Dark One

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But of course, the 80k's here, the 80k's there, they all start adding up don't they? But since that money goes to support your local Market PvPers, we should be fine with spending it...

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Do you have a point here?
My point is that, contrary to what you stated earlier, 80K is not in any relevant sense a large amount of influence.
Yours seems to be that paying that 80K to another player is somehow worse than paying it to the game.
Oh, the horror!

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Quite frankly it is.

The flippers do nothing to help and only exacerbate problems of supply and pricing.

I would much rather that 80k disappear into the ether than line the pockets of another flipper on his way to the Billionaire's Club.

And again, I say, if 80k isn't a decent amount of influence, then the flippers and marketeers should have no problem with 1-5k prices for Luck Charms rather than the general average of 40-50k per.

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For one of the recipes there is certainly a choice between high profit and a teleporter. For the other two recipes that is emphatically not the case.


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High profit is relative.

To a character that is NOT a marketeer and/or a flipper and rolling in oodles of Inf, 80k is a decent chunk of change for a couple sales.



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Buh-wha?
80K doesn't even buy 3 top-rank SOs, and it never did.
The only characters to whom 80K looks like a lot are those at level 15 or less.

And just HOW MUCH is the cost of placing the teleporter using influence? 7.5 million using the 500-1 inf-prestige conversion rate, right? If a teleporter's value is 7.5 million, I hardly think adding another 80K to its price is the game-breaking hardship you're making it out to be.

But hey, if it is- can I have your stuff?

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If 80k isn't that big a deal, then the flippers should have no problem listing Luck Charms for 1-5k right? Since if 80k is chump change, then that piddly little 50k per would be no big deal for them to lose right?

But of course, the 80k's here, the 80k's there, they all start adding up don't they? But since that money goes to support your local Market PvPers, we should be fine with spending it...

Differentiating between the two groups?

Srsly?

Was that really that difficult?

By that logic, we should probably remove SO drops since its difficult to determine who drops what.

"New" players aren't going to be fiddling with Base Salvage beyond selling it. People who use it, understand it. It's not that difficult of a concept to understand. No more difficult than looking at an IO recipe and saying, "Hmm...I need this to build this.". It's not a steep learning curve.

It does make sense conceptually as well as design wise. Base Salvage affects no one but Base Builders. If some one gets a Base Salvage drop, they are either in a SG or teaming with someone who is and who can explain it to them.

It's not any more large or complex than having Improvised Cybernetic, Commercial Cybernetic, and Military Cybernetic, as well as the other gradations of Invention Salvage.

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For one of the recipes there is certainly a choice between high profit and a teleporter. For the other two recipes that is emphatically not the case.


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High profit is relative.

To a character that is NOT a marketeer and/or a flipper and rolling in oodles of Inf, 80k is a decent chunk of change for a couple sales.

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I think we'll have to agree to disagree. Your feeling seems to be that base building shouldn't be changed at all. You also seem to think that any changes that do get made should be to make it as similar as possible to the current live implementation, regardless of what other consequences that might have. I differ on all these points, and that's where we'll have to leave it.


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And your only basis for changing it is that it benefits "the Market" and by proxy, the marketeers and flippers. Why their profits should come on the basis of hurting everyone else is beyond me.

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No, I define a "healthy market" as one with a high trading volume. That means that there is availability and that people turn to the market when they need something, instead of turning to hoarding and private trades.


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Availability?

You do know that the Market is going to be pulling triple duty now with no change to drop rates. 1) First build. 2) Second build. 3) Base Building. And an optional fourth duty of Empowerment Stations.

Why should the "needs" of the Market trump the "needs" of basically anything else?

Availability comes from one thing...drop rates. Not the market. Not the marketeers.

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This is no more true than the choice between running in supergroup mode or not. Do I want to profit individually, or sacrifice some of my profit for the good of the SG? Most SGs that I've been involved with have no problem getting people to run in SG mode, so I'm less concerned about this than you are.


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This is not a matter of "some" profit, but a matter of a LOT of profit. In SG Mode, you still earn 50% inf while getting Invention AND Base salvage drops. You sacrifice 50% of the Inf, but still get the same drops plus contribute to the base through Base Salvage and Prestige.

This?

You make a MASSIVE choice of either a) profiting HIGHLY on Invention salvage or b) build a teleporter.

