Topic: Further Alpha Nerf

I have seen somewhere on the forum players ask for some alpha love to help "carebear" style of players feel at home in perpetuum.

In fact its quite the contrary thats happening. Without any notice (ninja style) thats a bit lame:





"" #831 - Hershfield spawn 1120 1850

    Category: Bug
    Creation date: 2012-03-14 15:17:54

The Hershfield spawn 1120 1850 seems bugged for several days now. It only spawns one group of npcs, while it was popping 2 groups since forever? What is happening?
Status:Resolved
Responses

GM Synapse - 2012-03-14 21:20:03

    Greetings Cobalt!

    Yes, we know about it, as far as i know it was intended and we removed the other half of the spawn from the game. I can't say any further information because i'm not the one who is working with the balance, but it was intended!

    Sincererly,
    GM Synapse ""


So i logged in to farm those spawns. Guess what i will do now?  Certainly not go solo on beta to be ganked by a 5 millions worth, pvp starved, group of 3 light ewars with my full t4 pve fit gropho mk2....  Sorry but no.

So the brilliant idea is:  nerf alpha to the point peoples will be forced to go to beta?  Simply it wont work, because your tiny still active dedicated playerbase just dont like to be forced into anything. They will simply do what a big part of your subscribers do: not login anymore, wainting for the miracle patch hmm

Or at least thats what i will do, cause im the only one still active in my corp, im faithful to my corp cause its a multigame one, so i mostly play solo. And frankly, one decision after another, solo play has been made almost unbearable even for veterans...

I already see the forum warriors impale me in the heart with their big pale of unstoppable logic... Now look at the general chat count... Still going down. Really how was this needed i cant understand.

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

I don´t think that you are allowed to post conversations with GM´s in here, so be prepared for an edit smile

I have been saying for a long time that exactly that spawn on hershfield needs to be nerfed as it was the most profitable spawn I knew. No other spawn (even Beta) yielded more plasma.

Well, either that or buff the Beta spawns to create a better balance between zero risk and 100% risk, because with how that spawn was, why would anyone bother to farm at 100% risk on a beta island at a lesser spawn?

I can understand that you are upset tho.

The ones saying "impossible" shall not disturb the ones already doing it

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

I tought discussing moderation was forbiden but posting a gm response about a seemingly bug was allowed. I dont edit it waiting for the Mods action.

Now about the spawn... you can make many many many more NICs by mining epriton and selling it. Ok it dont inflate cause its already existing nic, but the ration of doing money and the risk of losing stuff (lets say 2 full T4 rivelers) and a full T4 HM mk2 its quite unbalanced imo.  So the risk versus reward ratio was already here in the way of mining rare ressources.  But anyhow, what i say is the truth. That wont make "carebears" (i not always was one but with the low pop...) go to beta. It will just make them forget about the game. Be happy with your risk/reward ratio in your 10 men beta dwellers club...

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

I agree 100%.
I'm in the same boat. I am a casual player, I am logging in for a little relaxation for an hour or two on one or two days a week (please note, that I still pay the full price for the subscription...).
In the actual situation, there is no way that I will enter beta.
Either you stop making alpha less attractive or I will do like the rest of my company (switch to another game).

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Alpha nerf = reducing the number of players sad

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Its not a nerf, A spawn of that level was not on any of the other islands.

We do need more rewarding / challenging alpha PvE content though that I agree with.

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.

7 (edited by Cobalt 2012-03-15 16:13:56)

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Yeah its exactly that Sundial. Its a nerf in the way it lower the best farming spawn of alpha islands. Balancing the faction best spawns on alpha is not the subject thx.


IMO there are equal spawns on beta...

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

More solo content, thats it.

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Re: Further Alpha Nerf

From what I can see, the devs are focusing more on 'game changing' patches, like Intrusion, Walls, PBS etc, and the quality of life improvements (that would make a big difference to a lot of people) go completely un-noticed.

Issues like:

Map Crash Bug,
Teleport / Enter Terminal Crash Bug.
Unpredictable latency changes

Improvements like:
More variety in spawns,
An assignment system that works. (can I dock at your base to do a mission? no. ok thanks.)
Some PvE content.
Some solo content.

A lot of this stuff would take a lot less developer time and effort to do than 'new cool features' like Scarabs or Decorational Plant Incubators.

