1 (edited by Burial 2015-07-23 15:03:35)

Topic: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Wondering what people here think is the time required for a new corporation to become competitive against veteran corporations on Beta, and growing the power needed to claim an outpost. Not talking about becoming one of a select few pet/proxy corporation to a select few Beta owning corporations, but about the general average mass of corporations that should be populating the game.

How much time does it take for a new corporation to claim a Beta?

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

There's no xyz to answer that question.

For example:

A corporation that engaged in diplomatic discussions can be there day 1.

A corporation with a dedicated cult following with numbers can do the same thing.

Burial it's about leadership in a corporation.  Learning mechanics and execution.  I still teach people on a daily basis about explosion damage and intrusion windows.

And let's talk about population to recruit.  Or lack there of.

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Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Probably need to start with industry get that war chest filled up, because they are going to lose loads of bots. Getting up to speed with warfare and tactics can take heavy damages, but this would lessened with vet advice or someone who is willing to do a How-to survive on Beta and the preparation required (I am no expert), to give a figure I would say around 3 to 6 months if you work hard at it.

RIP PERPETUUM

4 (edited by Burial 2015-07-23 15:23:59)

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Ville wrote:

There's no xyz to answer that question.

For example:

A corporation that engaged in diplomatic discussions can be there day 1.

A corporation with a dedicated cult following with numbers can do the same thing.

Burial it's about leadership in a corporation.  Learning mechanics and execution.  I still teach people on a daily basis about explosion damage and intrusion windows.

And let's talk about population to recruit.  Or lack there of.

I'm not talking about becoming a pet or proxy corporation allowed to live there due to X. I'm talking about a new corporation building a corporation from the ground up with the current mechanics and population until they're ready to claim and defend an outpost.

1 year? 2 years? Never?

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

If your not a r tard you can do it in 3 months

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6 (edited by Lemon 2015-07-23 15:33:44)

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

To live and survive on beta requires a foundation for asset replacement.

Either via market or internal corp industry you need to provide the gear necessary to play and continue growing with out incurring greater loss.

Having players like kokomut, Arga or other industrial power houses has been a foundation for all successful corps. and the key has always been to supply, protect, and empower them.

Edit:

When I was originally starting I was in CS and Arga was a key piece there, in CIR we have had a team to manage it but when in doubt Syndic always did the lifting himself if he needed.

When I setup eHarm I had Arga again as a foundation and with out players like these I would not have gotten where I am or been able to do what I did.

Here is a glimpse into what the 15~ active players in eHarm where working and achieving to be PvP active.

Production

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"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle

7 (edited by Burial 2015-07-23 16:00:19)

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Lemon, the problem is there's 20 people in GC, the population isn't growing and the new corporations nowadays are a lot more behind than years ago.

Roughly how much time does an average, run-of-the-mill new corporation starting from scratch need before they're ready to claim and defend a Beta outpost?

Is it currently even worth the work vs fun, or should they play something else?

8 (edited by Blocker 2015-07-23 16:06:23)

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

I just listened to the round table recording and to be brutally honest all I heard was vets talking about how to make the game better for vets. Now you may not have intended that, but that's the impression I came away with.  Do you want answers based on how things are now, or how it would be if the changes talked about in the round table get implemented ?

How it is now, maybe 6 months, maybe less. There are a lot of factors.

How it would be if all those suggestions get implemented? then probably never. Because as soon as the sharks know there is prey they will hunt, and it will be merciless. Why, because your talking about nerfing Alpha and basically forcing players into pvp areas.

Can you smell that blood in the water ? How many losses do you think new corps will accept before they just go play something else ? That's really the question you should be asking..

It would have been nice to hear from some actual new players about their perspective on both how it is now, and how they would feel about the proposed changes ?

Finally I like to add that we [OTHERS] don't really care if all those changes discussed get implemented, we will adapt to suit.


[edited to make it  a bit more readable]

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Blocker, I know that new corporations are the future and creating a fun ecosystem for them to thrive in is the way to pull the game out of the trench. I didn't make the thread to push for unlocking, I only wanted to show that getting started on more entertaining content than Alpha is too hard.

Hopefully there's someone with a great idea that's easy to implement with a potential to make the game fun for new corporations, or at least get people thinking about it.

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Good post blocker

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11 (edited by Blocker 2015-07-23 16:38:03)

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Burial wrote:

Blocker, I know that new corporations are the future and creating a fun ecosystem for them to thrive in is the way to pull the game out of the trench. I didn't make the thread to push for unlocking, I only wanted to show that getting started on more entertaining content than Alpha is too hard.