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If you have a character full of salvage, he can't earn more. That's the opportunity cost I'm talking about. That's not true of having a rack full of salvage.


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Except if you have to buy another salvage rack or you run up against the 18 storage item limit. Then you're stuck.

Like I said, I can store 11x the amount of a salvage rack on ONE character.

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What would you like to see instead?


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This idiotic idea of Invention Salvage being used for Bases gone. Nothing has to change. Nothing needs to change.

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I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this point. I see a cost associated with cluttering a character's inventory and market slots with hoarded salvage. Especially market slots, which are one of the most precious commodities in the game. It's clear that you don't, and that you don't think having to relog or track inventory are significant burdens, either. I do, and I think other people do, too.


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Market slots, for those who aren't marketeers, are simply storage. Nothing more, nothing less. Good storage for recipes that we can't craft. Good storage for Salvage that we can't use yet or want to save.

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Multiple logins and bookkeeping as costs should be compared to the cost of the storage bins: 15k prestige to place and 1k per rent period to keep. I'm not thrilled about the rent, but the placement cost seems pretty cheap to me.


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It's really piddly to update say a spreadsheet.

Earning 15k Prestige per rack, OTOH, to a small SG, isn't.

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I don't see any point to the arbitrary distinction between group salvage and personal salvage. The only justification I've seen is the suggestion you made that it produces a tension between personal gain and the welfare of the SG. As I said, in every case I've observed people willing to put the SG ahead of their own benefit. If I were a game designer for NCNC, I'd suggest that if you share a SG with people who don't, maybe you should consider kicking the uncooperative people or finding a SG that better matches your (very common, in my experience) ideas of collective gain.


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Why is there an arbitrary distinction?

To keep from happening exactly what will happen when this goes Live (not if, when).

The two systems are, and should be, kept separate. Invention salvage is used for building IOs, costumes, temp powers and respecs. Base Salvage is used for building Base stuff.

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By "better designed" I was referring to invention salvage over base salvage. I don't have enough experience with the new base recipes to comment. This is one of the failings of the test environment, in my opinion: there is a perpetual shortage on the market, which makes it hard to test new sets and new recipes. This is exactly the situation that could occur on live if there's too much salvage storage available, especially if it's sharable and creates a viable and cheaper alternative to using the market.


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All of your arguments seem to stem from some belief that the market is more important than anything else in this game. That the marketeers must be continuously catered to regardless of what it does to anyone else. Prices are going to skyrocket which is going to make things even more difficult for non-farmers, non-marketeers.

The Invention system itself needs a massive overhaul. Too many recipes require Rare Arcane Salvage and too few require Tech Rare. I've got around 30-40 recipes that I can't build (and can't sell because they are worthless on the vaunted Market) because they require either a Prophecy, Mu Vestment, Deific Weapon, Hami Goo, or the like. The number of Tech Rare recipes I've gotten since it was introduced can be counted on one hand.

And now they are simply making it worse. The only prior sticking point was Prestige when it came to building items. Now, Base Builders have to compete with everyone and their dog to build stuff for their base. The shortage is not limited to Test, but is also prevalent on Live. It's only going to get worse.

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That's right. Increasing demand is good for the market, because it increases the price and potentially makes the market a more profitable option than vendoring salvage. It discourages hoarding and keeps trading volume high. Decreasing supply, however (which is the effect of allowing hoarding), is bad, because while it increases prices, it can also result in shortages, which makes people hoard more. We're seeing exactly this problem in the credit markets right now.


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Ah.

You define a "healthy market" as one in which the Marketeers benefit. Forget everyone else.

Because that's who is going to be loving this change. The rich get richer...and everyone else...doesn't.

The market can barely handle the demand now, especially in terms of the Rare salvage - the stuff that for some idiotic reason is getting included in Tier 1 base recipes. It's going to turn stupid when 13 hits.

Edit - Not to mention, this also vastly increases the dilemma a person faces. With Base Salvage, they could easily donate to the SG with no skin off their backs. With Invention Salvage, they have to make the decision to either support the SG or themselves. All for zero apparent gain.

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Because there is an opportunity cost in filling up that 50 with salvage, but none in filling up the rack.


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The stuff for filling up the rack? Comes from the same place that the 50 fills up.

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If I bought your argument that spreading salvage across more than 10 characters was as cheap or convenient as packing your base with salvage racks, then I suppose I'd have to agree that 30 is a trivial amount of storage for a single rack. But I don't buy that argument.


