51 Reply by Mroq

(102 replies, posted in General discussion)

Well You still have the choice to either wait or grind to speed it up.
Larger bots in the future? I would rather expect a retextured ones with some kind of mk3 and unique abilities. And requiring more EP to push the completion goal that so many already achieved further away.
The second question tho is fairly simple, since You can accumulate EP you can have a stock ready for when it is needed for the new stuff - so still those who buy EP can't get advantage over You if prepared accordingly.

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52 Reply by Mroq

(102 replies, posted in General discussion)

It is generally considered for something to be pay to win if you can get an advantage otherwise not obtainable thru in game means.
Better sparks = P2W (even if its something ridiculous as 1% its still considered as such)
EP = most definitely not P2W
NIC = most definitely not P2W

Whats the difference if you get killed by player with maxed out skills after years of gathering them and a player with maxed out skills becouse he paid cash for it?
At first instance you get enraged becouse he has the unfair (to you) spreadsheet advantage.
At second instance you get enraged becouse he has the unfair (to you) spreadsheet advantage.
But at both instances you can eventually achieve that level without paying a dime for it.

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53 Reply by Mroq

(102 replies, posted in General discussion)

The DLC have put new light on the ICE, which is a form of subscription. Anyone with a calculator can tell that its value does not even compare to that of DLC. I am going to expand on the proposition of changes and my thoughts on em(it took me 4 hours writing that first post and ended up going to sleep much later than I was supposed to and so I feel it is not finished).

1. Change the EP boost into an instant one.
This is actually the laziest of propositions which will generate a P2W discussion among the community. It will allow new player to come into the game, put a certain ammount of cash on the table and be granted the requirements. It would solve the problem only in the short run. That person would not have anything more to work towards for and would notice others reaching same goal over time "for free". So most likely only core and most immediate needs would be bought this way. Veterans might not feel like using this option at all.

2. Increase the EP gain on boost.
A better option. This does not have the potential to backlash as the proposition no.1 as even those who paid up ahead would still have to wait for their EP. This would increase the demand on ICE and shorten the time wait and catching up to others. As much as it would help greatly it would not solve the waiting problem entirely - only ease it (which is good).

3. EP items
I think this one would make new players and veterans alike happy(not all of them - its never all of them...).
Imagine an item, consuming which gives you instant EP, requires you to use credits to activate and farming/grinding in the first place to obtain it.
Lets expand the idea now.

We can categorize players into basic 5 cattegories (feel free to add more):
a)Miners/harvesters
b)Production
c)Artifact hunters
d)PvE
e)PvP

A. There is this special kind of resource, a shiny one recycling which gives the same ammount regardles of extensions. So this might be something similar - every now and then a miner would get that special item.
B. Using up CT to 0p gets that item or a % chance of getting it.
C. This one is no brainer - but it could have more chance to drop in those artifacts that people generally only do to "clear".
D. Another easy one. Random chance to get it in the loot.
E. One word - SAP

Now for the mathematics and the actual ammounts example.
A typical player plays 4 hours a day.
A non boosted account recieves 1440 EP daily
1440 divided by 4 = 360
360 unlockable EP in items per hour
Now this calculation makes sense if those items are not tradeable in game.
If it is otherwise then majority of players not needing it will flood the market. But everyone would want a bite of the idea so it can be made much more scarse and therefore expensive/in demand.
This might create situation from point 1 when someone comes into game, buys alot of ICE, gets the items of the market and gets to a veteran level straight off - but veterans would get a bite of it (market sale income and more acces to ICE for ingame currency).

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54 Topic by Mroq

(102 replies, posted in General discussion)

Time based character progression - that sounds great, and for the most part - it is... or is it?

Let me tell You a story...

