New coding and a hidden change

gslavik

walrus, while I see your point, I do not agree ... at least add a bit vendor ...

also, don't forget that it costs us infor to craft things ... so it
balances back. unless you craft and decompile red pill specials ...

Regulus

u forgot the hidden hacker buff.

KernelPanic

ReguIus wrote:
u forgot the hidden hacker buff.

See the title, coding.

WyPhy

The problem with going to low level areas to farm npc's is that it
takes away the npc's for the newbie that needs to kill them, for
collector items, trying a new ability, grinding a bit of $i, or
whatever other reason they need that low lvl npc.

After reading this, it doesn't appear that you get a 1 for 1 amount of bits back.

Prices are going to rise substantially, as getting bits just became a lot harder, only getting 1 bit from consumables, crazy.
Lucky for me, I sell all the consumables that I loot as the higher lvl ones bring in
some good $i. I also sell all the weapons I loot, unless I
don't have it in the archive already, I've got 99% of them though.

The only things that get decomped are clothes and stakes/bullets/water, which now only give 1 bit, since they are consumables.

I don't meet too many npc's that these are effetive on anymore (even
when I do, I don't use them), and they only sell for 1 $i each, making
them completely worthless.

As I said before, for some reason, when things are changed in an MMO, they change them too much.

The Dev's know they need/want to balance some aspect of the game, but
for some reason, they fail to see where they need to draw the line.

Which generates a lot of hostility towards the people in charge.

You'd think they'd figure that out.

'Gee, everyone gets pissed off every time we change something, why is that?'

'I don't know, we just took out 80% of the effectivness to balance it and make it fair.'

I understand that you will never please the entire population at once.

I understand that some changes are required for the good and balance of the game as a
whole, but for (insert your favorite deity)'s sake, look at how much you're
changing something and be sure it's not too much.

(I can just imagine the 'stun' changes, changing the timer from 30
seconds to 3 seconds, then all the Hackers are super-pissed and the
Dev's can't understand why when so many wanted a change to stun because it
was overpowered)

Message Edited by WyPhy on 09-01-2005 10:50 PM
Message edited by WyPhy on 09/01/2005 19:50:05.

WGAnubis1

Frankly, if you were smart and actually "horded" bits sense day one, you should be even concerned about this. I have a backup supply of 10 stacks of each on my mule account, and unkown number of stacks on my main account. Frankly I found it way to easy to get bits. Does this mean we have to be smarter about what we make? you bet your sweet butt it does. As coders, we are also merchants, we should have our own system of figuring out how much we put it and how much we get out. Some math actually can produce the formula for consumables on how much you should sell a stack to get any kind of return.

Here is an old formula that I used to us, now with the new set up I have to rethink:

Frags: 90 $info when tree fully developed.

A = total cost of frag production
B = Red Frag if present. I personally base it on 1000 a frag.
C = Cost for creating the 15 recipe block
Prepped = ready to make 15 copies/ How much its going to cost just to make the 15 block
Compiling Cost= Obvous, how much its going to cost to compile each item.
Profit = How much you want to make off of the item

[#of Frags X 90 = A + B = total] + C = Prepped + Compiling cost + profit = grand total.

The above formula is really for conumables though but can be applied to the other items.

So now you cant throw your resourses around like its an infinite supply, and all you have to do is go decompile some consumable tools to get more bits. No now you have to be merchants, come up with a formula to get any profit and start to figure things out. Does this mean the price of a conumable pill stack is going to go up? Maybe, maybe not. Depends on who you got it from.

But remember, Decompile everything, even if its a pain, decompile it if your not going to use it. Dont sell it, dont recycle it, decompile it. That way that useless item now has a purpose down the road.

WyPhy

This 'can't decomp while another tool is open' crap needs to go.

I keep it open so I can check whether I've got an item in my code archive without having to tab-out to my published catalog.

I shouldn't have to chose whether to sell a higher value item so I can
level an ability or decomp it for 4-5 bits because bits have become a
rare commodity.