Hopefully there's someone with a great idea that's easy to implement with a potential to make the game fun for new corporations, or at least get people thinking about it.

Yep I understand that the thread is not about unlocking, and the actual unlocking part will only impact those new players who want to go to beta. But if you nerf Alpha then you are, in effect, forcing  them into beta.

This will fail, and all they will do is leave, isn't this supposed to be a sandbox ?

If you want corps to build up slowly, make it harder for them to do industry. If you want them to build quickly, make it easier for them to do industry. It's not rocket science.

[edit] just as an afterthought, making industry harder also has the potential to contribute to players leaving. Making it easier may actually keep them interested longer because they can see progress. They may actually stay in the game longer., and the longer they stay the more opportunity to encourage them to PVP.

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Burial wrote:

Lemon, the problem is there's 20 people in GC, the population isn't growing and the new corporations nowadays are a lot more behind than years ago.

Roughly how much time does an average, run-of-the-mill new corporation starting from scratch need before they're ready to claim and defend a Beta outpost?

Is it currently even worth the work vs fun, or should they play something else?

I honestly cannot comment on the industrial side of time needed. I was trying to illustrate that when the players move to Beta they need to be nic/module positive in income or they will flop.

Realistically If I recall correctly a new player account can rush into being effective in a Mech or assault within 2 months quite rapidly, if not run T2 with L5's Day one.

If  a corporation has the ability to setup this structure I honestly am confident with the new missions I would/could move out there with a group of 20 or so new players and be effective and viable.

To do this they will need to have a industrial foundation to equip from (took eHarm 2 weeks to flesh ours out and probably another two to get it running full speed) Mind you during this time we burning stocks, after this 4 week time we were increasing stocks wile at the same loss level.

I am sure some recalls me not recruiting anyone until our industrial foundation was in place.

There is a lot of knowledge and organization that is required on-top of diplomacy, to not become a hot target, and live on Beta. Further more you want to limit your beta exposure as a target to not become a festering bed for anyone trying to get a kill-board pop-up.

I also think we need to clarify for everyone that buffing beta is not a direct nerf to alpha income. I think the rewards need to scale but players need to be capable of achieving a industrial foundation of support for bots/ modules. (I hope some industrials can comment on the time or requirements for this, I have always had channels for obtaining CT's via diplomacy, at times from enemies and have no perspective of the hurdles faced here)

Undefeated 2013
"Even alone you probably are one of the best" - Khader Khan
"Lemon the 1 man army .... also know as: THE TERMINATOR!" - Obi Wan
"There are people who are just better then you at doing many things at one time, some are far better then myself, far better." -Merkle

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Steam sales always generate new players.  When it's too bad 90% off is always attractive.

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Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Any new corporation can be out on Beta in a week, tops.

Most don't have the knowledge, many more get dragged into alliances and thrown against people they're not ready to fight.

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Burial wrote:

Wondering what people here think is the time required for a new corporation to become competitive against veteran corporations on Beta, and growing the power needed to claim an outpost. Not talking about becoming one of a select few pet/proxy corporation to a select few Beta owning corporations, but about the general average mass of corporations that should be populating the game.

How much time does it take for a new corporation to claim a Beta?


Well, NSE was probably the last corp to do this.  We started in September 2014 as NSE, we moved around a bit in between but finally went to Brightstone in December 2014, so this was 3 months.  And to stop you haters from hating, this was before we had any involvement with CIR as you will see from the December killboards in 2014 as we got *** ***.  We just had good leadership, 30+ active players doing all facets of the game.  We had a few vets, from years past (Like myself) but n one over 800k when we moved out to Beta.   Once we were in beta we lived at Brightstone until we moved to gamma with help from CIR.  Our move to gamma would not have happened until lots later if it weren't for their help.

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Blocker wrote:
Burial wrote:

Blocker, I know that new corporations are the future and creating a fun ecosystem for them to thrive in is the way to pull the game out of the trench. I didn't make the thread to push for unlocking, I only wanted to show that getting started on more entertaining content than Alpha is too hard.

Hopefully there's someone with a great idea that's easy to implement with a potential to make the game fun for new corporations, or at least get people thinking about it.

Yep I understand that the thread is not about unlocking, and the actual unlocking part will only impact those new players who want to go to beta. But if you nerf Alpha then you are, in effect, forcing  them into beta.

This will fail, and all they will do is leave, isn't this supposed to be a sandbox ?

