Topic: Gamma Balancing

Ok, so I am a little late to this party.

Currently there are changes to the political landscapes on Gamma. All good, no complaints.
I understand Gamma mechanics constantly get changed for balancing purposes, or to fix unintended uses of mechanics. Fine. And depending if you are on the giving or recieving end, you are either happy about this or cry about this. Of course.

With one side building bases, and another side reconfiguring, at what point will the basic laws of building on gamma be set?

Right now, the low hanging fruit and afk bases are being removed by players. Working as intended. Our enemies are creative and have some very good ways to attack our main bases. I have some creative and simple ways to correct this. Should I bother?

Gamma is an investment. There is justifyably an attitude in the game today that there's no point in investing in Gamma, in the "Endgame" of Perpetuum, because of the changes that negate players hard work and time investment.

So my TL;DR is

Devs, when can we expect the Gamma mechanics fundamentals to be set? Steam Release?


As far as trolling or whatever comments to follow ... I am not referring to something specific, nor am I complaining at all with the other side bringing it to our main islands ... its about time for that, and I'm quite happy there is a threat.

Re: Gamma Balancing

Well the whole game so far when this was talked about it was met with 'afk gammas dont defend themselves' I agree that things should be set, documented and work as intended.

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: Gamma Balancing

It really does need to get fixed sooner or later..  I would be willing to hold a massive in game truce for the decon and logistics needed to get things back to alpha for everyone.  But if its destroyed before then, less people to complain amirite?

Steam achievement Unlocked:  Being a Badass
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Dev Zoom: I think its time to confess, Ville is my alt
Dev Zoom: Ville can be sometimes so sane it's scary.

Re: Gamma Balancing

This should have been a blog (or still will be), but yes, the sensible time to do anything about gamma is before Steam.

We do have plans for two changes:

1. Limit terraforming to slopes that you can still pass. This can be made more interesting by making the limit so that at max slope possible lights/assaults can pass but mechs/heavies can't (just barely, so still no vertical walls). Obviously this would make lights/assaults useful for gamma base infiltration, if someone still uses terrain to defend it in light of this change. Our goal is to make you NOT use terrain for defense, but wall units instead, or anything that would make sense to develop after terrain defense is not useful anymore (shield fence, etc).

2. Limit the number of buildings you can connect to a terminal. This could be done by introducing a resource that the main terminal provides and all the buildings connected to it tap on that resource (basically what is CPU or reactor when equipping robots).

Re: Gamma Balancing

Terraforming change.. what happens with the allready terraformed ground?

Re: Gamma Balancing

Burial wrote:

Terraforming change.. what happens with the allready terraformed ground?

Reset, if we want the change to have any effect then there is no way around that unfortunately.

Re: Gamma Balancing

What about the buildings?  Do we just need to shake hands and have a massive decon weekend?  Or will there be some assistance from the dev team?

Steam achievement Unlocked:  Being a Badass
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Dev Zoom: I think its time to confess, Ville is my alt
Dev Zoom: Ville can be sometimes so sane it's scary.

Re: Gamma Balancing

To be fair I would advocate the following:

1) All terraforming charges ever bought would be respawned to the character that bought them

2) All gamma structures linked to a corp would be server deconned and placed in the corp hanger of said corp

3) All corp assets would be placed in the same hanger

4)all personal assets would be placed in peoples alpha hanger

And sooner rather than later

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: Gamma Balancing

Of course if we decide to go this way we will try to provide any help we can to minimize the losses. In the case of buildings which have an owner and are things that can be counted this is pretty straightforward. For terraforming... yeah.

Re: Gamma Balancing

Ville wrote:

What about the buildings?  Do we just need to shake hands and have a massive decon weekend?  Or will there be some assistance from the dev team?


On this, my thought was something like

Devs : here are the changes

as of right now ... players are credited for what they have.
take these credits and spend them on a new base on the test server using whatever new mechanics.

Gamma reset or whatever, whenever, and Devs assemble player made plans.

Something along these lines.