I don't have a 'mule account' as I can't (nor should I be required) to
pay for 2 accounts to use functions of the game. Can't have my alt that
is now on the same server as my main logged in at the same time either.

Nor do I have room in my archive to store a boatload of bits.

I have about 2/3 of the abilities and some other old items like letters and such.

Lets not forget that we need 32 spaces for red frags too.

Granted, some are not used as much as others but that doesn't change the fact that we need them all.

Prices will go up some right away, as people know it's going to be
harder to get bits, but when the players archives begin to get thin on
bits, prices will go higher, as the 'haves' will sell them to the 'have
nots' who will in turn pass that on to the consumer.

Was the system unbalanced before, yes.

Should they have made such huge changes to the system, no.

And I stand by my statement that stakes/water/bullets are now worthless.

1 bit or 1 $i each = worthless.

Fozy

Well, I went in and coded up an item and then decompiled it and I found
that I didn't get all the bits back that I required to make the item
based on the number of charges I was given. So there is acutally
a cost of coding up items in that you don't get those same bits
back. This is a far cry from making extra bits and something
we'll have to get used to I guess.

WGAnubis1

you dont understand what a mule account is. We have 3 slots, use one as a mule. You need a friend to help you transfer items over to it.

For those letters, if you want to save there contents, take a photo of them and delete the orginal. I can say confinitly that they are useless now and only taking up space.

I think the way the bits are now are balanced, there no longer a so common item that walking down a street a MA will see im in coder mode and will ask if i want his bits and frags. Have to be smart about what you do now with the bits.

As for having 2/3's of the abilites, thats your perogative but i dont see how that affects the fact you cant have a ton o bits now.

Bits, frankly, have now become a currency over night. They are now viable in trade. "Hey I'll sell you this hand gun for 2 stacks of 4." for an example.

Message Edited by WGAnubis on 09-01-2005 09:39 PM
Message edited by WGAnubis1 on 09/01/2005 20:39:31.

WyPhy

I understand exactly what a mule is.

Personally, I think it's cheating.

I need 2/3 of the abilities because I get bored doing the same thing over and over.

I need to be able to do different things.

Before I started MxO, I played SWG and I had 4 different characters, each did something different.

I had a couple that were 'mains' but I played them all.

I get bored killing npc's over and over and over, hmm, kinda like the
MxO mission system. Coding isn't a good alternative to fighting for
xp.

That's part of the reason I came to MxO, the ability to change skills at a moments notice.

If that functionality wasn't in the game, I
would either not have come here to start with, or I would have 3-4
alts, same as SWG.

Everyone still has a 500 item limit in the code archive. When it must be shared as it is currently, it fills up quickly.

I really think they should have made stacks 50 or 100, especially when
the game started, since the personal inventory was 1/2 what it is now.

We should be able to get back what we put into the code, which
means 1 charge for each frag required, excepting red frags.

That is balance.

Getting back 1/4-1/2 of what was required to create it isn't.

If they want to keep the consumables at 20 charges, fine, but the
current 'one bit per decomped consumable' is still less than what's
required to make them. (Though maybe not the lowest tier ones)

RockyB

I heven't tried this yet, but I know code frags used to cost aroun 90-150 info to write. Now the 'insta-code' has been put in place, are you still getting charged for the individual frags as well?

KernelPanic

WGAnubis wrote:

Frankly, if you were smart and actually "horded" bits sense day one, you should be even concerned about this. I have a backup supply of 10 stacks of each on my mule account, and unkown number of stacks on my main account. Frankly I found it way to easy to get bits.

Who said I didn't have bits? This isn't a question of what a person may or may not have, it's a question of removing the "resource gathering" from the game. When I crafted I would spend 4-5 hours making literally thousands of frags, and hundreds of abilities. In other MMO's you have resource gathering, so you're only limit on resources is how much you can gather. Now our gathering method has gone from unlimited, to a massive time sink, and relying on drops.

