Game balance, concerns, issues, rants, and so forth. Macro's and issues with them being used.

[iamme]

There was another forum post here along these same lines about mining and mechanics and botting and looting and such that was locked.

 

https://forum.enb-emulator.com/index.php?/topic/8879-war-declared-on-miners-new-solution-needed

 

As I understand it, dev's worry about inflation of the game economy and therefor the destruction thereof and so.....there needs to be balance.

 

BUT, not all ores are "useful" just as not all loot is useful.

 

So, why do we see the need to treat mining any different from combat?

 

Let me explain - I take my PW into a system....say.....ant......I can kill and kill and kill np and loot! This does not put anything into the economy of the game other than me getting - credits - TL - CL------ Correct?

 

Currently there is really nothing to spend credits on, no need to. People will normally build stuff for free, even if you dont have the comps.

 

There is alot more trading items for items than anything.......Think trading feathers for items.

 

But I digress, People, miners, worry a lot about guardians.......why should i have to do combat in order to mine. I agree why? PW's dont have to mine to do combat.

 

Mining gets you --- EL and TL

 

Combat gets you - CL and TL

 

Trading gets you - TL

 

Whats wrong with that? Nothing.

 

So, guardians are in place to "prevent" macro miners......Sorry not going to happen. I can create a macro within about 1 hour that will mine, combat, log out, log in, talk to you, sell, trade run, jobs, explorer, combat, get faction, you name it. 

 

No way to prevent cheaters, they will always find a way......just like hackers.

 

The game works fine as is, guardians just make it retard for miners to mine who are low on CL. In live it was really really easy to be  10/50/50 and the same goes today.

 

PW's can be 50/21/50 easily. Volts in ant die easy, hell you can kill them without any ammo - shield sap them to death and nova ---- so......this easy mode for combat we see no "guardian" for combat. Nothing to prevent macro hunters, why? Because there is enough to go around and then some. 

 

Simple to fix, Open the areas like Roc - Homestead - or -  place more fields in remote areas OR rotate field placement. The gas clouds at glenn - make them lvl 5 one day and move the lvl 8 and 9 to ....say....Mars or ABG........just make it random. People macro to lvl and for faction. Once they hit 150 it's usually done with, unless they are hardcore and want to max every skill......then thats lvl 290 for most.

 

In conclusion - the mechanics of mining are fine. The solution of placing guardians is just wrong....its forcing a group of non-combat players to play combat.

 

Kingdud and Stanig made good points. in the thread listed above.

 

You dont have trade routes littered with guardians or job terminals that explode when you pick a job. You can go all the way to 150 by mining or trading or combat alone and you should be able to do that without having to do the other things.......thats the nature of the game. Traders trade - warriors fight - explorers mine

 

Why does it need to be balanced? It doesn't ---- If everything was balanced we would all role the same toon and play the same way and do the same things. Imbalance creates communities and groups and guilds. 

 

EnB is a  great game as is.....as was intended by the original developers. You guys do a great job and have to listen to us all the time when you....the net7 staff....provide us a great game for FREE TOTALLY FREE!!!!!!!

 

My point, don't solve a problem by creating a problem. - I assure you there are far more trade job macro's running and trade route macro's running than mining macro's. What happens if i create a macro that does nvp to fen trade route say for 3 hours, logs off for 6 or 7 hours and repeats? i could be 150 in no time and rich! What is being done with the mining is the same as moving the positions of the gates every time you enter a system and you have to re-explorer the area to do your trade run.

 

ACTool is the program people use to macro the most, as well as hotkey. Change the colors of the roids / gas clouds that alone would prevent objectvar's in ACTool or force the macro writer to re-write his macro everytime he wanted to macro. There are better ways to solve an issue. You just have to think like a macro'er.

 

Just my 2 cents!

[Spa[IS]]

From what I have seen and followed up regarding macros, most players I chatted to are using attended macros as they know they will be banned if they use them unattended. G19 keyboards have a macro function built into them as I discovered when I chatted a player using summon which I thought was not the normal, and he told me he was using a G19 keyboard

 

I have no problem with this as I believe it is less damaging than multi logins with 1 person running more than one toon at once, to me it is wrong being able to lvl more than one toon at a time

 

Changing colours of roids will not work, the code I have seen doesn't use colours and the latest code I have been able to see has a log in in-case of failure (guessing some-one setting up an unattended macro)

 

I have been studying the code of the macros from ACTools and I know how to defeat them, but I don't see attended macroing as a problem. Didn't know about Hotkey, going to research it

[Ulyydian[IS]]

Let me clear something up for you.

