Questions for the balancing manager

I like many of you am generally pissed off with how the balancing of items has progressed recently and how the changes being made are effecting the economy and value of items and skills.
So I think it's time we interview the balancing manager as confidence in the economy is low and investment risk is too high.
So post your questions here and I will see if we can get the chaps who do the interviews to answer some of these questions. Don't ask about how the loot pool works as they wont tell us that. It's more questions on why MA is dropping items with no regard for value or the effects on other items. Questions on the impact of such things like explosive bps on the crafting, hunting and mining economies. Questions about how crafting success rates are so poor any real life company would fail with a manufacturing process so volatile. Questions about why skills no longer have any impact on activities and how recent pills and rings etc have further devalued skills.

Let's see how we go
Cheers
Bjorn

question # 1

is there even a balancing manager?

Questions for the balancing manager...

Agreed and also why in every big Event like now, the Eomon Migration whole the game suffer the shrinking AND NOT the dynamic of universe loot pool...is proven...

Please ...for every Event u want to run create own loot pool ...DONT KILL THE REST UNIVERSE...

Cheers...
Faceof is Dynamic...

sidxx said:

question # 1

is there even a balancing manager?

Click to expand...

THAT'S EXACTLY what I thought. Just like how there is a community person. I think there are 3 people working on EU and rest of staff on Cumpets or not working at all. That is my honest opinion.

Point to the OP though - the market has been upside down lately - I've seen it be mostly stable for years and then bam - last year or so it's been wack. TY for raising this topic.

Edit - I will try and think of serious questions and post.

sidxx said:

question # 1

is there even a balancing manager?

Click to expand...

There is actually a balancing TEAM. I highly doubt they will speak on this forum.. so this thread is a giant fart in the wind.. watch out for the explosive projectiles that may result.

I think three good questions towards the balancing manager, if such thing still exists, rephrasing some from what OP has said would be:

1. Economical measures such as the introduction of the explosive projectile blueprints and classified strongboxes. What do you think would be the long-term effect in an economy that thrived and relied in the trade between participants?
2. The value of investment in such things as Unlimited equipment and deeds. With MA's push on the latter, in which place do you see the former in the modern economy, and can we expect more features and projects being funded through deeds?
3. Up until now, avatar skills have been an investment in itself, and progress towards such goals a huge part of the playing experience. With the introduction of temporary buffs to avatar abilities, how do you see the degradation in value of equipment, skills in general and the long-term effects it would have in the economy?

And a fourth I doubt I'll see answered, but might as well:

• Loot distribution. It had been mentioned before some of the (in)famous volatility was removed in order to favor more steady returns. However, it would seem like such volatility has returned, but unfortunately lacking the 5 and 6-figure single loots from previous years. Are there any plans to return to the old model?

Welcome to the island of Dr Moreau.
His experiments didn't work out so well either.

Few Scars said:

I like many of you am generally pissed off with how the balancing of items has progressed recently and how the changes being made are effecting the economy and value of items and skills.
So I think it's time we interview the balancing manager as confidence in the economy is low and investment risk is too high.
So post your questions here and I will see if we can get the chaps who do the interviews to answer some of these questions. Don't ask about how the loot pool works as they wont tell us that. It's more questions on why MA is dropping items with no regard for value or the effects on other items. Questions on the impact of such things like explosive bps on the crafting, hunting and mining economies. Questions about how crafting success rates are so poor any real life company would fail with a manufacturing process so volatile. Questions about why skills no longer have any impact on activities and how recent pills and rings etc have further devalued skills.

Let's see how we go
Cheers
Bjorn

Click to expand...

MA is company and they balancing things in EU as they think is right and good for MA. Every single thing they made where good for a part of players, bad for another part. Get used or move away.
Not MA increase or decrease economy of EU, but we, players, do. If you never hunt, mine or craft - you not a part of this (based on tracker, you dont put much in EU economy)
Why you compare real life company with EU crafting? Forgot it is a game?
Skills do not have any impact only when you do not play. If you are playing, skills got huge impact - you can use better weapons, tank bigger mobs, craft higher BPs, find more rare materials and so. More and more weapons drops that most cant use - is that "bad balancing that devalues skills"? I dont think so.

So... Go play the game instead of spending yours expensive time in forums and maybe you gonna find some answers by yourself


P.S. You got way way more forum posts then globals in game. What impact do you think it got to game economy?

Cerberis said:

Skills do not have any impact only when you do not play. If you are playing, skills got huge impact - you can use better weapons, tank bigger mobs, craft higher BPs, find more rare materials and so. More and more weapons drops that most cant use - is that "bad balancing that devalues skills"? I dont think so.

