1

(26 replies, posted in General discussion)

Good post. I wonder if it's not a chicken-or-egg question, though- if end game PvP is the goal, why isn't there more of it? Are people not committing themselves because there's not enough to fight about, or is there not enough to fight about because people aren't committing themselves?

Judging from in-game chat and these forums, it appears that more people are concerned with the soap opera dramatics of the alliances- they might be too busy to fight.

Anyway, regardless of reason, fewer and fewer people are logging in these days, so obviously there is a problem.

Alexander wrote:

I'd rather see more end game content and more complex mechanics rather than new robots.

I would, too, but I have to say that a lot depends on what kind of content and mechanics. If it's more roaming NPC bots, or mechanisms for PvP, I doubt much will change. The last patch made some changes that need to be undone, or at least made irrelevant- I know for a fact that several individuals left because of it.

Ralph Law wrote:

Some totally new and HILARIOUS use of characters to make a picture!

I remember the nineties, too. Fun times.

Hustler, I think what the others are trying to point out is that there is no such thing as "the highest" dps. The damage you do depends on the situation. Sorry, but you want an easy answer that doesn't exist.

Gremrod wrote:

And now for something entirely different....


Back to game play. See you in game! smile

--- END OF LINE ---

Move along nothing to see here any longer.!

Sorry, it doesn't work that way. big_smile

If you guys really did want it to fade into the background, perhaps you should have persuaded Styx to avoid starting such a self-serving thread, and taking his well-earned lumps instead. wink

Nice to have you back, Neoxx.

Making insurance fraud 'legal' is an interesting idea, but I think the Perp economy would need to be more complex than it is currently- mainly, the eternal NIC spigot would need to be turned off. Turning off the spigot, and making a corp's borrowing power dependent on things like its credit history and net worth would go a long way towards creating a self-policing insurance system.

It's an interesting idea, but I wonder if the devs' vision includes such depth- the recent changes make me think it does not.

Also, I think you're exploiting the difference between different meanings of 'exploit': one meaning is to make good use of, as in exploiting minerals or exploiting respawn times. The other is to take advantage of something in an unfair manner, which is what the members of your corp did.

Indeed, Wraith, quite interesting. As I stated earlier, one of the clearest lessons to be learned is that you can't be measured and even-handed with some people- they'll take it as a sign of weakness and scream about how they've been mistreated.

But then, that's what children do. While the whole episode has been quite amusing, I am disappointed- I had respect for some of these people, but that's rapidly slipping away with each new rationalization.

Frankly, it comes at a bad time, too. With fewer people logging in, this sort of problem can only discourage new players.

Campana wrote:

We had a (hopefully last) discussion about this on TS, and this is what came out of it.

Who's "we"?

In all seriousness, were devs involved, and do they share these conclusions?

Lupus Aurelius wrote:

Savin's outrage tears are the best tears...besides, this is so yesterday, man up and move on.

Outrage? Hardly- no harm was done to anyone, so there's no reason for anger. But I do have many reactions to all of this:

• Disgust is the first, that you, who claim to be wise and mature, are a cheat.

• Disappointment that you were too scared to play, instead hiding behind tired old clichés because I've already proven you a liar, fraud, and idiot point-for-point, and you know I can do it again whenever I wish.

• And more than anything else, absolute hilarity, knowing that you want to move on because you can't escape the fact that you're guilty, and that it's going to take a long, long, time for the self-proclaimed "bad boys" to be anything other than a laughing stock.


Oh, and as for "manning up"- if you were, you wouldn't be squirting your excuses all over the forums and feigning outrage at 'unprofessionalism'- as if you'd ever encountered professionalism outside a dictionary.

By now it should be clear that the worst mistake the devs made was to explain their actions.

When they simply could have banned outright, they instead admitted some culpability in a flawed system, and took punitive action to correct the situation. Their error was not in making a flawed system, but in giving the fraudulent players a second chance.

And this is what happens:

  • We get page after page of self-serving nonsense- they really were only looking out for the game;

  • We get faux indignation at 'unprofessional' treatment- the patent unfairness of imaginary actions;

  • We get hairsplitting- I'm not guilty if I told you about it earlier but still took advantage of it;

  • We get egotistic posturing masquerading as 'facts'- the people who spent 'months' working hand-in-hand with the developers, all for the greater good (because M2S care about you, Mr. player), admit to defrauding the game and the community, and yet are shocked- indeed, mortally wounded, that we 'unfairly' refuse to believe them

I find it amazing that people who have fraps of every battle, recordings of voice chat, and plenty of chat logs– people who, after every battle, run to the forums to turn their losses into wins, who post whatever snippet of chat they can find– are unable to find a single clear record of these 'months' of 'serious conversation' with the developers.

