Balance through alternative professions

atomicstorm

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Mindark has seemingly missed a very big opportunity with their latest drug pushing strongboxes that other mmos have been embracing for years. For whatever reason that may be, that does not matter for this topic.

I see (and others) a fundamental flaw in the balance of the game. I will elaborate on my position but I need to preface it first.

If they introduced explosive crafting to create metal residue quickly, they were very short sighted. Creating markup from the TT without any other apparatus (like weapon decay or selection) was a severe error. They could have accomplished it with the following:

* allowing any item to be smashed into residue at tt value. If it has TT, it can be converted to a residue. Got a gun you don't like? Smash it. Refiner decay.. and can maybe convert into mu of some sort. Want to craft jester d2s? Don't tt, smash it. This includes ALL avatar bound items.

* allowing expanded versions OR allowing to multiply the cost to craft of mechanical type BPs for the same effect (example Basic Filter II, III, IV). Yes, condition gives you this capability but then if this is true, then there was no reason for the explosive BP. This bullet item is pointless if they sort out where nanocubes come from.

Buffs

Getting buffs from strongboxes in lieu of crafting them was short sighted. Sure they may wanted the extra cash to cover withdrawls (I hope not) but they could have made regents drop in strongboxes to be used for a special profession to make items that give extraordinary buffs for a temporary time.

* Cooking is an option. Leverage animal meat, enmatter like sweet stuff, and so on. A new crafting profession with many opportunities that can be niched towards various pps. There would have been SO much potential with this profession given what is all in the game now.

* Fishing. For obvious reasons (Mindark already stated they were going to introduce this)

* Alchemy. A bit out of scope for eu but again, I point out the option to expand these possibilities.

-- With mindark already acknowledging fishing to come and also introducing resource gathering, it may be possible that this is the long term goal. One can hope. If they do, they need to stop dropping ALL pills.

Items in Animal's Butts

Have to stop dropping L guns and/or ul guns from creatures. They must be crafted. It is possible that looting a rare or unique part from a creature allows you to craft the ul version of an item with a rare version of a bp.. also L.

The same thing as above can also be applied to Rings. I would say to exclude the above from Event Prizes.

Point being is that the circular economy between the professions is broken. We all feel it. The above is my proposals to MA for consideration to right the ship. I'll save the grandstanding part of this thread for another time.
 
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Isn't there already buffs you can get from crafting...nanobots??? not that those are worth the cost to craft...maybe they should change those in the process of the revamp as well .... IF it ever happens.
 
Isn't there already buffs you can get from crafting...nanobots??? not that those are worth the cost to craft...maybe they should change those in the process of the revamp as well .... IF it ever happens.

Yes. But they went away from that.
 
One thing I can say is I agree with the poor decision to not follow the crafting root via nanobots for buffs, yet go down the webshop/lore-less ring route.

Unfortunately on that point, we're too far gone.

It needs rebalancing, certainly, between the professions to improve interactions. But one thing you cannot have is hunting which induces boredom - which is easily achieved by loot being "component only". Remember that there are plenty of people who are happy & can afford to just TT all their loot, apart from the items they are hunting for (RX parts, unL guns etc). You remove the items....
 
One thing I can say is I agree with the poor decision to not follow the crafting root via nanobots for buffs, yet go down the webshop/lore-less ring route.

Unfortunately on that point, we're too far gone.

It needs rebalancing, certainly, between the professions to improve interactions. But one thing you cannot have is hunting which induces boredom - which is easily achieved by loot being "component only". Remember that there are plenty of people who are happy & can afford to just TT all their loot, apart from the items they are hunting for (RX parts, unL guns etc). You remove the items....

For as long as these items are in loot in the manner that they are, there is no purpose for crafting except for amps. It will remain broken.
 
They could just create some weapons which are crafted only and are better than the ones dropped...but still keep weapons dropping....then players could have a choice of going for the better weapon or stick to ones that drop.
Though that maybe a fine line as to how much better the crafted ones should be.

I liked the idea that Ark had of weapons that could be upgraded...but the cost for what you get is where that gets tricky...too much and no one will bother. Too little and that's the only thing people will want.
 
I used to craft guns often but havent since loot was changed....now I rarely craft as I see no point
 
They could just create some weapons which are crafted only and are better than the ones dropped...but still keep weapons dropping....then players could have a choice of going for the better weapon or stick to ones that drop.
Though that maybe a fine line as to how much better the crafted ones should be.

