Star Sonata
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No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion
http://forum.starsonata.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=54402
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Author:  Neba [ Wed Jan 09, 2013 8:10 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

Camsy wrote:
I see where your coming from, but I don't think it will help anything. Making kits cheaper will just mean that those ridiculously rich players will be able to invest less money on building secure kits, and if those kits do die, replace them easily, with minimum loss.

But the chances of losing your bases is so impossibly low, yes you can replace them easily with minimal loss, but so can everyone else, people would be more willing to take those hard commods or colonial gals.

And don't be fooled into thinking that all endgamers are rich and sit on their colonies all day. I don't do colonies, I work hard to get commodities and build things instead and that money I make doesn't sit around and grow, it gets spent and at an awefully fast rate.

This is what I do as well, I've never worked colonies, but people have been saying that theyre the source for alot of the credit flow into the game, you cant have the colony grow if you cant protect the gal.

Yes, compared to someone lvl 500 who doesn't have more than 3b to their name, making a few bil every week seems like crazy gain. But for the gear I'm saving for, it's painfully slow.

I just recently spent a whole uni and a halfs worth of commods and credits slowly gained to build myself a heph machine. While you can stand from the outside and say, hey look another endgamer with too much credits. But the work invested into getting that ship was enormous.

Tl;dr (or if you did read, a summary): Making bases cheaper will fix nothing and that no all endgamers sit on colonies and have tonnes of creds.

Well then you have nothing really to fear then?


As for the bit about emp. Yeah, I'd agree its kinda true. Back in 2008 when I first joined the game, I only had two goals. To be a great player in my own unique way and to become emp.

Five years later, I've just achieved my first goal to some degree. But chances are I will never be emperor. And while that pains me a bit, I play on knowing that I can enjoy the game without that.

Author:  Max235 [ Wed Jan 09, 2013 9:20 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

I'm going to have to stop you right now, Neba. Making kits cheaper will not fix all the problems and it alone will not make a big enough dent in the game to matter.

The problems that newer player and teams face are:
- There is no real drain on resources. While raw material is converted into modules and gear, the stuff that makes up the end product is never ever lost. So players constantly accumulate resources and over time, that adds up to huge amounts of stuff. The stuff that went into building a Prawn will never ever be lost, so teams can afford to do suicidal attacks on enemy galaxies.

- The sheer power difference between older players and newer players means that it can be assured that the older teams will win 100% of the time. This difference causes all the newer teams to hide in w1 and w2, for fear of a bigger team annihilating them for no reason at all other than fun. There are p2p teams that have not progressed to T20. How do they fend off a Hephaestus Machine, then?

- Base Industry, rather than Base Gear, is where the expense is. It takes a lot of time, money, and resources to construct extractors, factories, and efficient prod facilities. It also doesn't take much to kill an ExE base, even if it was an ada T20 kit. T21 gear often take a lot of credits to build too (100b for my AgH+!), which require many large colonies to sustain. DGing for cash to build any Oly+ ship comes out to about 30 days of 18 hours a day dg camping.

- Time/Manhours. Gear leading up to T20 take a ton of time to build. UZ ships are a prime example with 10 day builds. T21 gear turn the tables completely, requiring massive workforces to build quickly. Prod bases are extremely vulnerable for long periods of time. An example is the Tarkin's Augmenter, which has a 40billion manhour requirement.

- Successful p2p teams are made up of large amounts of mostly developed accounts. You don't see many teams with only one character per person. You see such teams with 4 or 5 characters per person, assuming they just have one account. The requirement to have lots of high level players is a major deterrent to new players/teams that might try p2p.

Author:  Max235 [ Wed Jan 09, 2013 9:26 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

The solution to helping new teams expand and carve territory of their own is pretty radical. You would need to drastically increase build speed and reduce construction costs, on everything. Basically anything that builds one item needs to build 10 to 50 items for the same exact cost.

Everything needs to be destruct-able. The only place where you can truly be safe is being docked at an AI base. Yes, that means pvp in Earthforce and Celestial Gardens layers. PvP has to be everywhere. And every thing can be lost. This gives incentive to hurt people, and the threat of losing that HM+ discourages suicidal runs into weaker teams' galaxies.

The power level of all the ships needs to be consolidated. New players need a real fighting chance against the legacies of this game. Every class needs to be weak to, and strong against, every class in the game. There cannot be any massive advantages for any class over any other class (engi drones' radar vs seer).

Author:  floflo02 [ Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:04 am ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

Max235 wrote:
Every class needs to be weak to, and strong against, every class in the game. There cannot be any massive advantages for any class over any other class (engi drones' radar vs seer).


YES PLEASE

Author:  Neba [ Thu Jan 10, 2013 6:29 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

Max235 wrote:
I'm going to have to stop you right now, Neba. Making kits cheaper will not fix all the problems and it alone will not make a big enough dent in the game to matter.

The problems that newer player and teams face are:
- There is no real drain on resources. While raw material is converted into modules and gear, the stuff that makes up the end product is never ever lost. So players constantly accumulate resources and over time, that adds up to huge amounts of stuff. The stuff that went into building a Prawn will never ever be lost, so teams can afford to do suicidal attacks on enemy galaxies.

(: Rebuttal time.

The fact that holding a galaxy would be more difficult would stem the flow of resources. Constant accumulation wont be as easy anymore.


- The sheer power difference between older players and newer players means that it can be assured that the older teams will win 100% of the time. This difference causes all the newer teams to hide in w1 and w2, for fear of a bigger team annihilating them for no reason at all other than fun. There are p2p teams that have not progressed to T20. How do they fend off a Hephaestus Machine, then?