I also find it amazing that these same children persist in the "but we pointed it out" argument- as if telling the developers that there was a problem somehow gave them the right to exploit that problem when it was not immediately fixed. It doesn't: even if they were able to produce proof of this imaginary discussion, it would in no way absolve them.

The only 'truth' to be found here is that the members of these fraudulent corps have the same profound sense of entitlement as an eight year-old. It's the same brazen selfishness that lets them demand a response when they deserve none. It's the same massive ego that, upon getting said response, attack it as 'unprofessional' and 'unreasonable.'

And somewhere, just like children, they hope that amidst all the words and shouting, we'll lose track of the fundamental point: You did it, you admitted it, and you deserve much more than you got. You should be considering yourselves lucky, but you want to take that reprieve from the executioner's block and turn it into the keys of the kingdom.

Arga, I think you were very clear, and I think you are right- recent changes may have been designed to get more players to move to Beta, but in the long run, it might not be the right way to do it.

I think we all understand that the goal is to have more PvP, and more competition in general. But there are a lot of ways of doing that, so I asked the dev for clarification.

If their goal is to have something better than EvE, then they should be interested in adding more depth to the game environment- namely, political and economic competition.

But that would be completely inappropriate if their vision is a fast-paced combat sim, with battles raging across the islands. Right now, this appears to be the goal.

Sometimes these goals can be met using the same mechanic- cheap T1 and T2 gear, or adding Beta-only resources, are good examples. But if they want to have more depth, and make economic and political competition viable, or make the game accessible to a lot of smaller corps or independent players, they will need to reverse some recent changes.

An adult might have elaborated on some points, disagreed with some, started a discussion in a different direction, you know, put a little thought into it, like I did with your points. But if linking to old, tiresome fads is what you kids do instead, i guess that's ok, too.

Mara Kaid wrote:

Thus without the opportunity for the smaller corps to have some kind of way in, besides joining .... you see this big fat monster eating everything...

Mara, this might be by design- that's why I asked for a dev to chime in. The last patch seems to be pushing players in this direction, and in the latest devblog, the game appears to be continuing in this fashion. I think the idea is of large corps continually at war, with major battles and minor skirmishes constantly testing boundaries and allegiances.

Arga wrote:

The analogy is to show that Beta doesn't need alpha, but alpha players need beta; the imbalance is just causing the alpha players to give up, or go to beta once and get killed, and give up.

Arga, Siddy's in a corp that's been asking for more targets. From their perspective as PvPers, pushing characters to the Beta islands is a great idea, and it doesn't matter if those are small or large corps, just so long as it is targetable.

Now, in the long run, it seems like a bad idea; but in the meantime, more targets=more fun.

Annihilator wrote:

T1 gear is farmable from npcs and doesnt need to be build at all -> no market value for beta corps, they gain it on the fly while farming Kernels for NIC income.

This is true. But Mara and I were discussing the smaller corps and independents. Besides, we're arguing that T1 gear should have little value. It requires little risk, no?

Annihilator wrote:

Because of the previous point and the rank3 recycling plants on Beta, T2 equipment is also pretty easy to build for a beta-corp.

Again, we've been discussing smaller corps and independents. Beta corps are self-sufficient- the current problem is that there is no reason at all for a Beta corp to negotiate with smaller corps or independents: they have all of the resources, and all of the facilities ready at hand. All we can offer them is target practice, or maybe slightly cheaper ores.

Annihilator wrote:

making low-end gear cheaper to build would make specialiced industrials for it unnecessary. especially ammo.

It already is- nobody specializes in T1 or T2 gear, nor should anyone have to: it needs to be cheap and easy to find. Again: low rewards for low risks.

Annihilator wrote:

the game either has to few minerals/comodities, or the basic and advanced stuff dont have enough diversity in their component list.

We would welcome a greater diversity in T4 components, but only if there were a mechanism that would give us small corps and independents some power to negotiate. At the moment, there is none.

Annihilator wrote:

Together with Caetan post, you can see that trading between islands can't really be established. if you scrap one mineral from an island, they wont be able to build ~80% of the basic stuff. for example, remove titan ore from any island, and they have to import it even for their basic equip - not good

Trading between two beta islands is not a concern. Rather, we are interested in the role of industrialists in the game. At the moment, it appears to be shrinking, and we want to know if that will continue.

Caetan wrote:

It almost feels like beta island corps have no need whatsoever to come to alpha, because they are entirely self-sufficient.

This is exactly right, which is fine if your goal is to make PvP as affordable as possible. That's why I asked for elaboration- it seems that is the direction the game is headed.

Thanks Mara, an excellent summary! I would add a couple of things:

Mara Kaid wrote:

We wish for there to be a way to make going from alpha to beta viable vs gathering several allies, or asking another large alliance to help us.

