in on GCW revamp ideas, because, again, they don't want 2 months of feedback on how lame it is.

to be fair, there are a good number of people who feel the game is ok. no offense, but this is my first MMO. even i can see the vast short commings of this game, and i LOVE the idea of player driven content. they just marketed to the wrong players, released too early, tried to stop the bleeding too late, and killed any hopes of rejuvination by over-populating the jedi community.

Enjoy SWG while you can. It won't be around much longer...



Vendor Locations:
-1560 120 in Soal Valley, Corellia
-4700 5600 north of Theed, Naboo
LonelyGhost
Fri May 28, 2004 1:10 pm
#180

I agree with many of the posters on the storage issue. This is an issue that is affecting virtually all crafters, and anyone who wants to decorate their homes AND collect stuff for museums or just to horde. You dont seem to understand that the ones whom you seem to most fear will create a monompoly WILL DO IT ANYWAY through the variety of methods mentioned before. You wil NOT stop such a person! SO in your effort to stop them you are making the GAME less FUN for a whole lot of people...


FOR NOTHING!!


Your efforts are in vain already. You have lost the war before a single shot was fired. You FAILED. So, now it seem logical, and just plain "right" for you to work on getting these storage issue resolved. I will admit, I fear some of the ideas floated in this thread...things like removal of Admin right on harvs, putting the max schematic size back to 100, removing the ability to make a schematic for any non-components.... but I fear them because it will drastically change the way I play, and will mean its not so easy to make 2 million credits a week selling resources. I invest a half a dozen hours a week into my business each week...maybe 12 hours tops, and its easy, rather tedious work. In return, i have all the advantages granted by a fat bank account.


But despite the fact that my earning power will be drastically reduced by these types of changes, I would welcome them. Thisgame is too easy. Its too easy even for a solo player, nevermind the power Guilds. Stop trying to hold back these motivated and dedicated people (as you seem to be trying to do with item caps) and look at how much it hurts the regualr players. Your efforts are wasted, since the motivated and dedicated players will STILL find ways to do what they want to do.....its why we call them motivated and dedicated!



Crys Akkori - Merchant Engineer
Veteren of SIN, IO, and XC - A Founder of Jaxian Bay
Elder DE, Architect, Artisan, Chef, Merchant

Vendor on Naboo at -7547 4635 (Fly in to Theed)

Crafters do have decay on resources. As we use it it GOES AWAY. And when it's gone, we have to get more. - Elekae
OdwahJoel
Fri May 28, 2004 1:10 pm
#181

This game is borked beyond the point of no return. They should have made it more like KOTOR
DeQuosaek
Fri May 28, 2004 1:21 pm
#182






Stargzrrag wrote:

TH-
Would you be kind enough to come to the Architect forum and tell us why our question got dodged?




Your question was not dodged. It was given a straightforward answer. He clearly said, "No, the resource stack size will not be increased." That's not a dodge. That's a definitive answer. If you look through the rest of this thread he even goes further to explain why this answer was given. Instead ofasking himtogo to the architect forum, why don't you try reading this one?





Some of my pet peeve bugs:
•Armorsmith protection layers were not converted with the CU.
•Ship Details window does not close when you click "Travel" resulting in the message "You have lost the target. Closing interface."

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