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Nerf Hulk Debris Trade Xp And $$?


Specops

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I hate to say it because its made leveling my JE so much easier, but debris from hulks gives really way too much trade xp and also perhaps gives a little too much cash to low level chars.

At one point I jumped from TL18 to TL22 when I traded around 5 stacks of debris to another char. Debris also gave me so much cash early on that, when my TE was struggling to support himself through hunting, just selling my JE's debris alone gave me enough cash to support both my chars.

The credits debris gives is not as out of whack as the xp issue. While very low level hulks have only several debris, part of the problem is that JE's and TS's, and I don't know about PS's, start with neutral RD faction, so that you can immediately go to very high level fields and (reverse?!) cherry pick the debris from those hulks, which range from 20-60 per.

Mission grinding sucks so to the extent that debris gathering is an alternative to it, I like it, but I still think it allows explorer chars to level a little too quickly. Edited by Specops
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Yes L1 Debris is a quick and easy route to trade levels for new explorers.

Time-for-time comparing a non-explorer to an explorer I would estimate explorers get 50% more trade levels in the same amount of playing time. If an explorer actively goes after every drop of debris before the fall off at around T25 they benefit greatly. Both non-explorer and explorer take advantage of double trade XP trading debris and loot with another player character.

However at the other end of the trade spectrum when debris is worthless for trade XP it becomes an abhorrent chore to strip that debris out of hulks. Non-explorers are still getting loot that is worth something in trade XP. Explorers just an anchor dragging on their play time.

May be in the full picture it balances out at the end and may be nothing is broken.
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Id say leave the trade xp on it how it is. Debris is good for getting your trade off the floor but after that it becomes junk.

I will say though that the sell price on debris needs a tweak. Having low level toons running around with fat wallets from selling a few stacks of level 1 debris seems a bit silly.

It would be nice if their was a use for this, maybe refine into refined junk, and used in a mid-high level pl/ml ammo comp, kinda like the junk-a-pult. It would give us a reason to mine it after we stop getting trade from it.
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Depends on your definition of a fat wallet. I have a scout that enjoyed the debris yet only has 1.4M credits @ OL65ish.

Devaluing the credit value of debris would make the chore of picking it out of hulks at 150 even more onerous. You'd have that anchor dragging on your play time and also be getting fewer credits for being a nice miner and bothering to take the debris. Oh wait, it would just be another reason not to mine the debris. It is a little appreciated fact of an economy that to have one you need credits to spend within the economy.

Too often we see players saying what amounts to fewer credits equating to a better economy. Sorry does not compute.

I don't doubt that an explorer that sold everything they got from either prospecting or combat looting would be richer than my scout. I've tended to put loot away for my other characters to print for recipes. However, any profession that takes the net approach of absolutely making credits will do just that. And the credits explorers may get from debris at their present value is a small drop in that possible ocean of income.
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If you look at all the posts about cherrypicking, the main complaint is that mid to high lvl miners don't take the time to pull the debris since it gives them so few credits and no XP. Reducing the amount of debris in roids may resolve both concerns.
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I think that on the issue of debris in hulks, that there should be varying levels of debris so explorers will still get XP for mining it as they get higher EL and prospect level. Probably fewer debris in hulks but higher levels of debris starting at L3 hulks. XP and credits adjusted by the level of debris involved. So you could have varying levels with names like wreckage slag, smashed wreckage, twisted metal, Debris, metallic debris, metal waste, etc.

I do like the idea mentioned by another poster that some of it be used in building. I'm all for new refines and recipes.
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if you did some digging you would find that bolgeril ammo uses debri..My PW runs junk-a-pults and 3 debri per stack of ammo...its not bad DPS and its got a fun graphic.

debri is like 40 to 70k a stack depending on negotiate and who sells it. PW starter zone can't make gobs of money too...so not sure i see it being a credit issue..its not that much really...

XP wise it turns to zero xp after trade 33...i just space it before it gets to my hold let others come find it....

as to mioners cherry picking..they are just being lazy and somewhat selfish....but thats a debate and opinion in itself.. I personally liked the despawning roids if you opened the window to loot patch they had dur9ing live....
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Yeah one of the main issues with debris is that because it is level 1 and because the higher level hulk fields spawn it in such high quantity (sometimes up to 40 or even more in a stack in a level 8/9 hulk).... if that field has no direct guardian (see bbw one mentioned above, even though thats not the one thats the problem due to faction preventing that one from being farmed easily by lowbies), its possible to take a low level prospector out to a high level hulk field and collect many stacks of debris in no time.

I have to concur that several things need to happen here, perhaps not all at the same time, but at least one or more of the three...

1. All hulk fields need to have a guardian of the same combat level relative to the strength of the field. This alone would eliminate 90 percent of the powerleveling problem for the "exploit" of an unguarded 8/9 being farmed for hundreds of debris by a lowbie in mere minutes.

2. All hulk fields need to have their timers set to a standard respawn that is significantly higher than it has been in some locations. Not all, but some spawn ridiculously fast (we just fixed a field yesterday because there were five level 8 fields on top of each other spawning every 30 minutes each creating a massively farmable situation similar to the gas clouds of glenn, only without the check of it being hard to pull in vast quantity due to level of the "ore")

3. Debris ought to either come in "leveled" flavors such as level 1 debris, level 4 debris, level 6 debris... and set to 1-3, 4-5, 6+ hulks respectively... or it just needs to be flat out removed as a continuous drop from the table, and made much more random. As it is debris is pretty much a 100 percenter as far as hulks go... practically every one has some.


Any of the above? Addresses that issue.
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Considering the rarity of hulkfields, the competition for them, the long respawn time and several being guarded by hilvl mobs I don't see it as a problem in the overall picture.

What is a problem is the occurence of Debris in L7-9 fields as hilvl Explorers don't want it and the lowlvl Explorers can abuse the vast amount of Debris per hulk. Just remove it altogether from those hilvl fields and the "problem" is solved (maybe replace with something else, of higher level so not prospectable by lowlvls).

The cash and exp for Debris from L1-6 fields is not out of balance. If there was an infinite supply it would be a different issue though.
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The only adjustment I think would help would be to prevent low level players from mining high level hulk fields. This should be an energy issue and not a 'we need to add 'guard mobs' to all hulk fields (which seems to be ignoring the power issue).

In live there was considerably less debris and there really were not hulk fields. Hulks were rare and scattered. Now I like hulk fields but there is no way that a level 20 Explorer should be able to mine 150 scrap from a level 7 hulk field (near sommerled).
[list]
[*]Changing the debris level and energy requirements, per level, may be the easy way to go.
[*]However it could also be easier (not sure on the code) to apply an energy level to all hulks in a specific area. Yes this would require the devs finding each hulk field (hopefully they have this listed) and applying this but this might cause less overall coding adjustments to be made (just a guess). The nice thing about this option is that if you applied a classification to each hulk field you could adjust the power requirements pretty easily, if needed, and for when adding new fields.
[/list] Edited by Crichton
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