In other words, we want to have back some bargaining power: at the moment, I have nothing to offer a Beta corp that it could not make on its own, and probably for a lower cost. Therefore, they have no reason to allow me on their island, and are free to charge me what they wish for their rare materials.

If those of us who specialized deeply into industry had something uniquely ours, then we would have some power to negotiate trade and passage with the Beta corps.

Mara Kaid wrote:

It would be nice if low end items had less epitron use, or 0, so that more pvp could be viable. Why is it for t1 items we have to have beta components? It wasn't like that in eve, and it would be nice.

Basically, all T1 and T2 gear should be very easy to build, requiring only basic resources and short time periods. We understand that this would drastically lower their price, but that's the idea: so long as the combat-oriented players are swimming in basic ammo and gear, they'll keep at it, which in the long run benefits us more.

Start requiring beta components for T3 or T4 gear, and introduce another uniquely-beta resource for T5 and so forth: the low-end stuff should be cheap and plentiful; the high-end stuff should represent a risk to everyone involved.

DEV Client wrote:

Removed non-constructive and offensive comments. Please keep this interesting discussion civil.

Since you're showing an interest in this discussion, I wonder if you have a moment to share the developer's thoughts regarding the place of industry in the game?

There have been many similar discussions about this issue, and it appears to many, especially after the last patch, that you see the industry side as an adjunct to combat, either PvE or PvP, but especially PvP. I think the latest devblog supports this as well.

If this is true, I am disappointed- I had high hopes that the economy would become an arena where we could take real risks and reap real rewards, and that the political arena would offer yet another layer of challenge. Instead, the political and social systems seem to be diminishing in importance- and I know that there are several players who, seeing this, have already decided to leave the game.

Anyway, what do the developers see happening in the long run?

Annihilator wrote:

guess which ones are the most important one for any aspect of PvP...

(ewar bot, ewar equip, sensor amp, tunings, NEXUS, sensoring....)

And that's a good thing, isn't it? Wouldn't you rather have these items readily available and cheap?

Arga wrote:

Or just even T1 gear.

This ties into my other post about corps never being able to recover and gain strengh while on alpha to have any chance to upset the 'seated' beta alliances.

For that matter, why not let it stand as it has been, and build on that?

T1 and T2 are pretty easy to make, and don't require many exotic materials (except for the items that use epitron). T3 requires a bit more time and more exotics, but not much, and now T4 wants the new plant- this sounds about right. And when T5 comes out, introduce a new resource tied to PvP or the Betas to keep the risk/reward curve high.

Arga wrote:

In the long term however, Perp will develop its own player base, its just going to be very quiet around March 1 when Rift goes live.

I think you're right, but maybe we differ in our reasons. I'm not sure that Rift will pull many players away from Perp- they seem to be two different types of player, although with some overlap.

My point is that the game is already very quiet- a lot of people stopped logging in after the last patch, and despite the interesting additions promised in the latest dev blog, I don't think the next patch will be enough.

In other words, when Rift goes live, it's going to be very quiet, but just a little more quiet than it already is.

Mara Kaid wrote:

I agree. Too much beta mats involved with basic pvp items. Why make basic pvp items have silly components. Encourage more pvp by making it easier for them. More pvp = more fun, less risk.

That's kind of why I believe in efficiency with the lowest tools, that way you never have to grind much, or loose much, but take a lot!

I think you have a good idea here- the "risk" that so many PvPers talk about should belong to the good stuff- maybe T3, definitely T4 and higher. If you want the best, you have to work to get it, or hire someone to do the work for you. In the meantime, if you can't afford the best, the adequate will suffice- it should be cheap and easily available.

The last thing you want is for PvPers to farm or grind for hours in order to get gear that lasts a few minutes: save that for the top of the line, for the players who are willing to put in the extra work.

I know the game lost a lot of players because they felt that the last patch was forcing them to move to Beta. I realize that part of this was a response to PvPers whining about a lack of targets, but the response was unquestionably too far in one direction. What's the harm in people farming alpha all day? If someone wants to build T1 and T2 gear without fear of being ganked (either by players or NPCs), let them- it certainly won't destroy the economy, it will keep the PvPers swimming in cheap, disposable gear, and it might even convince some players to keep subscribing.

19

(268 replies, posted in General discussion)

Zheo wrote:

nice devs removed my NIC that was all from mission rewards and i havent even played for months and certainly not done any insurance fraud at all.. thanks. big_smile

If this is true, and you never played when your corp did took advantage of the exploit, then it certainly is not fair that you were punished. Why not take it up with a GM or Dev? Just be sure beforehand that none of the abuses took place while you were actively playing.

