Standoff

Equally speculative, but they might even try to make it dynamic; the fewer recipes of a particular type there are in the AH system (possibly looking at recent history too), the higher the price in merits.

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I've not read any more info about merits since the original announcement was made and nothing was mentioned about the cool down period.

Can i have a link if i've missed something?

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AFAIK no new news at all. That's clearly no reason not to make angry posts on the subject, though.

Edit: Actually, it's sweet that there's someone that thinks blue side having TF delights like Positron and the Shards outings count as a "HUGE advantage" for them. Hell, set off on the Shard TFs and that's more than 24 hours gone in itself...

TOYS PRAM OUT!!!!


How about waiting for details on what's on offer for the merit system as a whole, and whether there's already any hero/villain allowances built into it, before you decide it's unfair? (Sorry, should have said "UNFAIR")

(Yup, it's Friday evening!)

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To clarify, my objection is purely based on the abuse many people put others to if long background fields are available.

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Abuse? How so? It's not like you're forced to read them? I'm confused (again).

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Well, yes, and in any case if you can't abuse someone properly given 1,000 characters to work with you're not going to make a more effective job of it given twice as many.

Some things require quality, not quantity, to do well.

Oh to be able to have problems like that - I've never been able to afford a plot size increase (IIRC the smallest is about 1.5 mill, which is more than levelling a toon all the way to 50 in SG mode earns), so I've never had the chance to have rent problems either.

Still, I think they said they were bringing rents as well as plot costs down, so one can hope...

Return on effort; presumably they feel there's more potential draw from a revamped, (hopefully) popularaised PvP system than yet another co-op zone or the new, improved Boomtown.

Given the minority appeal of PvP they may also have decided it was do or die time; revamp and bring it into the mainstream or kill it off altogether to stop it draining dev resources to keep it synced with PvE stuff.

And as far as alienating the existing PvP playerbase, I'm not convinced it's frekking them all off - there just seem to be a few PvPers being particularly vociferous about it on the forums. (Although on reflection perhaps 2-3 people is the entire EU PvP playerbase... )

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That would have been simpler to implement, as the amount credited was just "20k per member", but the same basic technique would apply for a price reduction refund and as you say, if they could do it then...

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I remember that one, but im also sure there was another, i got a feeling it could have been when the basic plot size became free, but im not sure.

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Ah, could be - don't think I was doing anything at all base-related that far back, so it could easily have sailed on past me unnoticed.

Am hoping the prices savings (which I'll probably pick up even if I have to edit, given my base's simplicity) are significant - at present I'm a few 100k away from being able to get an Oracle, and it'd be a nice prezzy if they handed me that much.

If it made plot size increases practically affordable for a solo base like mine that'd be even nicer!

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Even if these changes cause more PvEers to PvP, unless it actually brings in new players in it is going to cause a net loss in subscriptions.

Quite frankly, whatever you think of the "PvP clique", those are the people who you need to keep happy with the PvP gameplay, not people who would continue to pay thier subs just for PvE content.

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There is more to it than that; if the changes keep some PvE players in the game longer, because it gives them more to do when pure PvE get a bit dull, that'll be a plus.

If it persuades new players to stay on rather than quit, because it gives them a wider range of things to do, that'll increase subs numbers too.

Virtually any change the devs make anywhere in the game will upset someone, but they have to take the wider view. If they end up paralysed for fear of losing a player here or player there if they annoy them, the game will never improve.

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As the devs could grant the refund anyway, with - I'm pretty sure - relatively modest work on their part and no need for us to edit bases at all, there's some annoyance that they aren't doing this.

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Im sure i remember a refund of prestige being given a fair while ago, i cant remember what it was for now.

But it does show that refunds dont need to be like this.

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IIRC that was either the "Merging Heroes/Villans" or "NCSoft bought the game" celebration bonus; a flat amount per SG member. Which they finished up giving twice due to a server update mishap.

That would have been simpler to implement, as the amount credited was just "20k per member", but the same basic technique would apply for a price reduction refund and as you say, if they could do it then...

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Or you could, I dunno, just forget about it and be happy that from now on everything will cost sod all. Doesn't require any effort at all.

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Neither does sitting back and letting devs do the work instead. Slackerdom FTW!

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I have been reading this thread with interest,what puzzles me is why would you want to rip your base apart just to rebuild it because the prices have gone down

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I think you've sort of missed the point - the absolute last thing anyone wants to do is rip their base apart.

The issue is that at the moment the devs are saying we can get prestige "refunds" on existing base items - to reflect the lowered prices for new ones of the same type - and that's good. But to get the refunds we'd have to sell and rebuy everything, and we don't want to do that as it's very not good.

As the devs could grant the refund anyway, with - I'm pretty sure - relatively modest work on their part and no need for us to edit bases at all, there's some annoyance that they aren't doing this.

I find that whenever I turn Superspeed on my toon moves really quickly, which can be a problem at times. Can we change it so Superspeed doesn't make toons move quickly?

/not signed

(And don't get me started on Fly...)

You really think? Had great fun getting my Elec/Elec brute to 50.

Enjoy being older SS! Happy birthday!