I liked the idea that Ark had of weapons that could be upgraded...but the cost for what you get is where that gets tricky...too much and no one will bother. Too little and that's the only thing people will want.

I don't believe there is a reasonable balance between dropped items and crafted items. You either have a need for crafters or you don't.
 
For as long as these items are in loot in the manner that they are, there is no purpose for crafting except for amps. It will remain broken.

It depends where you see crafting, or rather, where you see the dominant profession of the game.

For me, the ideal solution would be the primary profession (hunting) which is supplemented by the crafting profession, which in turn is fuelled by the mining (and in part hunting) profession.

To achieve this, crafting should provide ancillary items - buffs, adjustments, amplifiers, plates (which are direct impacts on the hunting profession) plus cosmetic items (furniture, clothing).

You can't have a situation where crafters create and sell all (regular) tools for professions, as the game suddenly swings to having crafting as a primary profession. This is a compound issue in that crafters will sell at a profit and availability of items will slow down the main profit generating profession of hunting.

Essentially:

Input: Hunting---Minor--->Crafting<---Major---Mining

Output <--Hunting
<--Hunting<---buffed---Crafting
<--Mining<---buffed---Crafting

This way, the primary profession is self sufficient at a minimal level (unbuffed/plated/adjusted/amped), yet requires crafting for advantage over others i.e. you pay a premium to the crafters, you get a buff advantage over regulars. Mining is then driven by this demand.

You want an easy way to test my idea/theory/fix? Let Neurostim A be craft-able with the requirements of 40% common ore, 40% common enmat, 10% rare ore, 10% rare enmat (or something similar, but either solely from the mining sphere or heavily weighted so).

An additional fix here would be to alter enhancer break rate to be proportional to gain recieved, which would boost enhancer usage and add markup into hunting.
 
To further the "ancillary" crafting ethos - why was it not the case where RDI Alpha and Beta amps were crafted?

Instead of handing in Eomon samples to an NPC, why were new blueprints not released which took the exact same samples, maybe with the addition of some components or ore/enmat, to produce the amps?

These are the key, small, balancing things which need to be considered (across all PPs) which will breathe huge life into the profession without completely changing the balance of the rest of the game.
 
To further the "ancillary" crafting ethos - why was it not the case where RDI Alpha and Beta amps were crafted?

Instead of handing in Eomon samples to an NPC, why were new blueprints not released which took the exact same samples, maybe with the addition of some components or ore/enmat, to produce the amps?

These are the key, small, balancing things which need to be considered (across all PPs) which will breathe huge life into the profession without completely changing the balance of the rest of the game.

Think MA are following the "flow"

They see most People hunt so they do hunting events and put all the items there. If they were to put those RDI into craftingm u would see less amps, or simply few persons crafting and less fun. They want you to decay, shoot, fap etc. Hunting is the real professional it seems like while crafting is mhh, gambling? Mining is dead anyway :S

My3 pecs
 
I was waiting for a post like this.

Resource demand has been destroyed since 2014. The game itself has suffered as a whole.

MA claims to have increased participation, but the participation I see is new players hanging around for a month, deposing $20, then leaving. At the same time mid-high level players quit every week.

The $20 new player is a not a sustainable consumer.

Regardless. Hunting is self sufficient and that's a problem.. it always has been. And now crafting is completely self sufficient. So we had rapid deflation of loot and items across the board.
 
Think MA are following the "flow"

They see most People hunt so they do hunting events and put all the items there. If they were to put those RDI into craftingm u would see less amps, or simply few persons crafting and less fun. They want you to decay, shoot, fap etc. Hunting is the real professional it seems like while crafting is mhh, gambling? Mining is dead anyway :S

My3 pecs

Mining isn't dead. It's just okay. It's not what it was in years past. I used to buy tons of low mu materials to farm bps with like ospra. That propped up markup to a degree. Now markup is a reflection of constrained supply. This is not sufficient to have a prosperous game economy.

Someone at mindark did not understand economics very well.. or they are implementing something we can't fully see.. even though it has been 18 months since explosives and 2 years almost for shrapnel.
 
Here's to hoping they listen to this post like they did with Smilgs'
 
Someone at mindark did not understand economics very well.. or they are implementing something we can't fully see.. even though it has been 18 months since explosives and 2 years almost for shrapnel.
Well, yes and no. It could be as well you who can't see the full picture, dontcha think? ;)
Not just you, goes for most players obviously.

