1 (edited by Lupus Aurelius 2012-05-16 15:54:19)

Topic: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

We've all been screwing around for the past couple of days on the test server, and a couple of things stood out right away.

The only difference between beta and gamma is the gamma minerals, which are used for:
-PBS structures
-Scarab MK2

Add to this the "armor" on PBS, which is pretty weak atm, a fully grown deployed wall unit has more hit points and damage resist than a terminal, the expense involved in setting up PBS on gamma, and all you see is HUGE risk and NIC sink, with the only benefit of minerals which can only be used to build more PBS and a MK2.

Ok, you have the "thrill" of terraforming an island, la-de-da, maybe 2 or 3, and maybe, just maybe, we'll see some epic seiges and assaults.  But at the end of the day, with what has currently been presented, you could just stay on beta and not lose out.  There are no real incentives to be on gamma from an economic point of view, that can not be achieved on beta currently.  And, there are the PBS upgrades and decoder forge, etc, that add some nice capablities to owning a PBS on gamma.  However, high standing and the industry changes can make a beta op very profitable for refining and production, with the added advantage or immediate alpha market access.

That is critical, due to the mineral and commodity changes, you will either have to go to other faction areas to mine, or you will have to buy on the market.  Either way, all that has to be transported out to gamma, adding even more time and risk, and doubling if not even tripling the amount of time needed to move materials around to where they need to be processed.  Even a scarab, 720U, will be going all day, considering how some materials bulk, like Helioptris.

Granted, NPCs are not on gamma on the test server, and I have no data on artifact scanning there atm.  But once the thrill of teraforming an island and spamming PBS fades, and the daily grind of defending assets and the added logistics of moving stuff to and from market areas sets in, there is nothing that stands out as any great "reward" for holding gamma territory, other than epeen.  Discuss.

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Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

totaly agree on what lupus said.

and that make me worried for the futur.

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Nothing is holding people in 0.0 in that other game and they do the same things day in and day out....

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Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Khader Khan wrote:

Nothing is holding people in 0.0 in that other game and they do the same things day in and day out....

???????

Moon goo, required for all T2 production, anoms with faction spawns and higher bounties, PI, complexes. higher end minerals, the ABCs and mining anoms with Mercoxit, ...

Lots more in null in that game

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Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Khader Khan wrote:

Nothing is holding people in 0.0 in that other game and they do the same things day in and day out....

oh yes there is... moon minerals are quite damn profitable.

defs saind that gamma minerals are pland for new bots/stuff. so this may change. but atm with the current test server from the economical point of view. i have to agree.

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

The reward of gamma, is the epeen. Or more aptly, the challenge of trying to survive there.

Those that don't want the challenge, will be the ones making it more challenging, with random attacks.

The attacker/defender relationship ensures that only, lets call them hard-core corps, will settle out in gamma.

I know that some small corps are thinking it would be nice to have a little spot to call home, but its just plain out going to be too expensive, in both time and resources, to try to maintain an outpost without a large workforce.

In simple terms.

Big corp = low risk, so Risk versus Reward is favorable.
Small corp = large risk, so Risk versus Reward is unfavorable.

Check back to the old posts, after launch, beta corps had 100's of active members, and alliances where 500+ strong.

It's not up to the devs to make Gamma worthwhile for 4 players and a hamster to have fun there (duct tape optional). The server needs to get its hands out of *** and start making viable corps.

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Arga wrote:

The reward of gamma, is the epeen. Or more aptly, the challenge of trying to survive there.

?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

You have got to be s***ing us...

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Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

What the F'ing kind of reward do you want, its a video game.

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Arga wrote:

What the F'ing kind of reward do you want, its a video game.

I would like destroyer/walkers kernels and factories which could build those

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Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Arga wrote:

What the F'ing kind of reward do you want, its a video game.

no, its a sandbox game. DEVs adding Sand and increasing the size of the box. What reward does it give you for playing the game at all?

