Nethergoat

bahahahah.

This whole thing has been hilarious and highly diverting.

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I may have a different perspective, having played Eve Online for a few years before coming here. That's serious PvP. I tried PVP in many other games and it's abundantly clear that the most fun PvP comes from good balance (ie. you can play whatever you want as long as you play it well!)

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We're absolutely coming at this from different perspectives.

When I want PvP I fire up an FPS shooter- BF2142 & CoD4 are my currently loaded games.

So in an MMO, I'm just looking for a fun diversion, not a hardcore experience.

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But when will we see a correction? Will we?

High prices should, in theory, entice people to try and make a buck off them, thereby supplying the market and driving the prices down eventually.

However, an average AE baby probably doesn't know that Recipe+Salvage = Enhancement. An average AE baby knows, however, that a lucky recipe roll + WW = grudzillions of profit. So an average AE baby will keep rolling for recipes, while ebil marketeers continue to profit from selling salvage, but not supplying nearly enough of it to bring down the prices...

Doom?

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Most folk are going to spend their tickets on whatever will earn them the most profit.

This AM I blew a few hundred tickets that I found on an alt for recipe rolls. The best of them was a low-ish level Steadfast defense unique. He's going to slot it, but if he didn't that's a good 15 million inf.

Even ignoring all the rest of my rolls (which were more good than bad) how many tickets worth of salvage would it take to get 15 million inf?

Also, people like the lottery. A random roll that can earn you 10,000,000+ inf is going to entice more people than a random roll that can earn you a few hundred K at most, especially when the ticket cost for the recipe isn't prohibitive, as with Bronze rolls.

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n00b: Me and my buddy want to level really fast. Can you do it for us?

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Not seeing how this is AE's fault.

I've been getting PL requests from total strangers almost as long as I've been playing the game.

as far as I know dev choice missions have 'normal' drops (when you choose that option). There's no reason you wouldn't get purples provided the enemies you're fighting qualify to drop level 50 recipes.

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They don't have to remove the buildings from the starter zones. They can expand the Arson event that already exists in Steel Canyon. That way new players can enjoy trying to stop Hellions from blowing up the AE buildings in Atlas and Galaxy. They can also help the Hellions blow up the one in Mercy.

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Get as inventive as you want, the buildings aren't going anywhere because they're not interested in deterring new players from using AE.

=)

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1 - PvP is tacked on in this game and it will never be good.

That's a big statement, but I think we all know it's true. You have to balance the game for PvP to make it good and they will not do that because it would break PvE.

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I disagree.
It's never going to be ideal, but I think it has the potential to be fun.

r/e balancing, the 'break' with past orthodoxy that powers should do the same thing in pvp and pve is a positive step.
If they approach is at "things work this way in PvE but this way in PvP" they can make it a lot more balanced without worrying about enraging and alienating their bread and butter constituency of PvE players.

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2 - Therefore they won't be drawing in any new PvPers based on the quality of that part of the game.

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I don't agree with your first point, so for me the second point doesn't follow.

If they keep putting energy into PvP they certainly can draw more players and have it be a fun, vibrant subculture within the larger game.


Rewards are key to getting new blood in the zones, but balanced, fun gameplay is what will keep them there. Hopefully at some point we'll get both.

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Removing the AE buildings from starter zones would have no effect on players ability to use it to level from 1-50.

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They aren't going to plop a building down in a zone and then pull it back out like a rotten tooth one issue later. Especially when it goes against the obvious design philosophy for the content, and when removing the buildings won't stop the behavior as some people think.

They saturated the game with AE buildings so everybody could easily get to it, unlike trekking to PI with your level 1.

And pulling it from this or that zone won't really do anything to curb "exploiting" or PL'ing because the folk who're interested in it will seek out AE as long as it keeps over-rewarding.

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I think they need to go back to square one and figure out what would either motivate current players to PvP or attract PvPers to the PvP minigame.

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To get folk in the zones they should junk the arena, which they won't.

To make zone PvP equitable they need powers designed for PvP- on that front I like the I13 changes, although it may be too little too late. The old "same power for pve and pvp" was ridiculous in a game that started out PvE only, and hideously unbalanced PvE at that.

To get 'regular' players into the PvP zones they need rewards on par with 'real' gameplay. This is a lesson they learned, perhaps a bit to well, with AE. The recipes are a start, but with the new drop limitations I think they will seem impossible to most players.


The development of that part of the game has been such a mess from day one I'm not sure there's anything they can do, really. But if they figure out a way to reward PvP participants on par with pve gameplay, that would be a good start.

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Do we need an official "Architect is ruining the game" thread?

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Hey it's been a good ten seconds since the last one, maybe people have forgotten the salient points!

=P

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I think sports are kind of impossible in a city where a large number, if not all of the population have various superpowers.

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clearly you've never attended the Hellion Olympics in Atlas.

qr

debunking a couple of the silly ideas people keep demanding:

ridiculous idea #1:
OMG GET AE OUT OF NOOB ZONES!