 

I Just recently finished up changing the prices on EVERY ORE in the game to be in line with what is in the prima guide.

So with that the prices of everything else will change as well.

 

The ores that were worth nothing will not be worth more then the ones who had greatly inflated values.

People will find that out real quick when they try and use their old favorites and find the prices have changed greatly.

 

Overall the prices of things have increased.

 

Some people were using lv 9 ores that went for 25K to make asburd profits from items selling in the millions.

Well now those ores are about 5x more costly.  Average price for lv 9 ore is now about 113K.

 

Likewise the ores that used to go for 450K a pop now are back down to 113k or close to.

So the people who used to go after the most profitable ores will find it harder.

 

It is now VERY good to loot ALL ores because overall it will generate more profit per run as the prices have been evened out.

This should also help reduce cherry pickers as there is really no incentive to it anymore.

 

As far as your macro goes, yes, they are possible, but something I have found out that if you watch logs and patterns there is one thing you can do.

If the players can bot macros and runs, then we should be able to make automatic tests, yes?

 

If they don't pass the test then their engines get killed until they respond.

I don't care what macro you have, if you don't have any engines you aren't doing anything.

This of course will only affect those who are cheating the system.

 

I'm extremely proficient at macro making myself and I can macro with the best of them.

I can also find counters to that as well if people are abusing it.

It's all about how you do it.

 

These are just ideas mind you, but don't make it out like we can't do anything, because we can.

We are also working on fixing alot of issues and making the game more fun.

It just takes time as changes take awhile to do.

 

Thanks for the info about ACTool, I'll look into that as I have not used it.

[Terrell [BT]]

Thanks for the information on the updates for mining and the ores prices.  Sounds pretty good.

 

On orefield guardians, I don't have a problem with them, as long as the field isn't swarming with them, where I'm constantly fighting, or nearly constantly fighting.  Some of the fields in Aragoth Prime have too many guardians last I checked.  Since any hit taken stops mining, while fields should be guarded, the number of guardians should be fairly low (depending on the size of the field).  They should also, IMO, have slow respawn rates, and low altruism.  Aggressiveness can vary, but they shouldn't have both high aggressiveness & good scan range.

 

The OP's mention of rotating field placement, I can support, at least for those ones that aren't specifically tied to something.  The fields that are near Asteroid Navs, navs that essentially have resource or field in their names, wouldn't make sense without their resource fields at those locations.  Those fields, ore, gas, or hulk, that aren't "tied" to a nav or a mission could be periodically moved.  If it's possible to have fields spawn in random locations, that would be a nice addition to the game as well.  I'd say maybe 1/3 to 1/2 of the fields, that aren't always in the same location would be nice.  Fields that are off the beaten path are also a good thing, it encourages explorers to free warp to look for them, also encourages explorers to equip scan buffs, and max their scan skill.

 

To a degree I'm okay with trading items for other items, but credits should be the primary means of trade.  If there is a way to fix that in the economy, it would be good to do so, IMO.   Rare items being traded for other similarly rare items sounds fine, but in most cases we should be bringing credits or parts plus build costs, for most of our items. 

 

Mining should tend to tie into building, but I don't expect all ores to have some use.  Having some that are simply vendor food is fine.  They could have use in builds in the future, but vendoring for trade XP & credits is still some use. 

[iamme]

Let me clear something up for you.

 

I Just recently finished up changing the prices on EVERY ORE in the game to be in line with what is in the prima guide.

So with that the prices of everything else will change as well.

 

The ores that were worth nothing will not be worth more then the ones who had greatly inflated values.

People will find that out real quick when they try and use their old favorites and find the prices have changed greatly.

 

Overall the prices of things have increased.

 

Some people were using lv 9 ores that went for 25K to make asburd profits from items selling in the millions.