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It is cheap. It is easy. With either a) a trusted friend - or SG mate; or b) a second account.

30 pieces is EXTREMELY trivial, espeically when you factor in that that INCLUDES Event salvage and Candy canes. The number of candy canes I have stored right now for use this winter event for alts would fill up almost 5 of those "new" racks. And that doesn't even touch the Costume salvage that I saved for new alts, friends, and for quick cash at the market.

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I'm having a hard time convincing myself that you really believe this. Surely you can see that there's more benefit in storage racks than just trading with yourself. A full salvage rack doesn't prevent further drops; a full salvage inventory does. Salvage racks can be packed in into even the smallest base; personal salvage inventory can only be increased in small increments. Scattering salvage across multiple characters requires inconvenient multiple logins and good bookkeeping; storing salvage in racks allows immediate inventory assessment (without having to ask everybody in your SG "do you have a Chronal Skip?") and instant access to what's available.

Salvage racks spare you the opportunity cost of storing salvage on your characters and they afford you much greater convenience than keeping things across an array of alts and friends.


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No, there's not really a benefit for the cost.

I can store 200 pieces of salvage in the AH for free. I can store another 50 in the Vault for free. I have room for 80 on my main. This is costing 15,000 prestige for 1/11th the space. It would take 11 Salvage racks to equal the space that this single character has (my 14 and 16 were based on the fact of not having all the badges/slots/and levels with other characters and was wildly underestimated).

Multiple logins and bookkeeping are trivial to pay, as compared to the piddly amount of storage the new system offers.

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My point was that having dozens of ways to get to the same product via hundreds of permutations of artificially diverse salvage and two crafting steps is much more complex than having three parallel recipes and a single crafting step. There is absolutely no point to the enormous variety of base salvage that drops on live, and no point to the large variety of different recipes to make base components. Hell, there's no point to having salvage and components. It's a system designed to be complex but with no compelling reason for the complexity.


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Components have a large variety of recipes because it takes into account what would drop.

There's no point to using personal salvage, which is what Invention is, for group item, which Base Salvage was for.

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I'll actually turn your point around: just because you're used to it and invested in it doesn't make it a good system. From a design perspective there's no good reason to maintain two completely independent salvage systems, so they might as well migrate to the one that is better designed, has fewer redundancies, and is more familiar to the largest number of players.


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Better designed?

Have you seen the recipe requirements? How is using an Arcane Rare (that's already stupidly overpriced on the market) for a Tier 1 object even close to being designed well?

Instead of leaving it as is, they have to design a) a Base Salvage->Invention salvage conversion system with two steps; b) revise ALL recipes to use Invention salvage; c) change the Storage racks; and d) utterly [censored] the market.

Why was this considered "necessary"? Who were the people clamoring for the removal of Base Salvage?

Oh, that's right, it was "confusing". This is so much less confusing.

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Why? It's considerably more community invention storage than you have now, and the amount of salvage needed to craft a given item is considerably less in the i13 system. If you allowed 2500, or 999, or even 100 invention salvage per rack, it would encourage hoarding to a degree that would seriously threaten the markets, especially red side. I think 30 is generous.


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So...hoarding would "threaten" the markets, but making the Invention Salvage do triple duty (Base Building, Build #1, Build #2) doesn't? Especially as there has been zero word on a corresponding increase in Salvage drops to make up the difference.

Why does an object that costs 15,000 Prestige (not being dropped in price iirc), hold less than a single, unbadged, level 50 character?

By this logic, I can hoard the equivalent of 14 Salvage Racks with my VG and about 16 with my SG. Oh, and that's not counting storing stuff in the Vault Reserve or in WW/BM.

The only benefit of the racks is to facilitate transfer between alts on the same account in a solo SG. That's it.

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Maybe this is because I'm new to the old system, but the new system seems much, much simpler to me. The old system dropped an incredible array of different salvage, most of which differed only in name and graphics. There were dozens of different recipes to craft completely identical components. And the components were indistinguishable from one another in purpose and character. It seems to me like a system of needless and totally arbitrary variety.


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There was a nice little addition to the crafting menu, "Hide Recipes Missing Ingredients". Suddenly, that daunting list of recipes drops down to a much more manageable set.

Could they have tighten up the number of ways to get a Mystic Foci? Sure.