However badly the assigment system is implemented behind-the-sceens, it can not be that hard to make some more assigments, be a bit creative with the challanges, invent some that actually benefit from doing as a group, make some challenges where a bunch of mechs/ewar/support bots would need to work together etc etc etc.

As a programmer myself I can see a lot of time going into things that would be fun to code, but the hard work of re-factoring and bug fixing that is needed to keep the game running seems lacking.

I remember crashing from time to time when teleporting during Beta, and thinking 'Well it is only beta, I am sure it is probably something that they missed in internal testing and they will patch it soon enough'. Well a year later and it is still as bad as ever, even a complete re-write of the teleport / enter building code would not be that hard if they really can't find the bugs, but I get the feeling it is simply not a priority and as a small team they end up prioritising other features over it again and again.

10 (edited by Sundial 2012-03-15 22:47:25)

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Scarabs were not just a small random feature and were needed badly in the game. They were actually very much a quality of life addition.

Other than that I agree with you MrCeej. I would like to see the devs focus on bugfixing / quality of life improvements / PvE content after the new patch.

Things like:

Squad system revamp
Crash fixes
Alliance features
Ewar on killmails
Improving on the beacon system so it does more than just spawn stuff wave after wave (maybe add bosses to it at the end or something)
Storage / Corporate Storage enhancements and access controls (alot of issues with folders)
Spark Teleport
High end expensive faction rewards for PvE missions

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

They did add bosses to the end of beacons.

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Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Beacons would be a good system for NPC farming on alpha, but again the 'low' population effect is causing the market prices of beacons to be offered at a premium because of rarity; if there were 100's of more people out artifact scanning, there would be thousands of beacons for sale, making them cost effective to farm them. The 'good' beacons would still be expensive of course, because the loot/kernels are more desirable than simply the plasma value of the beacon.

There really needs to be more knobs and buttons the devs can use to balance resources based on active server population.

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Arga wrote:

Beacons would be a good system for NPC farming on alpha, but again the 'low' population effect is causing the market prices of beacons to be offered at a premium because of rarity; if there were 100's of more people out artifact scanning, there would be thousands of beacons for sale, making them cost effective to farm them. The 'good' beacons would still be expensive of course, because the loot/kernels are more desirable than simply the plasma value of the beacon.

There really needs to be more knobs and buttons the devs can use to balance resources based on active server population.

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Re: Further Alpha Nerf

This a pic of the balance control panel, no wonder it is so far off


Perpetuum Balance Control Panel

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

This is a big issue Alpha is worthless now aside from some basic and i mean basic mins and some crappy spawns its dead....Do they expect everyone to move off alpha after a certain time and raid beta ...get real the MMO players in any sandbox dont like to be forced to do anything thats why we play sandbox style games to have a choice. It now seems the choice is gone.

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Get on blue island - get ores/plant from that island - sell on 2 other color islands. ??? profit

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Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Zigzagman2 - you must have a different verseion of Tellesis.

On sunday evening you have been complaining that there was not prismocitae availiable on Tellesis... at the same time there have been at least three harvester Agents in my squad harvesting Prismocitae.

Your telling that there are only crappy spawn now, while i find single-rank npc spawns everywhere. Farming 4th star mechs has never been easier on alpha since implementation of randomized spawns.

There are even industrial mechs now spawning on Tellesis.

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Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Norrdec wrote:

Get on blue island - get ores/plant from that island - sell on 2 other color islands. ??? profit

and that helps the failed econ and mining how?

19 (edited by Zigzagman2 2012-06-05 16:49:53)

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Annihilator wrote:

Zigzagman2 - you must have a different verseion of Tellesis.

On sunday evening you have been complaining that there was not prismocitae availiable on Tellesis... at the same time there have been at least three harvester Agents in my squad harvesting Prismocitae.

Your telling that there are only crappy spawn now, while i find single-rank npc spawns everywhere. Farming 4th star mechs has never been easier on alpha since implementation of randomized spawns.

There are even industrial mechs now spawning on Tellesis.

  putting words in my mouth wont help the issue and as for bigger spawns Im not talking about tele I went around with a buddy last night to 4 diff islands and found a bunch of crap nothing worth wasting ammo on. As for the prism I had to wonder Shin and dao for about 6 hours to find hardly enough to fill a sqeaker. I'm just one person and I wiped out what little was on shin ...pretty sure its grow back by now and maybe it will pick up that's not my biggest concern.