Click to expand...

What he said!
OP: did u even bother to check eco and dps on high lvl L guns? Also if it wasnt for my evader level my defense cost would be at least 1% more (which means i 'saved' 5k peds past 7 weeks only due to my 'devalued' skills).
Skills only useless to those who dont know what to do with them

Even if I respect your experience in EU,

I will agree with Cerberis

[removed my comment]

My opinion is that the main issue/priority is not "balancing".
Maybe a redesign of the loot/craf table!
But the growth of Entropia as a whole.
That is the No1 priority
At this section should every partner in platform give first priority.

=You got way way more forum posts then globals in game. What impact do you think it got to game economy?

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This is just make my day.
Perhaps you and winningskeptik are brothers.Do you guys even play the game instead of wasting your time writing tons of forum treads?

I only would agree about Explosive Blue print, because it makes People easier to spend money in game (gamble) but not moves economics.

As long as other (jzar, dino shoes) crafters turned to explosive crafters ... It might effected markup of wide usable materials markup.



//mg Joda VVV VVV

I doubt we would get any answers, but the idea that they might at least read and be aware as to what is on the players minds, makes me want to write here.

30% returns are often the norm in space. Was this the way it was intended? Planetside people aim for 90% returns, why is this not achievable across the entire game? It seems there is a connection with several factors, including how much one has cycled planetside, how much is being cycled in space, and if there has been a huge drain on the hunting loot pool ( should such thing exist). There is no correlation with the more you cycle in space, the better your returns will be, infact often the opposite is true. Would it be possible, for this to be re-balanced, to at least be close to what one could expect planet-side ( we don't mind making a loss, just not 30%!) and for those who cycle more, to have more of a chance of better loot - rather than the opposite as it is currently.

Cerberis said:

MA is company and they balancing things in EU as they think is right and good for MA. Every single thing they made where good for a part of players, bad for another part. Get used or move away.
Not MA increase or decrease economy of EU, but we, players, do. If you never hunt, mine or craft - you not a part of this (based on tracker, you dont put much in EU economy)
Why you compare real life company with EU crafting? Forgot it is a game?
Skills do not have any impact only when you do not play. If you are playing, skills got huge impact - you can use better weapons, tank bigger mobs, craft higher BPs, find more rare materials and so. More and more weapons drops that most cant use - is that "bad balancing that devalues skills"? I dont think so.

So... Go play the game instead of spending yours expensive time in forums and maybe you gonna find some answers by yourself


P.S. You got way way more forum posts then globals in game. What impact do you think it got to game economy?

Click to expand...

Seems you don't understand a shit from what OP is saying...
It's not about that he plays or not plays.

Its about owning tons of items (investing) and then the value just goes down. I understand him totally while people like you who lives from the game will never understand it.

And u think people like him will trust MA more? You have to be thankful to people like him who depo for your poor living from the game.

TheRock said:

Seems you don't understand a shit from what OP is saying...
It's not about that he plays or not plays.

Its about owning tons of items (investing) and then the value just goes down. I understand him totally while people like you who lives from the game will never understand it.

And u think people like him will trust MA more? You have to be thankful to people like him who depo for your poor living from the game.

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the only thing to stop the davaluation of ul stuff is to stop drop ul stuff and never realease any comparable or better items...
there can't be any progress this way...
who would still buy crates if he knew that there won't be any new rings droping?

i saw OP buying threads when new items got released lots of time and nearly almost thought to myself "yea, he is falling for it again"...

let me ask you a question..if you buy brand new apple laptop at the day of release how much of the value will it have in 2 years?
perhaps wait a year and buy cheaper? or right away buy cheaper laptop? but no you want that cool new apple thingy...

i understand the frustration some ppl have when their items got devalued but that is part of the game and a big part their own fault...
know when to buy, know when to sell...
i know i will sell any new discovery as fast as i can....because there are ppl like OP who massively overpay...

when nova got released know what i did? i farmed the hell out of merp and sold each for some ped...i KNEW the price was falling...

it is like rl...new things are expensive, only few hold value...
it is also the same in almost EVERY game..new stuff gets released, old stuff looses value...

and i guess Cerberis doesn't understand because he plays the game smart and makes money while you ppl make the same mistakes all the time...

you shouldn't buy items to think their value will go up or because its new, you should buy items to use ingame to better your playstyle...
and remember, there is mostly only one way of the prices of new items..and that is DOWN

example: if you bought ph-3 ul for 3k at first day, grinded the hell out of lvl3 trees and sold two weeks after for tt+2k you propably made it right...
if you bought it at tt+3k only piccked a little wood and still have it you played bad..