Re: Gamma Balancing

DEV Zoom wrote:

Of course if we decide to go this way we will try to provide any help we can to minimize the losses. In the case of buildings which have an owner and are things that can be counted this is pretty straightforward. For terraforming... yeah.

with regards to the terraforming charges I realise it looks like your making folks rich but actually thats not the case. The people who have gammas up will get the terraforming charges needed to make them again and the rest will still have to sell them on the market so its not creating any nic but just redistributing it over what will turn out to be a long period of time.

Considering the billions people have spent its needed.

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: Gamma Balancing

This what happens when you remove Epriton, rebuilding is not a wise investment

Simple change:

Remove teleports. Access to gamma via new mobile tps at a certian range to gammas, these spawns you at a random location on gamma every 4 hours. Bring back Epriton. Some tweaks to rebalance.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Gamma Balancing

Are the replacement for sky high walls going to be the wall units like Beta?

Steam achievement Unlocked:  Being a Badass
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Dev Zoom: I think its time to confess, Ville is my alt
Dev Zoom: Ville can be sometimes so sane it's scary.

14 (edited by Aye Pod 2014-01-19 19:43:51)

Re: Gamma Balancing

Jita wrote:

To be fair I would advocate the following:

1) All terraforming charges ever bought would be respawned to the character that bought them

2) All gamma structures linked to a corp would be server deconned and placed in the corp hanger of said corp

3) All corp assets would be placed in the same hanger

4)all personal assets would be placed in peoples alpha hanger

And sooner rather than later

+1

Fair to all.


Cassius wrote:

... players are credited for what they have.
take these credits and spend them on a new base on the test server using whatever new mechanics.

Gamma reset or whatever, whenever, and Devs assemble player made plans.

Something along these lines.

-1

Since the goal of the wipe is for a fresh restart with all the new mechanics then it should be just that. Everyone gets their stuff back on alpha and have to re-build everything.


Now lets hear the QQ about not wanting to reinvest time in remaking gamma .

Re: Gamma Balancing

Aye Pod wrote:

Now lets hear the QQ about not wanting to reinvest time in remaking gamma .



Move to beta, mine and haul Epriton, to build it up again, yeah I'd loved to so I can mine HDT AFK.

RIP PERPETUUM

16 (edited by Jita 2014-01-19 19:54:01)

Re: Gamma Balancing

One thing I would like to add - terraforming as it is isn't the problem - the ability to do it everywhere is. my fix would be:

Institute the limit on number of structures by giving bases 'grid' already proposed

make terraforming and contruction only able to be done 3km from a terminal

make bases be placed 5km from each other and from the teleports

Limit the number of bases to 3 per island

If you did all that you could move epriton back to gamma

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: Gamma Balancing

Whatever you do, don't refund in form of NIC. Pumping hundreds billions at once will kill the economy for good.

18 (edited by Aye Pod 2014-01-19 20:21:17)

Re: Gamma Balancing

Celebro wrote:

Move to beta, mine and haul Epriton, to build it up again, yeah I'd loved to so I can mine HDT AFK.

Many a gamma were lost due to changes in mechanics after they were built. No DEVS were batphon'd to modify those designs around the new mechanics. Keeping to the status quo these new changes should be made and the current base design left as is with the new changes in place. We could do that also. A reset is whats needed and is whats fair for all. Im pretty sure the biker gang would rather see those high walls come down so we could reset your gamma bases for you.

TL:DR You can end up on alpha with all your stuff or you could end up on alpha after losing all your stuff. Up to you.
Either way Gamma needs these changes for it to have a purpose in this game.

19 (edited by Tux 2014-01-19 20:11:55)

Re: Gamma Balancing

WOW ... Really ..


So what is the time line for this zoom ... because there is little to no reason to expend more assets on gamma if your going to wipe them all.

And ill say If you make this change you better be dam sure you never have to wipe gamma again !!!

you have people piss away years of time to say you want gamma to be some thing different .. fine

Zoom one thing to need to take into consideration and make sure if is that the natural landscape of the island follows the same rules as your new terraforming scheme.  I.E a natural "cliff" should not exceed the slopes you want to be the maximum slope that you can terraform.

You guys need to communicate things like this a lot more to the players. If you knew you were going to make these changes you should have been honest with he player base and told us " guys don't put too much time into gamma because were thinking about wiping it"

I'm not talking about equipment robots buildings or other assets I'm talking about the time spent terraforming our gammas into our personal paradise.