Well now those ores are about 5x more costly.  Average price for lv 9 ore is now about 113K.

 

Likewise the ores that used to go for 450K a pop now are back down to 113k or close to.

So the people who used to go after the most profitable ores will find it harder.

 

It is now VERY good to loot ALL ores because overall it will generate more profit per run as the prices have been evened out.

This should also help reduce cherry pickers as there is really no incentive to it anymore.

 

As far as your macro goes, yes, they are possible, but something I have found out that if you watch logs and patterns there is one thing you can do.

If the players can bot macros and runs, then we should be able to make automatic tests, yes?

 

If they don't pass the test then their engines get killed until they respond.

I don't care what macro you have, if you don't have any engines you aren't doing anything.

This of course will only affect those who are cheating the system.

 

I'm extremely proficient at macro making myself and I can macro with the best of them.

I can also find counters to that as well if people are abusing it.

It's all about how you do it.

 

These are just ideas mind you, but don't make it out like we can't do anything, because we can.

We are also working on fixing alot of issues and making the game more fun.

It just takes time as changes take awhile to do.

 

Thanks for the info about ACTool, I'll look into that as I have not used it.

I apologize if i offended you. I only meant that any counter that can be put into place there is always a counter.....it's the nature of the beast. Look at mmo glider and wow

 

Sure wow had them shut down with a lawsuit but thats what it took. Attended Macro's, Unattended Macro's, Multiboxing ,........imo is not fair. But will i do what I can within the bounds of the rules and game limits sure! I do not unattend macro and never have. I will macro as i eat a sandwhich at my desk, for example. Nothing wrong with that. BUT when you have people running a macro for 4 days in a row none stop now thats an issue. OR even 1 hour unattended is bad bad bad. - Also, G19's are awesome!

 

I have coded macro's and servers for years C++, C, Java, Pearl, MySQL, Python, PHP, HTML, HTML5, CCS3, Lua, Visual Basic, WSH, XML, Visual C#, Microsoft small basic, you name it i have used it or been a part of it's use. Though mind you i am retired now and out of the loop, but I still know a little. So, I understand your point that there is alot devs and gm's can do and i agree, i only meant it in that some somewhere is always looking for a loop hole and if there is one someone will find it, and you cant be on guard 24/7 and enjoy life and a dev or gm........thats just insane......I know i have been there. There is only so much you can do without ruining the game. For instance ACtool plays the game just like a player would......if written properly. You can add all kinds of loops and constants and self messages.....so forth.

 

Let me give you an example of an ACTool macro

// This line is necessary to select the proper window
SetActiveWindow Earth & Beyond

delay 7 sec //Delay for screen popup

Loop 1000000 //How many roids you wanna mine!
keys x //Selects nearest object - hopefully a roid
delay 1 sec //Delay for recognition
keys n //Selects second object in case you targeted a nav point by mistake
delay 1 sec //Delay for pathing
keys q //Warps to roid
delay 15 sec //Delay for warp to
MousePos 1852, 805 //Position of prospect button
delay 1 sec //Delay for button to pop up
leftclick //Click prospect button
delay 1 sec //Dealy for window to popup
MousePos 1715, 401 //Position of asset
leftclick //Activates mining of assest
delay 10 sec //Delay for tractor beam 
MousePos 1715, 401 //Position of asset
leftclick //Activates mining of assest
delay 10 sec //Delay for tractor beam
end 

Now I am no hardcore every day developer but i know enough to know what i am looking at and how to help with coding issues or make changes, so forth. I have done, from scratch, applications in C++ but i had a team and help. Never games mind you but here is a simple, very simple, macro for mining. Now my goal here is to ask other than sending a tell, how could you tell someone was using this to mine with? Further lets say....well the times are exact and the movement of the mouse to its position is instant......no problem. Easy to fix. You simply use a command called dragto....granted you are not dragging but the mouse will flow from point a to b just like a human. Also the timing of the delays can be totally random from instant to 0.1 seconds, to unlimited mins/hours/days/years - so that each time the macro loops the timings will be totally random.

 

Now trust me ACTool can do some very very trick stuff! You can get way way more complex, but i hope the above code helps to solve an issue or helps you devs in some form.