     Sometime around 2012 I found a very cool game called Perpetuum Online. Started playing it and it was great. I am an Eve veteran and this game seemed to have all the pros of it and on top of that gave me the WSAD controls making it more action oriented and therefore making player skills having higher impact on the combat outcome. My Yagel was kicking metal behind of them low lvl combat mission bots. Then a few days later came the arbalest upgrade - awesome! Now I could easily win the fights Yagel was struggling with. But then combat missions became harder and I did not have the EP to get into anything stronger. So I started mining. "If I have to wait then I will make mountains of NIC to afford all the robots I want" I thought. 20 hours later I started thinking how can I increase my income. Well, I have to wait... Ok then, I figured, I'm gonna make alts and mine with more robots - that will surely increase the income. And increase the income it did! After a few days I could afford all the robots I wanted, but I could not even pilot them. It was time for some maths - to get into Kain I need that many EP and that means waiting for this many days. And so I waited... As the morning sun dawned on the calculated day I jumped to the game and with shaking hands activated my long awaited mech. "Now! I shall take on all the evils that have bested me before!!! Mwahahah..wait...I need advanced gun skills too?" ok... ok... its just 2 days... Once I had that came the basic support skills missing - accumulator, fitting, speed (was a thing back then). I think I played for a month or so without switching to another game. Every day waiting for that "cruicial" upgrade, playing for a bit before realising that I'm missing something important. I wanted to fill all my Kains slots but didnt want to spend ep on missile skills I would eventually not use on Mesmer... I gotten a great Idea then - if I take a break and play something else for some time I will come back to a bunch of EP I can spend on all that needed stuff. And so I did, bought the next month subscription and went off to play something else. After a month I decided not to pay for a game I would not actively play.
    Some years later perpetuum comes to steam and gets rid of monthly subscription forever for the price of 3 months. Thats cool, I dont have to pay to wait now! Bought the game, linked my account to steam and got back to playing. Now I had all that EP from that second month I bought before. I finally could get into Mesmer! It is a cool robot, not wanting me to spend ep on some missile skills to fill all the slots. It wasn't any on the market at that time tho - but I dont have to wait for that! Joined a corporation, made friends, made myself usefull, made some NIC (becouse I left my previous assets in a corporation that did not exist anymore), ground standing with the nuimqol and at some point it came to a market! But the price... Ok I can do that, or better yet - buy and sell ICE! Instant cash, get into it and bask in the glory of the 6 mounted medium guns. Now anyone who tried piloting a mesmer with lvl5 accumulator skills will know what happened next. Yup... You kind of need those for it. Oh and the fitting skills if you want to fill all of them slots - especially if You get a hold on to t4 modules. You know what that means right? More waiting... And so I did. Over a year passed with me logging on every 2-3 days to keep the EP going. Got the accumulator skills, got enough fitting skills to fit all t4 on it. But all my friends weren't playing anymore. And I myself was into other stuff too. Nothing to fear then! I dragged friends from that other games into perpetuum, bought them the game even. "Holy cow that is a nice robot You're having! When will I get one?" they asked... Take a guess what they did after I answered them? Correct! They decided to log in every 3 days untill they get that nice shiny heavy mech. So I decided to go all out fot the mk2 version and even more fitting skills to fit everything I want on it when they along with me come back. And I would probably be still doing that and not actually play the game. But then came the DLCs. 7 MONTHS worth of waiting instantly! And booster time on top, and some more presents! It wasn't december but felt like christmas anyway. I got all I wanted! Finally, I could say I have the skills I wanted to have! In that one particular robot there is barely anything more I can do to get better! Now I can play the game knowing someone else will not win in pvp only becouse they waited longer than me. They win becouse I got little knowledge of the pvp now, but that is something I can improve by PLAYING THE GAME! Even one of those who gotten the game gifted by me came back, and bought the DLC too and is now in mesmer mk2 as well. Not as good extentions as me tho as I waited far longer than him - but decent enough and there are 2 of us now! Now I can do stuff I wanted to and in the meantime train up additional things. Why did it had to take 4 YEARS for me to get to that?

Storytime over.

Conclusions:
-No option for players to get EP or a character with them without waiting.
-ICE gives you the option to get EP at some faster rate but does not remove the waiting factor.
-ICE allows you to get the EP without the need to login every 3 days essentially encouraging passiveness.

Facts:
-The EP gain for purchasing ICE equals to 21600 (equivalent of 15 days of waiting for free)
-ICE can be traded on the ingame market.
-Buying stuff that can be obtained in game is called "pay to progress faster" and not "pay to win".
-Players leave the game tired of waiting.

Proposition:
-Increase the EP gain on ICE
-Provide a way of getting EP instantly (much less than the DLC worth - 10 EP per Credit maybe?)

Why:
-New players willing to play competitively have options to negate waiting advantage:
       a) Taking active part in the game by earning NIC for ICE
       b) Supporting the game and players from point A by buying the ICE with cash (betting more ICE will get bought)
-It will expose the weaklings who will cry over loosing their spreadsheet advantage

Do I want it for myself? No, I have done my fair share of waiting.

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55 Reply by Mroq

(21 replies, posted in Feature discussion and requests)

The artifacts could simply reset every few days, so we would avoid both getting stuck with all of them in hostile base and people simply deleting ones they dont care about.

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56 Reply by Mroq

(12 replies, posted in General discussion)

Well before mobs gotten a big speed boost I wasn't really sitting there waiting. There were spawns in alpha 1 that were spawning up to t4 light/assault bots and t1 mechs and I was able to manage those on day2, It took forever to kill some, while others required a lot of maneuvering to separate - I was making more income on easier spots, but for fun purposes, that one was neat. Now such spawns are not difficult - they're near impossible when a slight mistake means death as you are not able to outrun them soon enough, if at all.
I know the navigation extension was such a great deal for ep given that it was soon deemed mandatory. Why not extend instead of removing it then?
[+]Nagivation:
- small engine power - to reduce weight penalties to speed
- medium engine power
- top speed - self explanatory
- highway adjustment - to get more speed bonus there
- evasion - the more surface hit size decrease the faster the bot goes
- demob resistance

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57 Reply by Mroq

(12 replies, posted in General discussion)

I know how to find a spawn and differ the type of mobs. At most cases I knew how to deal with most of them, and which required what tactics of me. Since the speed change there are only 2 types of PvE tactics: Attack or Flee.