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Zigzagman2 wrote:
Norrdec wrote:

Get on blue island - get ores/plant from that island - sell on 2 other color islands. ??? profit

and that helps the failed econ and mining how?

Wait, what?

Economy problems were due to population issues and all islands having the same resources. The later is no long an issue. You can do as nordec says... Mine factional material on one island, haul it to another place that doesn't have it and demands it, profit.

As for spawns: I was farming 4th star mechs/heavy mechs all day on tellesis post patch at the ball and chain... If you think that spawn is crap I dont know what to tell you? There are others like it on other islands.

If you can't find a challenge on alpha you are not looking hard enough.

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Sundial wrote:
Zigzagman2 wrote:
Norrdec wrote:

Get on blue island - get ores/plant from that island - sell on 2 other color islands. ??? profit

and that helps the failed econ and mining how?

Wait, what?

Economy problems were due to population issues and all islands having the same resources. The later is no long an issue. You can do as nordec says... Mine factional material on one island, haul it to another place that doesn't have it and demands it, profit.

As for spawns: I was farming 4th star mechs/heavy mechs all day on tellesis post patch at the ball and chain... If you think that spawn is crap I dont know what to tell you? There are others like it on other islands.

If you can't find a challenge on alpha you are not looking hard enough.

I'm sorry your engrish is bad and the phrase "Not talking about telle" didn't make it to you.....as for the main econ problem moving a resource from point A to point B to sell for profit solves the market problem how?..not to mention the issue with the market has little to do with low pop As I alone can build over 19 slot's and 50 a run ...Its the mats and the mats needed to build items that screwed the market. the game pop was just a added issue

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Wait, aren't you a 700k ep player? That probably explains why your not finding any challenging NPCs, it's alpha.

Where is Lupus's RvR when you really need it?

Prior to the patch, there where ZERO farmable NPC's on alpha; they were either missing or bugged. So in that since, this patch has improved alpha ratting 100%.

I will agree with you on alpha mats though, it's going to get very competitive to gather resources on the Alpha Islands. This is acutally by design, because if it did not get competitive, Beta/Gamma capable corps would simply sit on alpha and mine.

Now, I see you've posted in a couple other threads, so I'm off to see if your still QQ'ing or have any valid complaints/suggestions yet.

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Arga wrote:

Wait, aren't you a 700k ep player? That probably explains why your not finding any challenging NPCs, it's alpha.

Where is Lupus's RvR when you really need it?

Prior to the patch, there where ZERO farmable NPC's on alpha; they were either missing or bugged. So in that since, this patch has improved alpha ratting 100%.

I will agree with you on alpha mats though, it's going to get very competitive to gather resources on the Alpha Islands. This is acutally by design, because if it did not get competitive, Beta/Gamma capable corps would simply sit on alpha and mine.

Now, I see you've posted in a couple other threads, so I'm off to see if your still QQ'ing or have any valid complaints/suggestions yet.

Is there anyone in your corp that actually reads a post then trolls or do you all just try and troll/discredit any point not your own?

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Zigzagman2 wrote:

Is there anyone in your corp that actually reads a post then trolls or do you all just try and troll/discredit any point not your own?

no

Re: Further Alpha Nerf

Arga wrote:

Prior to the patch, there where ZERO farmable NPC's on alpha; they were either missing or bugged. So in that since, this patch has improved alpha ratting 100%.

According to what you wrote, I think you have not been very long in the alpha island.

Before the patch:
For each "alpha 2" island there is one fixed spawn with 5th star (mixed, from light to heavy) robots.
Moreover, (I know exactly just for Tellesis) there are another 5 spawn with 3rd or 4th star (mixed, from light to heavy) robots.
Sometimes (though rarely) appeared wandering spawn with industrial robots, Scarab and other their escort.

After the patch:
On the Tellesis island, there is only one 4th star mech and only one 4th star assault static spawn.
There are 3 more static spawn with 3rd star mech (2 spawn is green, 1 is blue).
All the rest are mostly light and assault mission hubs.
I met wandering spawn with 4th star mech with Scarab and other accompaniment, but here is an old problem that some of these robots are often stuck in the structures or in the sea, and after everyone else is destroyed, does not appear a new spawn, until you destroy the remaining jammed robot.

From these numbers, I do not see any improvement alpha ratting.