If you want corps to build up slowly, make it harder for them to do industry. If you want them to build quickly, make it easier for them to do industry. It's not rocket science.

[edit] just as an afterthought, making industry harder also has the potential to contribute to players leaving. Making it easier may actually keep them interested longer because they can see progress. They may actually stay in the game longer., and the longer they stay the more opportunity to encourage them to PVP.

Keeping Alpha 1's the way it is now should make it easy for new corps to succeed.  However PURPOSEFUL progression is needed to make them stick around and want to get to beta and gamma.

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

SunnyJester wrote:
Blocker wrote:
Burial wrote:

Blocker, I know that new corporations are the future and creating a fun ecosystem for them to thrive in is the way to pull the game out of the trench. I didn't make the thread to push for unlocking, I only wanted to show that getting started on more entertaining content than Alpha is too hard.

Hopefully there's someone with a great idea that's easy to implement with a potential to make the game fun for new corporations, or at least get people thinking about it.

Yep I understand that the thread is not about unlocking, and the actual unlocking part will only impact those new players who want to go to beta. But if you nerf Alpha then you are, in effect, forcing  them into beta.

This will fail, and all they will do is leave, isn't this supposed to be a sandbox ?

If you want corps to build up slowly, make it harder for them to do industry. If you want them to build quickly, make it easier for them to do industry. It's not rocket science.

[edit] just as an afterthought, making industry harder also has the potential to contribute to players leaving. Making it easier may actually keep them interested longer because they can see progress. They may actually stay in the game longer., and the longer they stay the more opportunity to encourage them to PVP.

Keeping Alpha 1's the way it is now should make it easy for new corps to succeed.  However PURPOSEFUL progression is needed to make them stick around and want to get to beta and gamma.

Yes I agree, but people have been talking recently about nerfing Alpha, reducing the ability to generate idustry. Like removing certain ores and making some of them only available on beta, reducing the efficiency of factories etc etc. That's a nerf. It will make industry on Alpha harder and move slower.

I believe this will not assist with player retention or provide encouragement to move to beta. If a corp does not want to move to beta, for whatever reason, no amount of changing mechanics to force them will actually get them to change their mind. However, while they are on Alpha carebearing it up, we still have the opportunity to try and encourage them out to beta and maybe show them how much fun pvp can be. But once they leave, they are gone and so are those opportunities.

I'm not against buffing beta and or gamma or making changes to either of those islands, We spend most of our time on beta and gamma so a buff would suit us just fine. But why reduce the capacity and/or capability of new corps starting on Alpha as well ? It makes no sense, think of Alpha's as the nursery if you like.

This is not the first time nerfing Alpha has been mentioned and also by different people. I voiced my concerns then as well as I do not believe that, in the short term, this is in the best interest of new corps/players and in the longer term ultimately for us older players.

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Alpha industry currently is exponentially more powerful than it was in release and is - in my opinion of course - far too powerful.

You can easily run a high level PvP based corporation just from Alpha reward while commiting to no risk at all and for me that's just broken. Alpha should provide a corp with enough to get on its feet, get a reasonable industry going and produce at a high level but at an efficiency your not going to meet if you do the same thing in a PvP area.

Back when Joke played more seriously we could take a 10 - 15 man mk2 heavy fleet out, get it killed, roll back to alpha and hit a static spawn with some top of beacons and have a billion nic to replace it all in four or five hours in total safety. It's just wrong that the level of income on Alpha is so high, it kills all incentive to go to Beta and if you repond to that by boosting Beta all you are doing is making asset acquisition crazy easy which is why we have the problem with asset retention we do now.

While I agree that Alpha - and Beta - industry nerfs cause big player losses and piss people off I argue that it's for this reason we do it now. Even if Zoom's next blog was him putting on a dress and dancing the hula to 'private dancer' by Rod Stewert it's not going to impact the games population. The only people who are left are too autistic to leave and we'd just *** and moan and deal with it.

New people entering the game would never know the difference.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Jita wrote:

Alpha industry currently is exponentially more powerful than it was in release and is - in my opinion of course - far too powerful.

You can easily run a high level PvP based corporation just from Alpha reward while commiting to no risk at all and for me that's just broken. Alpha should provide a corp with enough to get on its feet, get a reasonable industry going and produce at a high level but at an efficiency your not going to meet if you do the same thing in a PvP area.