...the spawns are good and especially do not differ too much. a t4 mech spawn is a t4 mech spawn (mech/hmech).

This is exactly where our opinions differ - You would prefer having a couple of same mechs/hmechs coming at you - no size penalties, shoot em out, get loot, repeat. I take it you can tackle pretty much any mob out there, with a fancy mech/hmech and quite some extensions. This kind of PvE in my opinion is no less boring than mining. Not to mention the enemies must be quite silly:
- He took out 3 heavy mechs, we couldn't outdps him
- Ok lets send 3 ewar mechs at him
- They annoyed the **** out of him but couldn't make a dent
- Oh wells lets try the heavy approach again
In such case the mobs are not even slightly intelligent and it cannot be called fighting but rather harvesting them. I have been called to "farming a spawn" a few times with a sole purpose of disposing them annoying light bots in my assault. If mech spawns are mech spawns now, there is no need for me anymore. I would say that a spawn consisting of say 1-3 dps mechs, 0-2 ewar mechs, 1-4 light mechs with demob at once would be much more interesting and challenging to deal with.
  I take it You are quite bored with PvE already and would just rather the ease and efficiency when doing so. It is understandable. Some of players (esp. new ones) preferred an inefficient tackling with single high tier mob for the sole purpose of fun - vets would not call it fun, they would call it silly. Now, I am forced to sit at a spawn with a tier I can handle and wait for sufficient ep amount to move on to a bigger one, to even try a bigger one.

  I am not a quitter, especially that I know plenty of corp members would let me tag along for better mobs even if my dps is merely ticking them. But know that the path have made newbies life a lot harder, not more interesting or challenging - just plain harder.

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58 Reply by Mroq

(12 replies, posted in General discussion)

There might be, there probably - no... surely is. When is the exact time I can move to a stronger, better one? Can I find out? No... I will probably die... But I am not concerned about myself. I have a nice and friendly corp which will probably help me even if I notoriously die trying to explore. But this is me - a noob to perpetuum - but a 15 yrs veteran to MMO. Now imagine a newbie trying to get a grip on the title - dying all the time aint fun. Pretty much all of the MMOs out there focus on getting a newcomers to try out the game and get the excited feeling to subscribe to continue the fun. To get the noobs wanting to play the game is to make more of them reach the subscriber status and therefore adding to the player online amount. This game, this type of game needs more players - the PvPers will be happy (more targets) the devs will be happy (more money ;D ) and even the idlers will be happy (more ppl to chat with waiting for the right amount of ep).
Once again: "there surely is a spawn that is right for you. you just have to look for it." But when I find it - will I be bothered to farm it for months before I get the right extensions? I had my fun running around with mighty arbiters on my behind, shooting em one by one, waiting long minutes to regain hp/acc. Even if it was not an efficient income I considered it fun. You tell me to find some sort of rookie spawn for easy and safe farming - I tell You that I will have more fun watching my ceiling pain pale - I wouldn't have to move my hand to doubleclick on the red crosses.
The path lessened the gap between rookie and seasoned industrialists. But widened the gap between rookie and veteran PvE agents... Not everyone wants to mine, and build and wait - consider it.

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59 Reply by Mroq

(12 replies, posted in General discussion)

Win for everyone not playing PvE. I gave you an example why. If all weapon category skills would include 1 skill named "weapon use" it would be mandatory too.
Or the game is focusing strictly on PvP, then tell some newcomer to perpetuum to spend first month of gaming in a mining bot. [sarkasm]The game will definitely flourish then[/sarkasm].

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60 Topic by Mroq

(12 replies, posted in General discussion)

Hello.
I started playing around 10 days ago. For the first day I was completing tutorials and missions. Next day joined a corp and the fun started. I did a bit of mining, producing, artifact searching and few other things before I decided to settle on farming spawn points. There was alot I could take on, even on day 2, whatever I couldnt take - I avoided. The fun lasted till the day before yesterday (as yesterday game was down). Logged in today, happy to see the new content (especially on weekend). Got dissapointed. Well usuall spawn points were gone - ok will just need to find new ones. Came across some new (to me) mobs, decided to "check them", was in an assault bot, goin up to check on 2 other assault bots. First 3 seconds of shooting and I knew those were not the mobs for me. Decided to flee... not even a minute later found myself in terminal. OK, I though, I probably wasnt suppose to even get close to these guys. Went for a different group - got close, and all of the sudden they all ran in different directions. Literally far enough to dissapear from my radar - every one of them in different direction in a straight line. Wtf? Found out that navigation extension is gone - Is it to balance PvP at the cost of PvE? Is it becouse the skill is so important that its mandatory? Well then why the need for basic/adv robot control, basic/adv >weapontype< ? MMOs will never be perfectly balanced - some ppl will work for their advantages and they deserve it. You should have make more navigation skills if its so darn important - engine power, mass reduction, acceleration, top speed. Goin that way we would end up with no extensions at all, and 1 bot type - is balance worth it?

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