Everything you are proposing has been tested at some point. Some mechanics were in place for years, some for just a few weeks but every principal solution you are offering has already been tried at some point and - for some reason - abandoned.
I'm not MA's balancing manager I don't have the full info so I can't possibly tell if those decisions were all correct. Could be sometimes a different solution was possible but they didn't go for it. Possibly maybe.
My point is, the economic ecosystem is much more complex than it seems at 1st sight. I believe Aio got it right, I can't explain it better than her.

Just one remark. It's not always pure maths that determine the the behavior of the market. I'm sure you can fill this with many examples if you think about it, right? As you see, often its seemingly unrelated things that suddenly become crucial. Like, you base your system on crafters exclusively. You make it viable, there's profit and all mats are dropping in sufficient quantity. Will this system work? It should, in theory, right?
And then you find out you simply don't have enough component crafters... or the skilled final product crafter takes a vacation away from internet for a month... or hunters for some trivial reason just don't hunt enough of certain component althou MU is rising through the roof... or some ppl figure out hey here's an opportunity for a little market manipulation, maybe we could use quantity capping somehow or some other game mechanic to choke the system and make a fortune in the process? ... etc etc... Any single one from these, and your whole carefully designed supply chain breaks down.
Problem is, it's too vulnerable, and the smaller the playerbase gets the less redundant all its key elements become and so it gets exponentially more vulnerable... until at certain point you just can't risk keeping all your eggs in this single basket. And then you just give up, untie the dependencies. Make it simple so it will work regardless... Maybe it's just a temporary emergency solution at first, but then time goes by and somehow it has become permanent...

The history of EU in a nutshell. :yup:


But they should try it again now, I do agree with that. Baby steps, back towards rebuilding the dependencies between professions.
 
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I have so many ideas that could change this game for better, with great profits for MA and more fun & profitable opportunities for players, probably over 100 pages written now with around 20 proffesions and 6-7 MAIN professions. Even the base proffesions today hunting mining and crafting I have completely changed to balance everything out (Some people dont beleive its possible, but I really found an interesting way to do it).

Problem is, it would not be possible to implement in Entropia Universe anymore because of too many items that would have to be destroyed, or changed. It is possible to tweak some of it but I think it would just be better to build a new game all-together, instead of trying to repair SOOOO MANY broken things.

The base algorithm of returns in EU is great but too many mistakes have been made and still more mistakes are created with each VU.

I mean, bringing in buffs is great, not a bad idea at all but RINGS? FUCKING RINGS? In a sci-fi game. There were so many other possibilities like implement enhancing chips into your body by body sculpting, or some other futuristic option but NO, we get rings :laugh:

Other stupid ideas:
1. Planet partners - Reason? PPs have nothing interesting to offer, and planets like RockTropia, Next Island make the game look stupid. Next Island is dead, Rocktropia is childish (Stupid-Ass-Gun names and all the weirdness). The concept is interesting, but not for a sci-fi game. Arkadia is probably the only planet that COULD thrive, if MA gave it more freedom, but we can see that MA is just trying to kill it. Again, just quick cash from PPs so they could live to see another year...

2. CLDs - Reason? Fast cash for a few years to buy time to find another source of income. Instead of creating content where people would pour cash, or tweaking a few things to actually MAKE MONEY from the game MA creates a system that actually TAKES money away from them. The time has passed and now CLDs just TAKE money away from MINDARK, they have used up all the 6 MILLION that they got from it then, and now what? Now some people will just be taking cash out, never putting nothing IN the game.

3. Iron Missions - Reason? Making people play individually instead of creating bonds - teams etc. Lot of people play multiplayer games to make new friends, make a great team, to compare and fight against one another. Iron Missions changed a lot of things in this regards, now its just a grind-fest. Societies and teams not have less and less reasons and interest (also because of shared loots). Creating bonds, creates long-term players, if there were more FUN possibilities in teams, people would deposit for such activities. I've been trying to put ideas to improve societies for 6 years now with the thread "Ideas to improve society terminal" and we saw nothing in 6 years. People come, people leave... Society/Team activities/rankings/goals would create things to aim for, to compare with others (Lets be honest, everyone compares with others, everyone likes fighting to be the best in something).