If high tier base gear was easier to access, newer players wouldnt lose 100% of the time, and wouldnt fear trying to expand into those higher DFs.


- Base Industry, rather than Base Gear, is where the expense is. It takes a lot of time, money, and resources to construct extractors, factories, and efficient prod facilities. It also doesn't take much to kill an ExE base, even if it was an ada T20 kit. T21 gear often take a lot of credits to build too (100b for my AgH+!), which require many large colonies to sustain. DGing for cash to build any Oly+ ship comes out to about 30 days of 18 hours a day dg camping.

Did I specify what to make cheaper? no I just said make the whole process cheaper ;
)

- Time/Manhours. Gear leading up to T20 take a ton of time to build. UZ ships are a prime example with 10 day builds. T21 gear turn the tables completely, requiring massive workforces to build quickly. Prod bases are extremely vulnerable for long periods of time. An example is the Tarkin's Augmenter, which has a 40billion manhour requirement.

My suggestion is really to fuel more start of the uni conflicts and prevent teams from dissolving if they get steamrolled by one of those "win 100%" super teams, combat would subside once everyone got settled, its more of a chance to allow teams without the assets to gain access to the commodities that make the uni turn



- Successful p2p teams are made up of large amounts of mostly developed accounts. You don't see many teams with only one character per person. You see such teams with 4 or 5 characters per person, assuming they just have one account. The requirement to have lots of high level players is a major deterrent to new players/teams that might try p2p.


Which means what exactly? You wont see teams fighting over entire expanses of turf, rather individual gals. My suggestion is about promoting the growth of new teams, not try and get them into established teams.

Max235 wrote:
The solution to helping new teams expand and carve territory of their own is pretty radical. You would need to drastically increase build speed and reduce construction costs, on everything. Basically anything that builds one item needs to build 10 to 50 items for the same exact cost.

So far I just have the suggestion idea, idk what the prices would be altered to, thatd be up to people more intelligent than I.

Everything needs to be destruct-able. The only place where you can truly be safe is being docked at an AI base. Yes, that means pvp in Earthforce and Celestial Gardens layers. PvP has to be everywhere. And every thing can be lost. This gives incentive to hurt people, and the threat of losing that HM+ discourages suicidal runs into weaker teams' galaxies.

This isnt eve, people spend ages amassing the wealth to gain such amazing ships. I want f2ps to be able to build in earthforce. I think you can already pvp in earthforce and celestial gardens.


The power level of all the ships needs to be consolidated. New players need a real fighting chance against the legacies of this game. Every class needs to be weak to, and strong against, every class in the game. There cannot be any massive advantages for any class over any other class (engi drones' radar vs seer).


Checks and balences are great, I dont think there should be total balence and I actually prefer the rock paper scissor combat balence, it promotes diversity ;)

Author:  Max235 [ Sat Sep 14, 2013 2:46 am ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

Since he wants people to come back and discuss this topic...

Neba wrote:
This isnt eve, people spend ages amassing the wealth to gain such amazing ships.


There has to be output. You have to lose stuff. Otherwise, as you said, players will "amass the wealth". And steamroll smaller players/teams easily with the wealth they cannot lose.

Neba wrote:
The fact that holding a galaxy would be more difficult would stem the flow of resources. Constant accumulation wont be as easy anymore.


The big teams have the accumulated wealth to annihilate any small team trying to vie with them for a single galaxy.

Neba wrote:
Checks and balences are great, I dont think there should be total balence and I actually prefer the rock paper scissor combat balence, it promotes diversity ;)


No it doesn't. It promotes using the counter every time, rather than promoting teamwork and coordination.

Author:  Griffin [ Sat Sep 14, 2013 10:30 am ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

You more or less hit the nail on the head with the economics of Star Sonata, I've spent a decent amount of time thinking about the snowballing effect and broken colony system that's prevalent in the game.

However, it's my opinion that we're so far into the rabbit hole that any economic changes nerfing these broken credit factories will lead to a mass exodus of the dedicated portion of the playerbase, specifically those making large sums of money. Because of this, I really do doubt the admins can or want to do anything to change the fundamentals of this game's economy for fear of how many players would quit as a result. This is the reason why I've been saying for awhile now that Star Sonata is broken at its roots, and will slowly become more stagnant over the years as C2 becomes even more outdated, and the devs simply will not have the money for any sort of polished C3.

Author:  lonedragon09 [ Sat Sep 14, 2013 11:43 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

Having read all of that (And a couple responses) i have to say i like the idea of making "Base Gear" cheaper. Im not leaning into ships/etc right now though.

Base gear as it stands just does not put a fight up against a squad that knows what they are doing. An to be honest an entire gal of ada gear can fall in a few hours to a good bvb. All that gear, lost.
Or worse, someone caps your gal because none of your team (Or not enough members) were logged in... This is usually worse because you not only lose all of your gear but there is nothing to scavenge...
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However, if base gear was cheaper and easy to make id be a bit more active trying to sit at the top and protect my galaxy...
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Now not that any one cares about the above point, but if they dont make it cheaper then at least beef bases in general...
T22 has come out and looking at the stats and possibilities a t20 gal just wont stand.

Author:  anilv [ Sun Sep 15, 2013 10:50 am ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

Base gear is relatively easy to replace now, since they reduced the manhours on everything.

Author:  Neba [ Wed Mar 13, 2019 1:59 am ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

Bump

Author:  anilv [ Wed Mar 13, 2019 11:32 am ]
Post subject:  Re: No More Fast-Track Endgame ~ more f2p to p2p conversion

Base gear is actually now essentially free. A lot has changed since 2013.

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