People put faith in the devs, the game systems and devote time and effort into making the game fun and diverse ... Gamma is one of the last things that was just about limit less, its very sad to see things like this go sad


Just like the reversal of Epriton back to beta only, now that this is known you need to make it happen soon Zoom ,.... you only worsen the impact of dragging it out 6+ months .. people need to get on with their re designs and colonizations.

no one wants to play under uncertain conditions never knowing what and when the Devs are going to change core mechanics and wipe islands.

TL;DR .. hurry up already so we can get back to business.

Tux ~ Kill the messenger, he was part of it all along.
Euripides ~ Ten soldiers wisely led will beat a hundred without a head.
Bertrand Russell ~ War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

Re: Gamma Balancing

Tux wrote:

deleted whines

Just like the reversal of Epriton back to beta only, now that this is known you need to make it happen soon Zoom ,.... you only worsen the impact of dragging it out 6+ months .. people need to get on with their re designs and colonizations.

this is pretty key. I was planning on deconning rhao, we were in the middle of a campaign attacking stc's islands - make the changes very soon.

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: Gamma Balancing

Aye Pod wrote:
Celebro wrote:

Move to beta, mine and haul Epriton, to build it up again, yeah I'd loved to so I can mine HDT AFK.

Many a gamma were lost due to changes in mechanics after they were built. No DEVS were batphon'd to modify those designs around the new mechanics. Keeping to the status quo these new changes should be made and the current base design left as is with the new changes in place. We could do that also. A reset is whats needed and is whats fair for all. Im pretty sure the biker gang would rather see those high walls come down so we could reset your gamma bases for you.

TL:DR You can end up on alpha with all your stuff or you could end up on alpha after losing all your stuff. Up to you.
Either way Gamma need these changes for it to have a purpose in this game.

If their needs to be a wipe, so be it, but better make it work for good this time because with these change there are bigger risks and even less rewards.

RIP PERPETUUM

Re: Gamma Balancing

Celebro wrote:

If their needs to be a wipe, so be it, but better make it work for good this time because with these change there are bigger risks and even less rewards.

+1 Agreed

Re: Gamma Balancing

People will just place smaller footprints - I dont think anyone in game now would build the same base again

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: Gamma Balancing

You should adapt and overcome.


Tux wrote:

WOW ... Really ..


So what is the time line for this zoom ... because there is little to no reason to expend more assets on gamma if your going to wipe them all.

And ill say If you make this change you better be dam sure you never have to wipe gamma again !!!

you have people piss away years of time to say you want gamma to be some thing different .. fine

Zoom one thing to need to take into consideration and make sure if is that the natural landscape of the island follows the same rules as your new terraforming scheme.  I.E a natural "cliff" should not exceed the slopes you want to be the maximum slope that you can terraform.

You guys need to communicate things like this a lot more to the players. If you knew you were going to make these changes you should have been honest with he player base and told us " guys don't put too much time into gamma because were thinking about wiping it"

I'm not talking about equipment robots buildings or other assets I'm talking about the time spent terraforming our gammas into our personal paradise.

People put faith in the devs, the game systems and devote time and effort into making the game fun and diverse ... Gamma is one of the last things that was just about limit less, its very sad to see things like this go sad


Just like the reversal of Epriton back to beta only, now that this is known you need to make it happen soon Zoom ,.... you only worsen the impact of dragging it out 6+ months .. people need to get on with their re designs and colonizations.

no one wants to play under uncertain conditions never knowing what and when the Devs are going to change core mechanics and wipe islands.

TL;DR .. hurry up already so we can get back to business.

25 (edited by Celebro 2014-01-19 20:35:37)

Re: Gamma Balancing

Jita wrote:

People will just place smaller footprints - I dont think anyone in game now would build the same base again

Jita: When gamma was released no one wanted to start a gamma base, they complained there was not enough rewards or things to do, they even convinced the Devs reduce terraforming charges prices and increase speed of terraforming.
Nobody really expected the big fortresses we have now.

Check the Dev-player conference: http://content.perpetuum-online.com/aud … -07-05.mp3

RIP PERPETUUM