Back when Joke played more seriously we could take a 10 - 15 man mk2 heavy fleet out, get it killed, roll back to alpha and hit a static spawn with some top of beacons and have a billion nic to replace it all in four or five hours in total safety. It's just wrong that the level of income on Alpha is so high, it kills all incentive to go to Beta and if you repond to that by boosting Beta all you are doing is making asset acquisition crazy easy which is why we have the problem with asset retention we do now.

While I agree that Alpha - and Beta - industry nerfs cause big player losses and piss people off I argue that it's for this reason we do it now. Even if Zoom's next blog was him putting on a dress and dancing the hula to 'private dancer' by Rod Stewert it's not going to impact the games population. The only people who are left are too autistic to leave and we'd just *** and moan and deal with it.

New people entering the game would never know the difference.

Yes, I agree it's very powerful for a high level corp, but that's not really what I'm referring to. Of course Joke with 10 -15 MK2 heavies can clean up on Alpha and make truckloads of NIC, but I'm talking about corps that can prolly just pilot mechs at best, and I'm not talking about farming, I'm talking about industry , the ability to make those bots. Remember you're talking about reducing factory efficiency, removing more ores from Alpha and placing them on beta, having less ore fields etc etc. That will impact new corps just as much, maybe even harder, than old corps with high level players. 

But how do you propose to make it easy for new corps to build up assets, whilst also making it not so lucrative for experienced corps? Surely any changes to Alpha industry would impact new corps and vets alike. Unless there is some sort of sliding scale based on the EP of a character?

Ok maybe once a character hits a set limit for industry say *plucks figure from air* 1mill ep in industry. Then the efficiency of the factory on Alpha goes down and the efficiency of beta factories goes up? or something along those lines perhaps.

My point is, by all means make changes while the pop is low, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water when you do it.

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Blocker wrote:
Jita wrote:

Alpha industry currently is exponentially more powerful than it was in release and is - in my opinion of course - far too powerful.

You can easily run a high level PvP based corporation just from Alpha reward while commiting to no risk at all and for me that's just broken. Alpha should provide a corp with enough to get on its feet, get a reasonable industry going and produce at a high level but at an efficiency your not going to meet if you do the same thing in a PvP area.

Back when Joke played more seriously we could take a 10 - 15 man mk2 heavy fleet out, get it killed, roll back to alpha and hit a static spawn with some top of beacons and have a billion nic to replace it all in four or five hours in total safety. It's just wrong that the level of income on Alpha is so high, it kills all incentive to go to Beta and if you repond to that by boosting Beta all you are doing is making asset acquisition crazy easy which is why we have the problem with asset retention we do now.

While I agree that Alpha - and Beta - industry nerfs cause big player losses and piss people off I argue that it's for this reason we do it now. Even if Zoom's next blog was him putting on a dress and dancing the hula to 'private dancer' by Rod Stewert it's not going to impact the games population. The only people who are left are too autistic to leave and we'd just *** and moan and deal with it.

New people entering the game would never know the difference.

Yes, I agree it's very powerful for a high level corp, but that's not really what I'm referring to. Of course Joke with 10 -15 MK2 heavies can clean up on Alpha and make truckloads of NIC, but I'm talking about corps that can prolly just pilot mechs at best, and I'm not talking about farming, I'm talking about industry , the ability to make those bots. Remember you're talking about reducing factory efficiency, removing more ores from Alpha and placing them on beta, having less ore fields etc etc. That will impact new corps just as much, maybe even harder, than old corps with high level players. 

But how do you propose to make it easy for new corps to build up assets, whilst also making it not so lucrative for experienced corps? Surely any changes to Alpha industry would impact new corps and vets alike. Unless there is some sort of sliding scale based on the EP of a character?

Ok maybe once a character hits a set limit for industry say *plucks figure from air* 1mill ep in industry. Then the efficiency of the factory on Alpha goes down and the efficiency of beta factories goes up? or something along those lines perhaps.

My point is, by all means make changes while the pop is low, but don't throw the baby out with the bath water when you do it.

Well we talked about it in a little detail but my proposal was limiting mineral spawns to 5m per spawn, setting a timer on respawns and reducing factory efficiency to pre alpha 2 levels.

That would be a nerf but only to levels of factory efficiency that once worked fine. The mineral spawns would prevent the 10mk2 heavies on a constantly respawning mineral field problem but still support small scale mining for personal / not much Pvp Corp use.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Jita wrote:

Well we talked about it in a little detail but my proposal was limiting mineral spawns to 5m per spawn, setting a timer on respawns and reducing factory efficiency to pre alpha 2 levels.