But this is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I gotta ask...which Genius thought this system was less "confusing" than the current Base Salvage?

Were the devs drunk when this was in concept stages? And they just said to hell with it and let it go?

For the first time, Issue 13 is something that is srsly making me reconsider my subscription. Just compounding stupidity on top of stupidity with this Issue.

Add in the Vampires to the "Rare Spawns". Not quite as bad as the Spirits, but still far far far too rare. Last year it was Werewolves that were rare, this year its Vamps and Ghosts.

Spent easily an additional hour and a half past getting Shifter/Dead Head/Malleus to get Hunter. It was reminiscent of the scene in European Vacation wherein Clark was stuck in that roundabout all day long. Door after door after door of nothing but Strengs, Zombies, and Witches.

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Want to come at that again?


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Nevertheless, they are all available through regular missions.

Edit - In particular, the ITF is pretty good for getting "crazy xp/inf" due to the large numbers of spawns, ambushes, and whatnot.

Farms, while not exactly "good" in the sense that people like them, are also available year-round.

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But that wasn't what you initially said. Now who's trying to move the goalposts?


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Ya, it pretty much is, disregarding responses to Clouded's attacks.

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In essence, to those who have gotten the badges the last couple times around, the Tier 3's were the only "adequate" reward for the time spent, especially given that the Trick/Treat ratio is skewed towards Tricks. Otherwise, there isn't really an incentive for those people to participate.


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That's all you said (or have edited it so that's all you said at this point).


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In response to what?

Would you like to address the "edit", namely the fact that for the cost of defeating 1 yellow con, lvl50 lieutenent, I can buy 133 of these non-Awaken insp rewards?

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Let me put it to you this way, what do you want for nothing?


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What are you even talking about?

I would like the same reward that wasn't out of bounds last year, namely the Tier 3's.

Of course, they only wait till the event is Live before stating that they want the Tier 3's to remain "special" (read: rare and out of the hands of most of the playerbase).

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You mean farms. If you can get enemy spawn rates and XP/min like this in regular missions, more power to you!


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The only one I "farm" with is my lvl50 for influence for Popular/Leader.

Believe it or not, some people don't WANT massive xp/min, since ya know, that leads to outlevelling content.

Edit - XP by itself is available pretty much anywhere. But then, you're trying to move the goalposts aren't you?

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So, because the salvage isn't useful to YOU, who've already been through the event a time or two before, it's not useful or a "nice to have" for ANYONE? Or at least anyone who doen't want to go drop a couple hundred K on the market?


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Straw man.

To some people, myself included, the Tier 3s were the only worthwhile reward for ToT'ing.

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For the simple act of clicking on a door?


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I can get a Tier 2 for the simple act of clicking on a Kora fruit.

And guess what...that's available year round. And I have a mission with a variety of fruit.

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I dunno. I think the crazy pace of Inf/XP accumulation, the fun of working within a decent team, as well as the resulting salvage, enhancement and recipie drops would be an incentive too.


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All of which are available through ordinary means of running missions.

As to the costume salvage, I already have 25 full sets from last year. On both my solo SG and solo VG. And that's after selling off about 20 full sets each side.

Edit - To put it into perspective, for defeating 1 lvl50 Possessed Scientist lieutenent, I can get 6,669 influence. That equates to 133 non-Awaken tier 1 inspirations. If we add in the influence from rescuing a cowering NPC from that lt, the number of purchasable, non-Awaken tier 1's jumps to 306.

A tier 1 is hardly a worthwhile reward.

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You are whining that you can't get your Tier 3 inspirations. I call that being ungrateful since you still receive adequate rewards.


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How can you possibly call a Tier 1 inspiration an "adequate reward"?

Srsly. It's a boobie prize. As in, no real value since it's sold in every store. I COULD run back and sell some of them at my base, but the influence is not worth it for the time involved.

What are the "adequate rewards" you are talking about?

Badges? Got those on my characters last year.
XP? Can get that anywhere.
Inf? See XP.
Costumes? They disappear in 13 days real time.

In essence, to those who have gotten the badges the last couple times around, the Tier 3's were the only "adequate" reward for the time spent, especially given that the Trick/Treat ratio is skewed towards Tricks. Otherwise, there isn't really an incentive for those people to participate.

There's something else that needs to be addressed...