20

(268 replies, posted in General discussion)

Lupus Aurelius wrote:

Actually, rather lame Zoom, that you have to ride on someone else's wagon train, instead of addressing those issues yourself.  I would have expected at least a modicum of professionalism form a "DEV".

What, he needs to come up with whole new ways of showing that you're wrong? It doesn't matter who points it out, wrong is wrong. And you, seemingly from pure instinct, are wrong.

Lupus Aurelius wrote:

As far as others, there is no point in engaging in discusion with people who's sole objective is to refute someone, no matter what they say and how they say it.  It's not worthy of my time nor effort.

Sorry, the boat to "the high ground" left a long time ago, right about the same time you started shooting at those 30-odd mechs.

And no, I don't live to prove everyone else wrong, but I'm sure it seems that way to you because you're pretty much always wrong.

Lupus Aurelius wrote:

My goal in this has been accoplished, to point out how unprofessional and arbitrary this has been handled, and those with at least half a wit can easily see how poorly this has been handled.

The only thing you've proven here is that you can't make a decent argument, and that you have the same sense of entitlement as an eight year-old.

Lupus Aurelius wrote:

EDIT - I do need to say that I made 1 error in the above - if you reread Zooms response to me, it was not from shooting bots that they say I was hanged for.  No, it was for GETTING BLOWN UP IN 30 BAPHS.  Funny, because I did not get any insurance money from that.  I never insured them.  So again, no insurance money was ever recieved by myself.  lol, interesting.

Again, so what?

Here you admit to taking part in the scheme. Whether you profit is irrelevant: you participated in the exploit, therefore you deserve your punishment.

21

(268 replies, posted in General discussion)

DEV Zoom wrote:

Lupus, while Savin is not a DEV, he told you just about everything I could have told you (thanks btw).

You're welcome!

Please don't take this as sucking up, or taking the dev's side, or M2S bashing: as they say here in Texas, I don't have a dog in this fight, and I doubt this affair has affected me much in-game. But I recognize wrong thinking when I see it, and Lupus, as usual, is wrong.

22

(268 replies, posted in General discussion)

Alfredson wrote:

I am saying that the devs need to communicate their intentions more, especially with penalties. Also whether it is a fair representation of wrongdoing. Alot of posts were about "zomg he is m2s he deserves it. As much as i agree, that is not a fair rule of law. This is their game yes, but we are the customers and we deserve to know.

I think you make a good point here- solid communication between the company and its customers is always a good thing.

As for penalties, though, I think it would be a mistake to let the players decide what "fair" meant- just consider the posters in this thread who have actually convinced themselves that the devs are at fault here. Would you trust those individuals to define violations and "fair" punishments?

Moreover, let's be honest here: these players should consider themselves fortunate that they were not simply banned, as they would be in a lot of other games. But instead, they have the gall (and, it seems, a child's sense of entitlement) to claim that they were treated unfairly.

I agree that many people here are glad to see the members of Infestation fall so hard, and that has colored their assessment of the situation. But I am equally troubled by the number of people willing to buy the completely invalid arguments that this is somehow the dev's fault- to me, that indicates a willingness to take advantage of exploits that is far too common.

23

(268 replies, posted in General discussion)

Alfredson wrote:

The point Lupus was trying to make was that he blew up Corp insured bots, profit which goes to the Corp. This was bad, yes, but the Corp got their money taken away. But on top of that, Lupus's own money was taken away. This is double penalty and it no longer follows the penalty rules set by devs after the fact without informing anybody.

Yes, Lupus is guilty, and deserves to suffer the penalty.

But where was it stated that the reduction was a one-time-only event? If further investigation shows additional wrongdoing, do the devs not have the right to make adjustments to the penalty?

24

(268 replies, posted in General discussion)

Xenapticon wrote:
Lupus Aurelius wrote:

Savin --- does not equal DEV. Not even relevant to the discussion...

I believe that is who we are waiting a response for here....

EDIT - oh, i forgot, Savin...  idiot!

So much irony in you calling everyone an idiot...

Someone explains how you're wrong and you just say it's not relevant. 

Oh and speak for yourself.

Eh, I'm used to it. Lupus just isn't capable of marshaling a valid argument, so he stomps his feet and takes it out on the poor saps in Teamspeak.

25

(268 replies, posted in General discussion)

Lupus Aurelius wrote:

Savin --- does not equal DEV. Not even relevant to the discussion...

I believe that is who we are waiting a response for here....

EDIT - oh, i forgot, Savin...  idiot!

Aww, did I point out your flawed arguments before a dev could? Sorry, captain shortbus.

Anyway, if I'm such an idiot, a man of your stature should easily be able to refute my points. So have at it- it's been a month or so since I last humiliated you, and I need a refresher.