ON TOPIC:
dear balancing manager, why you destroyed the whole mining-crafting-hunting cycle?

This is a good reason I play the game as an expensive past time game over any form of invested worth while time.

the major problem whit poeple there not here to play lol they think there investing

so they by somthing worth 5k today and think the can sell it again in a year or less for 6k that were the problem lies whit most of the poeple they are not to hunt mine or crafting depend what they craft

also the game cant handel alot of poeple lag come a problem

if more poeple played even they only got 5 on the major part of there loot and more on gun L not a miilion drop the game were be alot more stable i remeber playing when i first started in 2008 or soo paying 140% for guns and such you didnt loose like now

plus another thing fix the loop hole were some poeple can profit constanly by doing certain things like the wave

for me i just broze the forum now dont play much like other said if you dont like it go somerwere else that what i did i depo in other game that i like to play now

instead on trying to gest poeple to invest in the game there should try to lower the cost of play and have more poeple play instead oh look this new rare item let by it the ferrary of planes this will be worth million and 5 year if every one invest and dont wast to loose anything the game is doom

I have only one question, not economy related, but is worth to try.
"Is this your interface designer?"

Question:

Why is there no more BPs in crafting that drop items competitive to looted ones?
Why got gerneral components removed from loot, so that many competitive weapon BPs can´t be crafted anymore due to missing general components (Aspis f.e.) ?

Murkalael said:

I have only one question, not economy related, but is worth to try.
"Is this your interface designer?"

Click to expand...

Think is much older....

Rayden said:

Think is much older....

Click to expand...

Is not about the age but about the blindness in this new interface, all seems to be desined for people with huge problem of cataract.

Murkalael said:

Is not about the age but about the blindness in this new interface, all seems to be desined for people with huge problem of cataract.

Click to expand...

We all live in a large society, blindness to something that big shouldn't be achievable....

There are tools to prevent that.

TheRock said:

Seems you don't understand a shit from what OP is saying...
It's not about that he plays or not plays.

Its about owning tons of items (investing) and then the value just goes down. I understand him totally while people like you who lives from the game will never understand it.

And u think people like him will trust MA more? You have to be thankful to people like him who depo for your poor living from the game.

Click to expand...

Im not sure who do not understand OP "SHIT" - you or me. If he go to GAME to INVEST, but not to play, maybe he dont know what invest to? Owning tons of SHIT items is not INVESTING. Look what he is buying - Buying: Umbranoid Paste Pot 1500Ped, Earth Globe Lamp, 1500Ped. Is that Investing or it is decorating his house? People do that to make house nice, but not to invest (if you go to shop and buy a fridge - you invest with thinking to sell for more, or you buy item that you gonna use and throw away later?) If i payed 300k for mod fap, now it is 160k, should i blame MA? Not MA set price on Umbranoid Paste Pot or Mod Fap, but players do. So blaming MA for yours inability to PLAY GAME... is low.

P.S. TheRock, my living is poor or not, that is not yours business


P.S.(2) Got +rep with this comment - "he likes to buy shit because he thinks that makes him uber and he holds onto it and when prices go down he crys,posted same shit like 10000 times"

If you want a safe investment, buy government bonds. What are you doing in a virtual science fiction universe? Is this a game to you? Or a business venture?

If it's a business, you should know with every investment comes risk. If it's a game, you need to understand that a virtual game economy is the responsibility of the players. It is not MA's job to babysit the economy.

Do you want MA to hand out food stamps too? They are not the government. Their job is to steadily release new content to satisfy the players, and to maintain steady profit to satisfy their REAL investors (land deed owners).

If MA tried to maintain the value of items constantly, it would hinder the development and progress of the game.

Like Cerb said, we (the players) set the prices. What's the solution? Stop paying so much for items when you KNOW the economy is volatile and can shift at any moment.

But no, people continue to buy shiny new toys and continue to whine (and suddenly "toy" becomes "investment") when the value goes down.

The only true "investment" in this game are land deeds. Everything else is "dynamic". Accept it or deal with the consequences.

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The only thing I truly want to see from MA is more attention to the synergy between hunting/mining/crafting.

Explosive BPs should be removed from the game. Currently, crafting is dead, mineral markup is dead. Two of the 3 professions have become LIFELESS. This is unacceptable. Something needs to be done. Explosive BP removal is just the start.

And how about some "interesting" events instead of the same old shit that does nothing except destabilize loot and force everyone to live on Calypso? Or BETTER YET. How about some events that are based on CRAFTING/MINING/EXPLORATION instead of the same old bull!@#$ HUNTING/GRINDING MARATHONS.