Edited November 19, 2013 by iamme

[Daath]

 

I Just recently finished up changing the prices on EVERY ORE in the game to be in line with what is in the prima guide.

So with that the prices of everything else will change as well.

 

The ores that were worth nothing will not be worth more then the ones who had greatly inflated values.

People will find that out real quick when they try and use their old favorites and find the prices have changed greatly.

 

Overall the prices of things have increased.

 

Some people were using lv 9 ores that went for 25K to make asburd profits from items selling in the millions.

Well now those ores are about 5x more costly.  Average price for lv 9 ore is now about 113K.

 

Likewise the ores that used to go for 450K a pop now are back down to 113k or close to.

So the people who used to go after the most profitable ores will find it harder.

 

I don't see this.. I just checked my L9 ores at a vendor and they are offering 400 - 2000 credits per ore... If their value has increased I just don't see it.. And where does one "buy" such ores? Your reply implies we can buy them somewhere.  Where is this mystical and magical place?

[Terrell [BT]]

I think he was talking about the value of ores, on the market.  You cannot, as far as I know, currently buy ores from vendors.  Vendors; however do buy them from you.  Last that I'm aware of that happening was in the original game.  There is a vendor, in Alpha Centauri, that looks like he would sell ores, but last I looked he wasn't (he had the right banners for it).  I can't remember if he was in Margesi Station or Adriel Mining.  

 

How much an ore costs on the market likely depends on it's level, how common or rare it is, and what it's used in.  Astral Glass, which is refined from Astralite, should be expensive on the open market.  It was a rare L9 ore in the original game, it's used in several components to make desirable items.  The Sturdy Solar Panel used in the Balefire line of reactors, Fiery line of shields, and other items rewarded for completing Zach's missions in the original game would be an example though there are others.  IMO; however, the amount of effort to make a SSP was a bit high relative to the usefulness of the items it was used in, I think that the Fiery shields were it's best use, but others may vary in opinion.  I thought that the Balefire reactors were decent, but for the effort I needed to make them, in EnB Origins, it wasn't worth it on my PE.  Even in circumstances where the PT wasn't around to make the Progen reactors, and the Progen reactors that a JE could make were limited and such a reactor would likely be appreciated.

[Daath]

How can he have set the value of ores on the Market?  That is supply/demand based, more importantly it is buyer driven, which means if a person will pay 1M for a refined ore or 100K that is between the buyer and the seller... No dev can set that...

 

And if this is simply the lowering of sale value of refined ores to vendors that is probably appropriate to some degree, but for those of us that play primarily prospectors this will seem like a credit nerf.. Since JE/TS/PS doesn't gain much from selling loot but from refined ore I hope you kept this in mind as their primary source of credits. Although Credits as a whole have lost their value in general if you are going to nerf the ore sales value at vendors I would expect a similar nerf to the Loot sales value because that is where MOST of the credits are made...

 

If someone is mining ores, refining them, building components then building items to sell those for profit and making massive profit you have to consider the time it takes to do all of that.. sale value of core items, weapons and devices needs to be brought into that scale to prevent people from doing this kind of thing on a Macro to make credits will also bring down the sale value of all vendor sold items.  Which is a massive endeavor and could be construed as a massive nerf of all credit making methods. For those of us who do not macro be careful you are not nerfing everything for the sake of a few people who abuse things. 

[iamme]

Let me clear something up for you.

 

I Just recently finished up changing the prices on EVERY ORE in the game to be in line with what is in the prima guide.

So with that the prices of everything else will change as well.

 

The ores that were worth nothing will not be worth more then the ones who had greatly inflated values.

People will find that out real quick when they try and use their old favorites and find the prices have changed greatly.

 

Overall the prices of things have increased.

 

Some people were using lv 9 ores that went for 25K to make asburd profits from items selling in the millions.

Well now those ores are about 5x more costly.  Average price for lv 9 ore is now about 113K.

 

Likewise the ores that used to go for 450K a pop now are back down to 113k or close to.

So the people who used to go after the most profitable ores will find it harder.

 

It is now VERY good to loot ALL ores because overall it will generate more profit per run as the prices have been evened out.

This should also help reduce cherry pickers as there is really no incentive to it anymore.