That would be a nerf but only to levels of factory efficiency that once worked fine. The mineral spawns would prevent the 10mk2 heavies on a constantly respawning mineral field problem but still support small scale mining for personal / not much Pvp Corp use.

yeah ok but if it allows only for small scale mining for personal or not much pvp corp use, what's the point ? We are talking about building up corps so they can make an assault on beta, ie a "war chest" so if Alpha only supports small scale personal and limited pvp supply renewal how does this encourage new corps to even try to make it to beta ?

It takes them twice as long to build that war chest up, they then lose that war chest over a few days trying to assault a beta station and head back to Alpha to start again. Do you really think that gamers these days have the stamina to keep that up when just starting a game? Personally I don't think they do, I think they will just say "bugger this let's play something else" and they are gone.

By all means change it, but personally I think that if you want people to pvp more (especially new people) you need to make it easier for them to replace their losses not harder, if you make it harder then they will just be more reluctant to risk them.

I've had my say, by all means make the changes, lets see how we go..

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Blocker wrote:
Jita wrote:

Well we talked about it in a little detail but my proposal was limiting mineral spawns to 5m per spawn, setting a timer on respawns and reducing factory efficiency to pre alpha 2 levels.

That would be a nerf but only to levels of factory efficiency that once worked fine. The mineral spawns would prevent the 10mk2 heavies on a constantly respawning mineral field problem but still support small scale mining for personal / not much Pvp Corp use.

yeah ok but if it allows only for small scale mining for personal or not much pvp corp use, what's the point ? We are talking about building up corps so they can make an assault on beta, ie a "war chest" so if Alpha only supports small scale personal and limited pvp supply renewal how does this encourage new corps to even try to make it to beta ?

It takes them twice as long to build that war chest up, they then lose that war chest over a few days trying to assault a beta station and head back to Alpha to start again. Do you really think that gamers these days have the stamina to keep that up when just starting a game? Personally I don't think they do, I think they will just say "bugger this let's play something else" and they are gone.

By all means change it, but personally I think that if you want people to pvp more (especially new people) you need to make it easier for them to replace their losses not harder, if you make it harder then they will just be more reluctant to risk them.

I've had my say, by all means make the changes, lets see how we go..

I get what your saying, and you are right, I just don't see how we can both cater to that playstyle and prevent later players from taking advantage of it in total safety.

Proverbs 23:20-21 warns us, “Do not join those who drink too much wine or gorge themselves on meat, for drunkards and gluttons become poor, and drowsiness clothes them in rags."

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Jita wrote:
Blocker wrote:
Jita wrote:

Well we talked about it in a little detail but my proposal was limiting mineral spawns to 5m per spawn, setting a timer on respawns and reducing factory efficiency to pre alpha 2 levels.

That would be a nerf but only to levels of factory efficiency that once worked fine. The mineral spawns would prevent the 10mk2 heavies on a constantly respawning mineral field problem but still support small scale mining for personal / not much Pvp Corp use.

yeah ok but if it allows only for small scale mining for personal or not much pvp corp use, what's the point ? We are talking about building up corps so they can make an assault on beta, ie a "war chest" so if Alpha only supports small scale personal and limited pvp supply renewal how does this encourage new corps to even try to make it to beta ?

It takes them twice as long to build that war chest up, they then lose that war chest over a few days trying to assault a beta station and head back to Alpha to start again. Do you really think that gamers these days have the stamina to keep that up when just starting a game? Personally I don't think they do, I think they will just say "bugger this let's play something else" and they are gone.

By all means change it, but personally I think that if you want people to pvp more (especially new people) you need to make it easier for them to replace their losses not harder, if you make it harder then they will just be more reluctant to risk them.

I've had my say, by all means make the changes, lets see how we go..

I get what your saying, and you are right, I just don't see how we can both cater to that playstyle and prevent later players from taking advantage of it in total safety.

Jita, it's not about us, it's not about bitter old vet corps. It's about the new players that hopefully come into the game after some decent content is added. Making the changes you are proposing will not affect the vet corps one iota, they already have their stockpiles and supplies and guess where they got the majority of that from. smile

Ok, now I'm done..  smile

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Alpha economy should revolve around NIC and trading more then around actual ores locally mined.

Re: Step between Alpha and Beta for new corporations

Jita wrote:

Alpha industry currently is exponentially more powerful than it was in release and is - in my opinion of course - far too powerful.

You can easily run a high level PvP based corporation just from Alpha reward while commiting to no risk at all and for me that's just broken..

Yes, So where are all those Corporations reaping all the easy rewards...........

I don't think you are trying to solve the right problems.