They said we'd be able to level 1-50 in AE and they meant it.
That means AE buildings in starting zones.
So get over it.

ridiculous idea #2:
OMG THEY NEED TO NERF REWARDS SO AE IS ONLY FOR THE TRUE AND PURE STORYTELLERS LIKE THE DEVS ALWAYS WANTED!

The second AE rewards fall below 'normal' rewards, it will become a ghost town populated by a handful of RPers. And, again, the devs want people to be able to level 1-50 inside AE.

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So you're saying the devs intended to have a bunch of wannabe-PvPers in the zones in search of loot?

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This is blindingly obvious.

They ran off a lot of the 'old' pvp crew with the recent changes.
It makes perfect sense to add some sort of real rewards to lure new ones in, especially given the prevalence of the attitude "why should I pvp when there are no rewards?"

They clearly weren't happy with the previous status quo of a small population of increasingly hardcore players and wanted to shake things up. Drawing new players with good rewards is part of that strategy.

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The way this game works allows for a unique type of player- the "casual hardcore".


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For introducing this term I am going have you severely beaten.

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casually beaten, with a hardcore stick.

You can tell its hardcore as it has purple nails in it

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Haw!

you can change your display name to whatever you want in the control panel.


My Home > Personal information > Display Name

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And now PVP drops actually take IOs out of your inventory! Yeah ... Doesn't everyone want to PVP now?!

/sarcasm

wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwThanks

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lol!

/e popcorn

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THIS was the design goal they stated.

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And they were entirely successful.

Please highlight the parts that say "everyone should have all the stuff they want for little or no effort", because I'm missing it.

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This thread is the soul of comedy.

Price doesn't matter. No amount of Inf matters. It's raining from the sky and all you have to do is hold your hands out to get as much as you want.

If you can't afford something, you simply dont want it very much.

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This post is distilled wisdom.
All would do well to heed its truth.

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Funny that a post that was bitter, cynical, and entirely self-righteous, you call a rational reply.

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It's the only post of yours I've read about the game economy that made even a lick of sense.
I realize you meant it to be sarcastic, but every word is gospel.
I also realize that you don't understand that, and will keep honking out your entitlement whines so all the casual gamers can purple their warshades.

C'est la vie!


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Bottom line is, that if IOs are a customization option, then they should be relatively easy to get, build, and slot.

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Funny like this is what keeps you off my ignore list.

*thumbsup*

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Check out the Ebil Marketeers forums to find out how to make millions while you sleep.

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Indeed!

First tip is free:

- underbid on a bunch of in-demand crafted generic IOs
- re-list at market prices
- profit


and a bonus tip since I'm feeling generous today:

- generic IO prices go completely insane (along with a lot of other stuff) during 2xp weekend. Buy up or craft a ton of stuff now, stick it in base storage and then make a fortune when everyone else is too busy levelling to worry about paying your gigantic markup.

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So the people willing and able to pay get the nice stuff. If you can't afford them, or think prices are simply too high, well, that's your own fault, and you don't get to play with the great options that other, more deserving, players can get.

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And here I'd given up on your ever making a rational reply!

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marketeering is the only way to earn that kind of cash in short order.

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No it isn't- you can also play a high level character and sell drops.

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Playing the game "normally"- missions, occasional TFs, teaming with friends - will cut into your earning potential by a serious amount.

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Nonsense.
The market is uniquely designed to earn you tons of inf while you're doing other things, or even while you're logged off.


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If you want purples, the market realistically is the only game in town. Nothing else even comes close.

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Well, except playing the game and selling your drops.
But yeah, other than that we're all just chained to the market

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Except the alternative of letting everyone get the shinies, letting every player have a reasonable (a loaded word, I know) chance of getting what they want.

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If they want it they can earn it.
The opportunity is there for everyone.

If they don't want it AS MUCH as some other players, then too bad.

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I think the only reasonable response is to increase the inf cap to 4 billion.

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Yeah, and price cap everything!

then we'll have a totally awesome REAL black market!

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Even in this casual-friendly game there are hardcore players. Players that are willing to pay 100M+ for purples and LotGs, and 600M+ for the PVP uniques.

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The way this game works allows for a unique type of player- the "casual hardcore".

My gameplay is almost entirely casual. I mostly run missions, I never have time for TFs, the most merits I've ever had at one time is 30, my weekly in-game exposure is down to a couple of hours.

But thanks to the market, I'm able to l337 out whichever characters I care to. The Goat has a couple of PvP sets, a few purple sets and the rest of his powers slotted with "good" IOs. My fire/rad controller is slotted to the gills and has a couple of purple sets sitting in base storage because I'm too lazy to respec him and I don't want to just overwrite the "good" IO sets he's already using.

This is the only MMO I'm familiar with where the "best" gear is available to everyone without demanding a huge time commitment.

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I've always been fond of the abandoned "zoo" on Monkey Island in PI. Old timers who have farmed Rikti monkeys for the 10,000 badge know all about it.


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*shudder*