 

As far as your macro goes, yes, they are possible, but something I have found out that if you watch logs and patterns there is one thing you can do.

If the players can bot macros and runs, then we should be able to make automatic tests, yes?

 

If they don't pass the test then their engines get killed until they respond.

I don't care what macro you have, if you don't have any engines you aren't doing anything.

This of course will only affect those who are cheating the system.

 

I'm extremely proficient at macro making myself and I can macro with the best of them.

I can also find counters to that as well if people are abusing it.

It's all about how you do it.

 

These are just ideas mind you, but don't make it out like we can't do anything, because we can.

We are also working on fixing alot of issues and making the game more fun.

It just takes time as changes take awhile to do.

 

Thanks for the info about ACTool, I'll look into that as I have not used it.

?? How would you effect the price of ore?????

 

Its a player generated market - ores are not sold by vendors so a player can just give away the ores or sell them for 100000000 credits........

 

Or, is there now a ore vendor?

[Terrell [BT]]

To lower the price of any ore on the player market, the best way to do so is to make it more common than it was before.  To raise the price on the player market either make the ore rarer, increase the demand for the ore or both.  Increasing the supply of any particular ore should lower the price that buyers are willing to play.  It's far less precise than setting the price that a vendor accepts any particular ore for. 

 

Now that you mention that I was likely mistaken that he meant the player market.  Vendors buying ores, the dev can set.  If faction with a base's owners affects prices then he can have a range based on your faction, assuming it's not too low to land on any particular base.  Negotiate skill, for the Scout, would also apply.

 

 

[Lanzo]

Macros are a symptom, not a disease. Depending on the field, I've found guardians to be completely reasonable, ineffective, or just plain annoying (I'm looking at you Uranus belts). I am glad for two things:

1. Ulyydian is here! Yay! I used ebiia ALL THE TIME when I was playing. Finally you can bring some sense to the nonsense values there are for some items in the game! yay!

 

2. He made the ore prices go up. This makes it easier for me to keep EL and TL even when I decide to do go mining instead of do trade runs to lvl my TL.

 

Now, onto the meat of the subject, if the economy of the game is an issue...let me copy-pasta something I wrote in another thread (which I won't link here for ~reasons~) about the economy:

 

1. A dynamic economy with an economic interface that copies/mimics/works just like EVE online's. What do I mean by that?
   1. I'd say go full monty with it, everything in the game must be built unless it is a drop-only, non-manufacturable item. Vendors, as we know them, will be gone and replaced with a market hub, where people will list their ores, which others will then buy and make components with, and those will be re-listed and used to build items.
   2. This also means separating out the star bases from being universally linked, to being local points in space. The market will and SHOULD vary from station to station. Keeping them 'even-ish' will be the job of the trader classes.
   3. A solution to the explore XP problem: Trade runs done with normal trade goods only give trade XP. Trade runs done with other items (comps, weps, shields, etc) bought low and sold high at another station, give both trade *and* explore XP
   4. A small (1-2%) transaction tax on every buy or sell transaction on the market will go a long way to keeping inflation in check.
2. To keep players playing you need an un-winnable game. EVE can't be won, LoL can't be won, WoW certainly can be, hence their constant cycle of expansions. The end-game mechanics need to be changed so the game cannot be won, and there's a reason to worry about how pretty your character is, or how much style you do something with. At this point, I'm scratching my head as to how, but this *must* be done or you will fail.

Those two things are the major pain points for E&B as it stands now. Given the state of the game client, I think it would be EXTREMELY hard to have a dynamic economy put in. *sigh* pipe dream. But yea, make a game with an economy where players have to create everything for each other and then give them a mechanism to perform trades offline, NOT USING AN AUCTION HOUSE FORMAT so they don't need to interact with each other for commerce to happen, and you've done yourself a huge favor, you've created an economy that will self-stabilize and given every single item in the game a reason for existing and a dynamically determined price. Dynamic prices in dynamic locations are the bane of macros, until they learn to OCR prices and 'think'. Which can be done. But snap that's hard.

 

*shrug* I'm sure there's some gold in my green colored slime of ideas.