Give stuf plx

The financial realities of hardware available from commercial suppliers aren't really that similar to virtual furniture inside a game; I don't see why expectations for one should have any bearing on the other.

And "luck" doesn't come into it; the devs have decided to reprice things, and to make the savings applicable to existing bases and items. The downside is that they've decided to make a bare minimum of effort for the implementation of the savings, and get the players to do most of the work.

Something they're at liberty to do, but at the same time we're also at liberty to think the implementation sucks (and say so!).

Hmmm - a relatively minor job for my teeny little personal base, a potentially huge job for big bases a lot of design effort's gone into.

Overall impression: Sucks like a hoover.

It can't be that hard to run a script over the base-related tables in the course of the I13 update to refund the price difference for installed items, and overall it'd be much less work for one dev to write the script compared to thousands of base managers having to get their hands dirty.

Plus this isn't remotely a "fun" activity for either side, and they're the ones that get paid to not have fun.

Not at all impressed by this one.

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I read about a poll a while back, which showed that most people who don't do PvP don't do it because they can use the time for something else which actually nets them a reward.

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Rewards are subjective.

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People not doing something because they don't rate the rewards is objective.

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Only people themselves decide what they perceive as rewards. So rewards are subjective.

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That's you repeating what you said, not responding to what I said after it.

Let's try this again; if people look at PvP rewards and decided they don't like them, that's a subjective judgement. But even so it will stop them playing.

Their not playing is an objective fact you can determine by going into PvP zones and finding there aren't many people there.

So, my point is that if the rewards aren't high enough, the objective result is fewer people PvPing.

Yes, that's been brought up before in this sort of context. The general opinion is that it was a "cover our behinds" sort of statement, so that people couldn't claim server transfer fees back if any sort of future change would have made those transfers unnecessary.

Legal disclaimer, not a development commitment.

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I read about a poll a while back, which showed that most people who don't do PvP don't do it because they can use the time for something else which actually nets them a reward.

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Rewards are subjective.

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People not doing something because they don't rate the rewards is objective.

IFAIK we haven't been given many details at all about just how the elimination of base salvage will work. Just that it's happening, and there'll be a base salvage --> invention salvage route.

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i believe they are actually planning the implementation of a single global or serviles environment

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It's impossible to rule out, but AFAICS there haven't been any statements (or even hints) that it's something they're looking at.

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i would assume if they were doing this they would have some kind of way around the duplication of names (some kind of invisible character perhaps)

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That would be quite a challenge to type if you wanted to send a tell to a specific toon, though.

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i would also assume they would have some way around the potential server melt perhaps ones could be spanned across multiple servers to lessen the load or something

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There's the spawning of multiple instances of zones: "Atlas Park 1", "Atlas Park 2", etc... they already do. But if you have so many toons on the same system you need to do this all the time you're losing a lot of the benefit of having them on the same system in the first place, which is that it's easy for them to meet up and play together.

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Good point also, though the argument on the US re: the newer players is one of mentality. That being, the difference between someone losing and thinking 'Hmm, I lost. I'll examine how and improve my playstyle/build/call in some friends to help'

...versus

"omg, haxx! Nerf him!"

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I see what you mean, although the PvP play as it stands may in itself incline things more towards the second of the two options. Top ATs and builds (as used by keen PvPers, specifically because they're the best toons to pick for PvP) are so much better (and better played) than the casual PvEer build that there's not much of an learning experience to be had.

Enter zone-bang-dead..."Eh, what?".

Repeat x10...leave zone.


Make things a bit more balanced so the newcomers last a bit longer and have time to start drawing "hmmmm, if I'd had a slightly quicker recovery from the mezz there..."-type conclusions, and you could have a new PvP fan.


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Catering to new PvPers is all well and good (especially with Dual Builds), but hacking off current PvPers (and I don't just mean the hardcore ones...I hardly ever PvP, have the 400 rep badge on my Corr, and these changes as they stand, are set to prevent me from entering a zone out of anything more than interest) isn't wise...

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True, although having read the US PvP forums in the past their normal state of posting seems to be somewhere in the "outraged", "aggrieved" and "insulting" range whatever the current topic. Given that the changes Castle posted are (1) subject to update based on feedback, and (2) not even in open beta yet, I'm inclined to wait until they've been tried on a reasonably populated zone before taking anything they say too seriously.

Re. your current Corr - is it looking irretrievably hopeless under PvP, or might it be moved back into the playable zone with a respec?

Could be on the cards - Castle said it was mainly the Arena rework that's due in I13.

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well, it's their game.

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I agree with most of the US guys, Shock & PRAF. This won't encorage more people to PvP. To encourage more people to PvP, it's not the mechanics that need changing so much as giving people who mainly PvE, a REASON to enter those zones, outside of PvE rewards which they seem to presume is theirs by god given right (Shivs/Warburg Nukes/FArmzoring Pillboxes)

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That's a good point, but I'll grab the ball and run with it and say it actually needs both the things we've been talking about.

A decent (which amounts to the same thing as "hugely changed") reward system, and a revised combat system which makes PvP newbies less of a fish in a barrel for the top builds.

The rewards can be as good as you like, but if PvEers dipping their toes in the water get pwned without a chance of ever earning them, they'll quickly give up trying.