Spawn rates/types/numbers of the zombies for the apocalypse.

I've been in ZAs that have around 15 people there with no Boss/EB or extremely limited number (like less than 6 over the course of the entire invasion) of Boss/EBs spawning.

Then I've been in groups that about 8 or so cause about half a dozen EBs to spawn at once and cause multiple team wipes.

I know it's a random draw on what gets spawned, but that spawn pattern just isn't right.

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Lighthouse, in all honesty, a Tier 1 Inspiration is not really a worthwhile reward.

The Tier 3 thing might have been an issue if the Trick/Treat ratio wasn't seriously screwed. When one can go double digits on Tricks before receiving a Treat, and then being awarded a Tier 1 insp...well...it's not really a "prize".

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Stop being ungrateful. It could have been another trick or a rock.

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Oh, you mean like the 20 prior Tricks for that one Treat.

It's amazing how many people trot out the "stop being ungrateful" line when someone voices a valid complaint. A Tier 1 inspiration that can be bought in any store for pennies is not a valid reward for ToT'ing.

Rocks I don't mind, other than them being called a Treat. They are good for throwing at Hami and for lolz factor in PvP.

Edit - Never said I didn't like the event. Really like the zombie apocs. It's just that the ToT'ing part is kinda broken.

Lighthouse, in all honesty, a Tier 1 Inspiration is not really a worthwhile reward.

The Tier 3 thing might have been an issue if the Trick/Treat ratio wasn't seriously screwed. When one can go double digits on Tricks before receiving a Treat, and then being awarded a Tier 1 insp...well...it's not really a "prize".

Now, granted, one can get an insp drop on a Trick, which is...weird...as well as a Rock on a Treat...again weird...but one could leave the Trick Insps as Tier 1 with the Treat Insps being Tier 3.

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How do you receive "treats at a faster rate?" It might just be my own experience, but I rarely get treats this year... it's easily 80% trick, 20% treat, but maybe that's just my luck. It's not uncommon for me to knock 5 times in a row and have all 5 be tricks.


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I've counted 15 door knocks in a row before I got a Treat. While you may be able to click on doors faster, it's been overly balanced out by the apparent increase in the Trick to Treat ratio.

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I'm loving everything about this event except that the new ToT timers allow griefers on Invincible to click multiple doors quickly and then tow giant crowds of 52s and 53s through everyone else trying to ToT.

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did the devs listen to any input about griefing? obviously not. Pi was hell on a level 41 and there is no where else to go.

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You can a) go to the Shadow Shard, iirc; b) go to one of the pvp zones; and c) exemp/oro down to a lower level.

Protector just got done with Croatoa/Talos/Eden/Crey's Folly. And TV was just starting up.

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But he talked about all of the stuff coming next year which will blow our minds.


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No offense or anything, but we've heard that for the last four years.

My mind is still unblown.




That being said, the zombies are cool, but dang, my vid card is about ready to start crying...

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Seriously...been ToTing doors in grandville for almost 2 hours....how can I trigger an invasion?

Also, Granny Beldam doesn't say anything or give me any missions.

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Granny never had missions.

She's the turn-in point for Costume Salvage to get the extra slot.

You can't trigger an invasion, it's like the Rikti invasions (sans the LGTF ones).

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I had heard that if you got a treat with a rock, costume, or salvage, you got a tier 1 insp, otherwise it would be the tier 3. Is that what you are running into?

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I've gotten about 95% Tier-1 inspirations with a few piddly Tier-2 inspirations tossed in, regardless of whatever other treats I may or may not have received.

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Ya, the Door Treats have all been Tier 1's for me. Tier 2s have come from defeats of the mobs. No Tier 3s.

Is the dropping of Tier 1's from Treats intentional or a bug?

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Inequalities between Tech/Arcane item sizes. (Raid porter, 2nd and 3rd control items.)


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In particular, the second Arcane Control Item doesn't fit in the 2x2 Control Room. It requires the 1x4 Control Room (at a premium of 50k Prestige over the 2x2). The second Tech Control Item does fit in the 2x2 Control Room.

Also, there is another item size discrepancy, namely the Tech and Arcane Inspiration collectors. One can place 3 Arcane collectors in a row in the 2x2 Workshop. However, one cannot place 3 Tech Collectors in that same setup. The Tech is slightly bigger than the Arcane. Two Tech + One Arcane will work though.