[Daath]

Macros are a symptom, not a disease. Depending on the field, I've found guardians to be completely reasonable, ineffective, or just plain annoying (I'm looking at you Uranus belts). I am glad for two things:

1. Ulyydian is here! Yay! I used ebiia ALL THE TIME when I was playing. Finally you can bring some sense to the nonsense values there are for some items in the game! yay!

 

2. He made the ore prices go up. This makes it easier for me to keep EL and TL even when I decide to do go mining instead of do trade runs to lvl my TL.

 

Now, onto the meat of the subject, if the economy of the game is an issue...let me copy-pasta something I wrote in another thread (which I won't link here for ~reasons~) about the economy:

 

1. A dynamic economy with an economic interface that copies/mimics/works just like EVE online's. What do I mean by that?
   1. I'd say go full monty with it, everything in the game must be built unless it is a drop-only, non-manufacturable item. Vendors, as we know them, will be gone and replaced with a market hub, where people will list their ores, which others will then buy and make components with, and those will be re-listed and used to build items.
   2. This also means separating out the star bases from being universally linked, to being local points in space. The market will and SHOULD vary from station to station. Keeping them 'even-ish' will be the job of the trader classes.
   3. A solution to the explore XP problem: Trade runs done with normal trade goods only give trade XP. Trade runs done with other items (comps, weps, shields, etc) bought low and sold high at another station, give both trade *and* explore XP
   4. A small (1-2%) transaction tax on every buy or sell transaction on the market will go a long way to keeping inflation in check.
2. To keep players playing you need an un-winnable game. EVE can't be won, LoL can't be won, WoW certainly can be, hence their constant cycle of expansions. The end-game mechanics need to be changed so the game cannot be won, and there's a reason to worry about how pretty your character is, or how much style you do something with. At this point, I'm scratching my head as to how, but this *must* be done or you will fail.

Those two things are the major pain points for E&B as it stands now. Given the state of the game client, I think it would be EXTREMELY hard to have a dynamic economy put in. *sigh* pipe dream. But yea, make a game with an economy where players have to create everything for each other and then give them a mechanism to perform trades offline, NOT USING AN AUCTION HOUSE FORMAT so they don't need to interact with each other for commerce to happen, and you've done yourself a huge favor, you've created an economy that will self-stabilize and given every single item in the game a reason for existing and a dynamically determined price. Dynamic prices in dynamic locations are the bane of macros, until they learn to OCR prices and 'think'. Which can be done. But snap that's hard.

 

*shrug* I'm sure there's some gold in my green colored slime of ideas.

After you said EVE, all I heard was greek.. so....

 

What?

[iamme]

EVE's market and economy is spot on totally player driven. There is also no "winning" EVE

 

There are instances but they are all over the place........do not know how that would work here......

 

The dynmaics of EVE and that market type would not work......i am sure that's a huge client change.....

[ryleyra]

I had been wondering if the ore prices had ever been corrected. It's unknown if the component and system prices have been adjusted as well, but from my research on live I believe that they were directly related. That is, there was a direct correlation between the vendor price of items in the game and the vendor price of the resources used to build them.

 

And there IS a way to buy ores in E&B. It has been in the game since the beginning, and it still is in the emulator. A Trader can buy components, tear them down for their component ores, and use those ores to build. So the player market and the vendor market are interconnected, if not joined at the hip.

 

Common ores, like Iron and Steel, are no more valuable to the market than they can be bought for in component form from the vendor. The player market is subject to supply and demand ONLY for those ores that are rare and thus cannot be recovered from components. (Or can only be recovered from rare components, which are themselves high in player market value)

 

EVE has a number of things that E&B doesn't have, including an auction house and player trade system. E&B's vendor system is needed to provide the bare necessities that the player market is unable to provide.

[Terrell [BT]]

You can trade via the mail system in game now, and even charge for what's being sent.  The practical issues would make it a bit awkward, but if there was a WTB/WTS sub-forum, then people could make deals on it, and the seller would use the mail system to send the items to the buyer, for the agreed upon price.  That way the players making the trade would not need to meet in game.  You'd miss out on the trade XP in doing so, but it can be done as the game currently exists.