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Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

I have to agree with Arga and Lupus, let's be honest.  I said this day one.  The logistics to move everything with such Huge U requirements requires organized OPs almost ALWAYS.  Which requires large risk, which requires large NIC sinks.  Yep  I plan to be an attacker, a ghanker and a down right bad guy during the Gamma stage.  But hey!  YOU PEOPLE WANTED THIS!  You got what you wanted wink  I just want the *** NPCs to work and rebalance of minerals in Beta-1s and multiple squad leads.  So go build your EPEEN castles.  Becuase I got a endless supply of shovels to throw at your castle.

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Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Nia needs Melange.

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Annihilator wrote:
Arga wrote:

What the F'ing kind of reward do you want, its a video game.

no, its a sandbox game. DEVs adding Sand and increasing the size of the box. What reward does it give you for playing the game at all?

Its not a question of motivation here. Lupus specifically used the "Risk v Reward"(RVR) mantra.

RVR is so generic, it allows people to spew it out without putting any kind of thought behind it.

Yeah, I've been vocal about the difficulties that small corps are going to have keeping an outpost going. Those are logistical, player based issues stemming from the risk of other players simply wanting the NOT to have a base. If it was about territorial control, then an adjustment in the reward could entice more players to attempt to take and keep it. But there's SO MUCH LAND that anyone that wants a base can simply set one up. Its about if they have the man power to defend it against raiders, not about an attacker trying to take their land because it has some inherint value (like moon bases).

I think I made the suggestion, before, about only putting gamma ore on a couple islands at first. Now you have a situation where your forcing a group of alliances or corps to actually fight over a resource, instead of just chosing to deny it to another group because they think thats what they should be doing.

The gamma ore will be valuable, at first just to build the better outpost equipment, which will take months. By then, we should have another line of bots, which will also need it. As well as Scarab MK II's, which by the way are awesome with the second leg slot.

tl;dr - It IS a sandbox. Which means motivation comes 90% from the players. To make gamma worth it, all someone has to do is decided it is. Then its up to them to keep it, and if others don't agree, they can ratchet up the risk and see how dedicated that group is to keeping a gamma outpost.

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

what gamma is missing yet, is a reason to go there, and getting the "i have archieved something" feeling, even if it means that my robot exploded, which i haven't pvp'ed.

*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!
Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear

15

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

LOL some of you guys sound like you want the DEVS to pay you to play this game. i think gamma is a stepping stone to the future of the game with more advanced bots and "options" Gamma is not going to be the ZOMGLOLWTFTIA of perp.. its just another phase to make the game over all better.

Reward? make your own goals .. . thats what sandboxes are about if you have no goals then you will never have a reward.

Risk is definitely high for gamma but if you don't want a foot hold into the next phase of the game by all means don't go to gamma, leave it for the guys who enjoy playing the game and don't need a paycheck to do it.

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Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

While I see it isn't there in black and white right now. Risk vs. Reward will build over time.

John 3:16 - Timothy 2:23

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Hopefully the material will be required for new bots/modules in the future (imo should be required for T4 production, epriton should be T3+, honestly wouldn't care if noralgis went the way of the dinosaurs). We havn't seen how NPCs are setup yet there and what loot they will drop yet.

I see the current beta corps basing accounts out of all 3 areas just because the general lack of population.

Anyways I definitely think gamma recource needs to be used for something important besides PBS and the loot gamma NPC's drop should be extremely valuable.

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.

18 (edited by Gremrod 2012-05-16 23:37:25)

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Sundial wrote:

Anyways I definitely think gamma recource needs to be used for something important besides PBS

i.e. MK II bots and mechs?

John 3:16 - Timothy 2:23

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

The poor Scarab mk II.

Everyone is using you on test server, and getting used to the extra capacity, and totally discounting how much of a PIA it will be to build them, and how much in demand they will be.

Remember, to even mine the gamma material, you have to get an outpost going with a mining foundation. I really expect that this material will be much much more expensive then epitron, making it a significant reward.

Catch that? You CAN NOT ninja mine this material. The only source will be from established gamma corps.

Scarab MK II @ 100M+ NIC ... yeah, at least. And 900U vs 720U, it will be worth it.

If you see this and don't care about the MK II, you're wrong.

You're also wrong about how in demand advanced and hi-tech products will be.

I suppose they could always make the ewar tuners and other new items require gamma ore too.