4. Buffs with no detoriation - Reason? Players get more advantage, that they dont pay anything for. I know some people might think its stupid to say this, but whats in it for MA? I know that people have to buy strongboxes but there should have been something implemented right from the start.

5. Implementing systems HALF-FINISHED - Oh I could write so much in this field, but if I wrote it all, this forum would break down . Books could be written on "how not to implement new systems in games" :) Companies could learn a lot from MA...


If I had time, I could continue on and on and on... Its sad seeing a game with great potential getting killed more and more. I mean its till possible to play normaly, to profit even. Thats not the issue, but MA doesnt have good ideas on how to make profit for themselves, to develop the game even further... Just quick, irrational, fast cash... not thinking for 5 years ahead, but surviving tomorrow...

RANT OFF :laugh:

True Juan :bandit:
 
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No matter how you spin it there is a severe lack of resource consumption that is hindering the game
 
No matter how you spin it there is a severe lack of resource consumption that is hindering the game

In the end, this is the root of the problem.

Game is supply heavy and that does not work.
 
I must admit as Fifth says above, a lot of things have been tried before.

EP Crafting is seen as a pariah but I see it as the second stage in testing a key concept. We will return to this, but firstly lets take the issue of crafters producing (L) weapons. The way weapons currently work, high proportion of cost is in ammo (TT) and low proportion is in decay.

Take the Breer h31a(L) - which is on the "high" side of weapon decay. To decay the full TT (160->4.8 = 155.2) requires the use of just over 850 ped of ammo. If we simplify and say, 15% of cost is on the weapon. This means, that to have a 1:1 usage ratio, there must be a maximum of 15% materials looted. Now, not all weapons decay equally but for a balanced economy this 1:1 ratio would need to be matched (equal supply & demand).

Now, whatever the TT return rate for an activity is, is unknown, but lets say its equal to .95. So on a full h31a hunt, you would expect 1k costs to return 950 ped. To then make this a break even hunt, you would require 50 ped markup from the 15% materials. 50 ped from 142.5 = 35% MU.

So now we see all components being listed at 35% (or higher). Those components, used to make the (L) weapon are purchased, and the same activity factor is applied: 1k crafting run @ .95 = 950 return. But cost = 1k*1.35 = 1350 PED. So that 950PED TT must be sold for 142% (1.42*) to break even. You can then cycle this cost into the above and see how quickly the system falls down.

Cyclical economics (or dependent economics) cannot work in EU for two reasons:

  • The cost to play / rake / return rate issued by MA to make profit
  • The lack of completely free / zero cost input disregarding time

Now, why did I mention EP crafting?

MA have tried explosive ammo to be looted, and they have tried it to be crafted. Why? Because they are experimenting with utilising the 85% spare PED in loot gained as materials. If hunting in all forms used crafted ammo, then the potential materials pool could be 100%. This means there is a natural 1:1 ratio enforced (marginally affected by unL weapons) and more scope to play with the above sink-hole in the economic model.

But as I originally said - to keep the same flow of the game crafting would be better re-invented as an ancillary profession to support hunters and prop-up miners.
 
No offence, but what you all state here is nothing new to most of the playerbase.

Look through the forums and you will find many many threats about rebalancing and creating a economy based on supply and demand, driven by crafting.

Bad thing, MA don´t care or even worse don´t understand.

Look at other MMOs, blizzard for excamble hired some economy specialists to create a working ingame economy in their game.

Actually MA don´t have to go that far and hire some economists, just read these many threads about economy in this and other EU related forums and fix that shit.

IF THERE IS NO NEED FOR CRAFTED THINGS, THERE IS NO MARKET TO SELL RESOURCES -- speak no economy !!!

Thats all about it.

Explo doesn´t matter, this is not the problem!

The problem is that everything players need/want comes from hunting loots, and even worse to many of that is UL, so nobody needs anything crafted L. No crafting = no market for loots = no economy = no motivation to stay with EU

Result: without a working economy players get bored of just gambling and stop playing.
 
Crafting dependent economy = inflation of markups = higher cost to play for some but balanced by higher markup loot.

Explosives economy = deflation of everything = lower cost to play but lower markup output = rage quit after 101% markup return.
 
Here's to hoping they listen to this post like they did with Smilgs'

Crafting has been melting down for a very very long time. Mining used to be alright but if crafting is virtually pointless, sensible people won't need to buy resources to roll the dice on 0 MU items. Mining has a similar melt down, unsurprisingly.