 

There's the quartermaster in Venus now, where a player can sell PM items, and other players can come along and buy them.  It's been a while since I last saw him, since his location is rather inconvenient.  A similar NPC in space for ores would facilitate trades between explorers & traders.  So it's possible, in game to set it up so that traders can more easily get the ores they need from explorers, same for selling their wares.  As long as the price that the QM pays for PM items is greater than what it cost the trader to build it, he still makes a profit, though not necessarily as much as had he sold it on the open market.  Such an NPC near Friendship 7 would see more use since it's much more conveniently located than Venus.

 

I don't think we should go full bore in removing items from the vendors, though I could see most items that are introduced into the game being non-vendor, except for those items introduced for the new classes, that are their equivalents to the vendor items for the original 6 classes.  Also having more vendors like Drostan McClure where you have to meet certain conditions for access doesn't hurt, IMO, as long as said vendor has things not available at other vendors. 

[Ulyydian[IS]]

Just to clear up some confusion these have been changed on the DEV server.

We are still making sure everything works properly.

Assuming everything goes well this should be pushed out in the next patch.

Sorry if it sounded like this was already live.

 

Also Daath regarding your comment, I didn't mean there was a vendor, sorry.

I was referring to the cost of making components with ores.

Also selling to vendors as well.

 

These were the primary credit makers.

1: Using low cost ores to make very high profit items

2: Selling very overpriced ores to vendors.

 

The changes to the ore reduce the effect of both the above by both increasing and lowering prices to be evened out.

Profit from both building and mining should be more consistent.

Miners should actually see their profits increase since alot of ores were priced low, some extremely low.

 

Hope that makes more sense :)

[Daath]

Just to clear up some confusion these have been changed on the DEV server.

We are still making sure everything works properly.

Assuming everything goes well this should be pushed out in the next patch.

Sorry if it sounded like this was already live.

 

Also Daath regarding your comment, I didn't mean there was a vendor, sorry.

I was referring to the cost of making components with ores.

Also selling to vendors as well.

 

These were the primary credit makers.

1: Using low cost ores to make very high profit items

2: Selling very overpriced ores to vendors.

 

The changes to the ore reduce the effect of both the above by both increasing and lowering prices to be evened out.

Profit from both building and mining should be more consistent.

Miners should actually see their profits increase since alot of ores were priced low, some extremely low.

 

Hope that makes more sense :)

Yes, thank you....

 

I agree the Ore prices were askew, some ores were incredibly high value and others were almost not worth harvesting... I hope you took into consideration the commonalty of the ore as well, I can hit a field and pull 100 of an ore and only 10 of another.. the larger quantity available should, with reason, be lower value by some factor..

 

I have not explored refining and building items from ores then selling the items, though I can imagine someone using macros to do this, for face to screen players this would be VERY tedious to do at any scale.. For you it would be good to know which items they are building and make adjustments to them to make it less profitable to do this, but I am certain there aren't that many people doing it. 

 

From what I can tell the vast majority of credits come from loot.... Many players don't even have a prospector, let alone spend hours running around harvesting ores to put into a factory situation.  They get their loot from selling items to vendors that they looted while killing.  Once you break a certain level (CL40-50) the profits for loot exceed cost for ammo and profit slowly builds... I think it is inaccurate to say that the two primary ways to make credits was via prospecting over the long haul. 

[Ulyydian[IS]]

 I think it is inaccurate to say that the two primary ways to make credits was via prospecting over the long haul. 

 

I should of been more clear and stated the primary way to make credits from mining was .....

I wasn't saying that was the only way to make credits, we were specifically talking about mining & refining.

 

Please don't be so literal and read into things though :)

Obviously other loot is another means to make credits, but you don't focus on that if you are primary mining :)

Additionally the JE is also one the most played class, so that statement about miners is incorrect.

 

If you want to know the prices of ores then look in the prima guide, that is what we used.

Prices of items are also calculated properly from ores now, so as I said item prices that use ores to make components will also be affected.

[Daath]

 I think it is inaccurate to say that the two primary ways to make credits was via prospecting over the long haul. 

 

I should of been more clear and stated the primary way to make credits from mining was .....

I wasn't saying that was the only way to make credits, we were specifically talking about mining & refining.

 

Please don't be so literal and read into things though :)

Obviously other loot is another means to make credits, but you don't focus on that if you are primary mining :)

Additionally the JE is also one the most played class, so that statement about miners is incorrect.