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

The one mk2 and initial structures are good uses of it initially. Though for continued demand, it needs to be more than that.

I think all mk2 bots should require it at a very minimum.

Looking forward to new players and new conflicts.

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Arga wrote:

The reward of gamma, is the epeen. Or more aptly, the challenge of trying to survive there.

That is what beta was and everyone got bored of the SAP system so they changed that....

So epeen is what Gamma has now, but I would hope for it to have more.

I think that is what Lupus is getting at maybe, long term? Because the epeen thing doesn't last long term. This game has proven that.

John 3:16 - Timothy 2:23

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Sundial wrote:

The one mk2 and initial structures are good uses of it initially. Though for continued demand, it needs to be more than that.

I think all mk2 bots should require it at a very minimum.


MK2 production would come to a SCREAMING hault for atleast two monthes.

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23 (edited by Gremrod 2012-05-17 03:38:28)

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Ville wrote:
Sundial wrote:

The one mk2 and initial structures are good uses of it initially. Though for continued demand, it needs to be more than that.

I think all mk2 bots should require it at a very minimum.


MK2 production would come to a SCREAMING hault for atleast two monthes.

Crap, with all the changes a lot may halt for 2 months anyway. Well lets face it people are stock piling stuff right now before the changes hit live. It may take 2 or more months for production to resume.

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Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Gremrod wrote:
Arga wrote:

The reward of gamma, is the epeen. Or more aptly, the challenge of trying to survive there.

That is what beta was and everyone got bored of the SAP system so they changed that....

So epeen is what Gamma has now, but I would hope for it to have more.

I think that is what Lupus is getting at maybe, long term? Because the epeen thing doesn't last long term. This game has proven that.

Lupus didn't bother to put what he was getting at, he simply typed RVR and expected everyone else to fill in the blanks and say he's a genius for pointing out an issue.

In the overall scheme, everyone needs a different type of motivator, and Epeen is a significant driver in many PVP oriented games. Even Perp's kill board drives PVP through Epeen here.

So I would disagree, Epeen is a long term motivator, but I will agree it won't motivate everyone.

But, RVR is not a FIXED number.

If Perp surrenders and assumes the population won't increase, then the issues of risk and reward could probably be settled among the reamining few players. But assuming more players join the game, the risk of living in gamma will go down.

What needs to be dealt with is the "BOREDOM" of maintaing gamma, not the RVR. And I think most hardcore players will agree that additional risk helps reduces boredom; specifically, sitting around defending with no action is boring. Defending from attackers is as exciting as be the attacker, which is not boring.

Lastly, I've already pointed out that access to gamma ore IS a large reward. But there is no way the game should balance RVR out so that 5 guys (even with 20 accounts) feel the RVR justifes trying to live there.

It feels like we've been living in a 100 man game for so long, people have stopped even thinking there could be more people, or really that there SHOULD be more people.

And my opinion is, putting in some kind of NIC rainbow on Gamma WILL NOT get more people into the game. It may make those playing it happier until inflation catches on, but it doesn't address the people issue.

Challenges attract people to games. Most of them will fail to acheive them when they do join, but it gets them into the game to try it atleast. Gamma should at least get new players to look at the game, with all the new sand, and give them a goal to shoot for.

Re: Gamma - Plenty of risk, what is the reward?

Gremrod wrote:
Ville wrote:
Sundial wrote:

The one mk2 and initial structures are good uses of it initially. Though for continued demand, it needs to be more than that.

I think all mk2 bots should require it at a very minimum.


MK2 production would come to a SCREAMING hault for atleast two monthes.

Crap, with all the changes a lot may halt for 2 months anyway. Well lets face it people are stock piling stuff right now before the changes hit live. It may take 2 or more months for production to resume.

What ville means, is the logistics of getting gamma ore requires a significant investment in infrastructure, and the corps that do that, won't be letting much, if any, gamma ore into the open market. Assuming corps can actually establish functional bases, it will be at least a couple months before any volume of ore is available for sale. Which would, if it was required for MK II bots, kill production for non-gamma corps, and I suppose it would be a Reward in the RVR equation.

That being the case, everyone should start running 100 lines of MK II bots now.