And this topic has been brought up a few times in the past. They don't listen. They keep adding changes to break it more. Like EP IV and nanocubes.
 
Crafting has been melting down for a very very long time. Mining used to be alright but if crafting is virtually pointless, sensible people won't need to buy resources to roll the dice on 0 MU items. Mining has a similar melt down, unsurprisingly.

And this topic has been brought up a few times in the past. They don't listen. They keep adding changes to break it more. Like EP IV and nanocubes.

Most likely the inherent issue is that crafted items don't have markup.

When was the last time we got new gun/armor bps? We're stuck crafting the 2.8 dpp relics of pre-vu10... most of the time with resources that don't drop anymore.

It's really pathetic. It's not hard to create a texture and create bps for craftable weapons based on existing guns and then make the eco better by .01... seriously a 6 year old could do it in a day.
 
Crafting dependent economy = inflation of markups = higher cost to play for some but balanced by higher markup loot.

Explosives economy = deflation of everything = lower cost to play but lower markup output = rage quit after 101% markup return.

When there is high demand, there will be focused efforts to provide supply. Ie.. outputs at 300%.. now it's not. Higher cost to play but also a reason to pay that cost to farm the best. The market will Balance things out.

When there is high supply and little demand, everyone loses including mindark, cld owners, pps.
 
When there is high demand, there will be focused efforts to provide supply. Ie.. outputs at 300%.. now it's not. Higher cost to play but also a reason to pay that cost to farm the best. The market will Balance things out.

When there is high supply and little demand, everyone loses including mindark, cld owners, pps.

Because resources sit on auction for too long which hurts turnover. High markup in itself encourages higher turnover.

May be a contributing factor in CLD payments being 2/3 what they were in 2014
 
This might be an unpopular opinion, but I think they should focus on making the game more fun :laugh:

Give us more social activities to do, more events.

Update the gameplay, make it slightly more complex, make hunting feel more visceral, make mining more dynamic/interesting (obviously don't go overboard, even having to fight robots for my beacon was pretty damn cool).

Not saying EU should be based solely on personal skill (we've already got space piracy for that...:rolleyes:). I've tried to bring friends into the game and the #1 complaint is always that the gameplay just isn't very exciting for the century we live in.

Oh and fix bugs ;)

Economically, I don't think we will ever escape a pyramid model, where the players with the best gear and access to the best MU/information will be the ones who profit. There's nothing wrong with that.

But without healthy demand for renewable sources of markup (ie: items that everyone constantly needs, that require loot from all 3 professions to produce), profit potential will always be slim until you reach the upper echelon of gear/skill. This is another point that will drive new players away and will cause EU to remain a "niche" game for people who enjoy heavy repetitive predictable grinding.

Mindark has been really slow to implement new sources of markup. Would be nice to know where exactly their priorities are at right now.

If they're not going to improve the outdated gameplay, and they're not going to give us healthy markup, what is the plan to attract new players? Or retain the old ones?

More super exciting upgrade missions? :wtg:
 
only thing MA has done for the economy in the last 1.5 years is pulling tt money out of the game to create less tt items with virtual MU value. problem is they crash the value of the items shortly after so the only thing left is them pulling out tt money. free income for MA and less money for the loot pool. examples of this are: adj resto chip (cheaper to buy than to produce), tiering weapons (which adds practically zero value to the item but pulls lots of tt out of the game) and of course the best example: the upgrade mission which pull out lots of tt materials to get items which value will decrease over time due to higher supply over time. this whole progress, starting with clds and such, looks more like a firesale than anything else.
 
More super grindy upgrade missions? :wtg:

Fixed.

And plus rep because the game needs to be both more fun (which I think they've done well improving with wave events) and also have some ability for profit without investing your home.
 
* allowing any item to be smashed into residue at tt value. If it has TT, it can be converted to a residue. Got a gun you don't like? Smash it. Refiner decay.. and can maybe convert into mu of some sort. Want to craft jester d2s? Don't tt, smash it.

Yeah, It would be good if we can recycle L items that have reached the minimum TT value to residue, rather than sell them to the TT terminal.
 
Yeah, It would be good if we can recycle L items that have reached the minimum TT value to residue, rather than sell them to the TT terminal.

or combine L items to produce 1 with a higher TT value
 
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