 

If you want to know the prices of ores then look in the prima guide, that is what we used.

Prices of items are also calculated properly from ores now, so as I said item prices that use ores to make components will also be affected.

I apologize, I am just a very literal person, I didn't mean to imply anything by it...

 

Prima guide?  How may one take a look at this thing you speak of?

 

:)

 

Oh and don't take me wrong Uly, I love all of you devs... I just like to make sure I understand things clearly otherwise I look at what I see v.s. what I am told and get confused... When that happens I question...

[Hobbs]

I apologize, I am just a very literal person, I didn't mean to imply anything by it...

 

Prima guide?  How may one take a look at this thing you speak of?

 

:)

 

 

Here:

 

http://www.earthandbeyond.ca/community/coolstuff/primaguide.pdf

[Vitaes]

1. 1. A small (1-2%) transaction tax on every buy or sell transaction on the market will go a long way to keeping inflation in check.

 

Hey, I pay enough taxes IRL, leave my credits alone! :-)

[Amethyst]

I'm sure I suggested a couple of these ideas before. If we wanted to make credits more meaningful we need some serious credit sinks, so that the rich players want to spend their fortunes and then want to sell nice stuff for what they can get  (rather than trade unobtainable objects for other unobtainable).

 

So - an NPC that sells some absurdly expensive gear - either raid loot, rare drops, or some of the yet-unreleased equipment - healing the shear gear, lens of Zethren, a carapace, semi-organics, a feather, novelty items like the valentines shields, poppers, chunckers, whatever...  I'm thinking 200m+  and perhaps 1bill for FOC/POC/CVE.

Or - SP purchase - maybe 500m per SP. Valid only if you are 150+

Or - a WH NPC at a weft that will dial you into your chosen sector for 100m.

[ryleyra]

You can trade via the mail system in game now, and even charge for what's being sent. 

Really? I tried that out, and couldn't figure out how to specify credits, although I had no trouble trading items. That vendor in Venus sounds like something that a dev mentioned might work the last time this came up. I'll have to check it out. Maybe there have been more changes to this game since I was here last than I thought.

 

I'd appreciate any info on what I may have missed, on the interface. :)

 

I do agree, though, that this game does not need a player-driven economy. The vendor economy, which includes trade, should be robust enough to support the player economy. That's why I'm glad the pricing was straightened out. A healthy pricing structure helps all of us.

[Terrell [BT]]

Really? I tried that out, and couldn't figure out how to specify credits, although I had no trouble trading items. That vendor in Venus sounds like something that a dev mentioned might work the last time this came up. I'll have to check it out. Maybe there have been more changes to this game since I was here last than I thought.

 

I'd appreciate any info on what I may have missed, on the interface. :)

 

I do agree, though, that this game does not need a player-driven economy. The vendor economy, which includes trade, should be robust enough to support the player economy. That's why I'm glad the pricing was straightened out. A healthy pricing structure helps all of us.

 

In the box above the name of the receiver of any item you're mailing, you can enter how much you're charging for it, in credits.

[Daath]

I'm sure I suggested a couple of these ideas before. If we wanted to make credits more meaningful we need some serious credit sinks, so that the rich players want to spend their fortunes and then want to sell nice stuff for what they can get  (rather than trade unobtainable objects for other unobtainable).

 

So - an NPC that sells some absurdly expensive gear - either raid loot, rare drops, or some of the yet-unreleased equipment - healing the shear gear, lens of Zethren, a carapace, semi-organics, a feather, novelty items like the valentines shields, poppers, chunckers, whatever...  I'm thinking 200m+  and perhaps 1bill for FOC/POC/CVE.

Or - SP purchase - maybe 500m per SP. Valid only if you are 150+

Or - a WH NPC at a weft that will dial you into your chosen sector for 100m.

 

#1. is great if we wipe out the gazillions of credits already in circulation first, would put extremely rare items into the "common" category... which I don't think is likely.

 

#2. See #1 Buying your way to max... bad idea given the amount of money out there... 

 

#3. Not a bad idea, but 100M for a WH... I'll use my JE and get there in 4 gates no matter where it is..