I recently submitted the following to SOE. The important section is part 2, the calculations.

I know that we can then "trade" code bits, but that requires that EVERYONE learn and, more expensively, upgrade Decompile. Otherwise we have to trade items. And that'll just turn the game into a huge, mindnumbing marketplace, where everyone who doesn't want to code is trying to flog off their mission loot for (current experience indicates) excessively high prices. It's just becomes overly complex. This is a wire-fu/action game. Not a &^$£" "How to be a businessman" tutorial.

If this doesn't prove that the new system is broken, nothing will...

Part 1

Given your recent changes to the number of times you can compile code in the Matrix, I feel that you have unfairly prejudiced the Coders among us. We are already somewhat short-changed because:
1. The Crafting system in SWG, for example, is infinitely better than MxO, so there's no "fun" aspect to being a crafter. MxO crafting is WORK, but necessary work.
2. We are not a combat class, so are limited in our gameplay, since the game is heavily combat focused (granted you can be more than one class, but only if you have the info and code-bits and the time to develop all the other ability trees).
3. There is no way to obtain code-bits except from Decompiling items (so we can't go "mine" them or anything).

Now that you have decreased the number of times we can compile a crafted code, you have removed the supply of code bits from the game. In fact, you need to put in 2/3 times the number of code bits you can get out when you craft something.

I think that you have seriously prejudiced this class, and request that you increase the number of times you can compile a piece of code.

Part 2

I went and did a few calculations:
  Given 5-15 decompileable items per mission (only if you do solos);
  Given 3-5 code bits per item
You can obtain an average of 40 code bits per mission (solo) and about 20 bits grouped.

An average item (3-5 CB's per frag, 4-6 frags per item) requires 20 bits. Therefore, for every mission you run, you get enough bits to make ONLY 1/2 ITEMS!!!!

Given that it takes around 20 missions on average for me to obtain a level I'm able to create only 30 (20 * 1.5) codes per level.

That is, frankly, ridiculous. It means that you can't really do crafting as a profession, because doing so would require making a whole bunch more items than that. This does NOT promote a vibrant economy.

You know, I am reading all this about code bits and low level decompiling and the market and time sinks, and economy and everything else related to a change made without player feedback. My greatest frustration is the complete other end of the spectrum. Coding items, expecially high level items, requires far more investment, in time and resources, than simple low level coding.

My question I pose to the bright DEV that decided to reduce the compiled quantity upon each successful application of my skill, is, are you going to increase the rate of fragment drops of the red variety by a factor of five? At present, the timesink investment of an hour or more in Hampton Green (mindnumbingly, I might add, for any level 50 coder to choose a grey mob and cap them... it takes longer for the spawn to regen than the actual elimination of everything present) to obtain one, I repeat, Walrus, one, clothing patch.

Now, it could be assumed, in previous days, that this patch held significant value, for it permitted a coder to cobble together something complex. A coder would be able to make 15 items from that one hour's commitment. Most of us do not get paid for our services, but offer them up for free, as a kindness to our brothers, sisters, and friends.

One fifth, Walrus. One fifth of the return on our investment. Who decided that rare frags should now require FIVE TIMES the investment to achieve the same results?

If drop rates on red frags increase to five times what they are now, I will submit it is no concern. But try hunting the Bathory for the red frag needed to compile tactics booster 2.0. Them make only three of them, which last for only..what? Half an hour? (10 minutes per booster?) So now, consumables require an incredible timesink to assist the lower levels in terms of dealing with the current drudgery of missioning. So when someone asks for 15 tactics boosters, and they now recieve 3, they hate the coder. Where is the balance, and the payoff, for the investment of time and money to code the skills, level the skills, obtain the original blueprint, seek the rare frag, ensure a sufficient quantity of non rare frags are available, and then time to actually stand around performing the actual operation. Far simpler just to tell them to go hunt.

The DEVS took what was extremely balanced in terms of the time investment and the cost investment, for the extreme lack of balance we now must endure.

The question you posed earlier - should one be able to buy something for $200 info and sell it for $400 info right away? Certainly not... But obtaining anything in a mission, at no cost, and selling it immediately, at a profit, where is the balance in that? I assume the time investment. By that thought process, perhaps reducing all loot by 80% to compensate for recieving something for nothing is a warranted change.

Return the compiled items to 15 at a time. I have seen so many changes to the coding system since Beta, when you could go to the loading area and compile 15 consumables at once. Just to make tactics boosters requires 10 minutes or more to simply push the green button repeatedly. Free bits? That is the least of the issues we coders face. And of all things.... bits? Are bits the unbalancing concern for the economy?

Code compiling and item creation are passive skills. Why screw with a passive skill in the first place?

Now I am just ranting, so I shall release the thread.

Message Edited by Friar on 09-06-2005 11:28 AM
Message edited by Friar on 09/06/2005 07:28:34.

Similar thing happened to me. As a Coder, I'm always looking to increase my library. When I found these things on the Marketplace, I purchased one ($i 1 million). Decompiled it, crafted a whole bunch of them (about three codes) and compiled a set. Got to my first hackable computer, popped the pill and... nothing happened.

Submitted /ccr to SOE and (as usual) got nothing in response. Eventually put it up on my faction's boards only to be told that these items had been removed from the game.

Way to go Devs... remove something, make it useless, but still leave it in the game.

I think that the seller had found out a similar thing and was just WAITING to get rid of his items (at whatever profit he could make). You know who you are. In my opinion you are less than sewer filth.

Personally, even though it has cost me $i 1 million (a pretty fair smack for a level 25 char) and a whole ton of code bits (even rarer these days), I'm certainly not going to try to pass it off onto some other poor sucker. I'll just live in the (almost certainly vain hope) that the Devs will recify this mess, and return my losses (arising directly out of their carelessness) to me.

Message Edited by weaselgrrl on 09-07-2005 10:04 AM
Message edited by weaselgrrl on 09/07/2005 06:04:15.