It's the same argument a beaten wife gives: "Well I'll be smarted and better next time, I won't get him angry." The simple fact is the husband shouldn't beat his wife, and SOE should not go around half-hazardly blowing up systems they don't fully grok.

WGAnubis1

RockyB, i cant remember if I saw money being taken out as the frags were written, but when the tree is fully loaded to the point before you can specialize what you want to do it costs as little as 90 in info.

Well WhyPhy, thats your peragative to think that mules are cheating but you have a majority of players on not only this game, but other MMO disagreeing with you, not to mention the fact that the devs have made no move to stop it or say its cheating of exploiting.

Coding isnt meant to be a XP source, its meant to used to mainly to obtain $info and to create fresh copies of items and consumables that you run across.

Well they didnt make the stacks 50 or 100, I dont know why, im not part of the orginal team that decided 20 was a good number.

With the execption of consumables, are you really going to sell 15 of the same gun/shirt/etc? You know the phrase you have to spend money to make money? Well now they are making it so it applies more so then ever for the coder.

ZenShin

Well, I know what I'm going to be doing now.... craft stuff for me only. If anyone else wants stuff they'll have to provide all the CB's, Red Frags, $i cost and profit margin before it becomes worth doing.

I understand Walrus' point about not being able to just create stuff out of thin air. However, what he failed to take into account (as mentioned) above is that:

There is no other source of obtaining code bits. Sure, you can decompile items, but first you've got to get them.

MxO isn't really the kind of game where we'd EXPECT a normal economy (see below).

What that then comes down to is:

You farm the tiny mobs, for hours on end, getting bored out of your skull, and denying those mobs to the low-levels (and then, like so many others, out of boredom and frustration, leave the game), or

You charge outrageous prices for your items, because that's the only way to do it (thereby prompting people to do their own coding, resulting in no economy anyway).

I can understand wanting an economy in a game like SWG (or at least the way it was before the, seemingly endless, Jedi parade [but that's another rant]). You're building a real, living, breathing world there (or at least attempting to - no more Jedi rants, promise).

MxO isn't (and in my opinion, shouldn't be) like that. Be serious... do you think programmers in the real world wander around ganking the street rats so that they can go to the office that afternoon and finish their program??? Of course not. It's ridiculous. They just write the code. They're not little puzzle makers trying to put tiny little blocks together, and neither should we have to.

They use their time and experience to write decent programs, so should we. I'd far rather have to give up time and XP in order to craft items (just as a suggestion, not necessarily a good one, just an indication that there ARE, believe it or not, other ways to do things). Or, better yet, give the Data Miner tree the ability to "Mine" code bits. There's not much point to it otherwise, and I'd be happy to see a use for that tree. Or maybe they're going to nerf that one too (as if they could nerf it any more). After all, aren't you getting $i for nothing there? Pulling out of the air?

I don't want to have to spend HOURS chasing down code bits to do my crafting. I have to spend HOURS doing missions to get a head in levels as it is (and NO, you don't get that many code bits/items on a mission, particularly when you team). Given that I have a life, and can only spend 10-15 hours a week on this game, I want to spend it having fun, not having to grind away to get anywhere.

If they want to go ahead and make all Armoured, Shielded, Enhanced items compile only 2/3 times, fine, makes sense. But, unless you're going to give us another way to obtain code-bits, at least leave us the ability to built bit libraries from the basic items.

Call me bitter? Fine. I am. I've never seen a more poorly implemented idea in my life. My CAT can do better than this. Rant over. There's not really much point to it anyway. SOE will do whatever they like and sods to the rest of us. I am beginning to see why so many people have left the game... pity, because as has been said so many times before... it has great potential.

Message Edited by ZenShin on 09-03-2005 04:34 PM
Message edited by ZenShin on 09/03/2005 15:34:27.

Friar

Rocky -- as far as I can tell, we're not getting charged to code frags anymore. at least I'm not ATM.

Canbus

Zenhshin pretty much hit the nail on the head regarding the red fragment farming and I personally agree. The other sentences, I couldn't have said it any better myself.