Question: Are mission rewards devaluating skills?

it wasnt impliying you were fishing for info mark
it was more an general remark regarding info given by ma-officials,
i was there at the troxqueen event when ma-official told us stuff what i thought was stuff that he should not have told,it was info regarding adjustments that would heavily influence marketvalues of items when implemented

although i applaude the increased communication by ma,important info should either be not told at all or to all in an official statement

M Rufen Power said:

I posted the topic here to get more feedback on the situation at least now the MA individual can see where the game needs to head in & where the community is most happy with or where changes, idea, suggestions need to get implemented or altered.

Personally I want the skill rewards more than the attribute gains.

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Looking at the stats 71% voting for a no (at the moment i pressed reply). This does not give me any faith on players to choose here fairly or wisely. Most will vote at an individual level rather than the bigger picture i.e. be biased towards having free skills. Essentially thats what they are and who doesn't want free skills

I'd rather let MA decide on this one rather than us.

M Rufen Power said:

Would I mind if MA now put in place tokens per mission stage for the purchase of attributes and/or skills in future? Maybe not, at least the end cause is similar if that is what they are planning to do.

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If tokens were used again to "manufacture" skills from thin air then it's no different to what we have now. What would be better would be if tokens could be sold for peds and those peds can then be used to buy skills from another player. This can be done even now, so tokens is a good solution. Perhaps they need to think about more intresting uses for tokens. So that everyone wants a token hence this creates demand and a good price. Hence good amount of skills can be purchased if you were to sell tokens.

Personaly, Im not mission fan by any means. But I find it to be amazing how ppl can grind one mob till 16.6k kills.
In this did MA good job, because mission system matched EU playerbase correctly.

The question if skills are devaluating skill market I say yes. Its easy. More skills in game = less value for those skills.

But i dint vote cause I never finished any mission ever.

Mission are great for economy. Thats the most important point in my POV.

Norbert said:

This is exactly what happened as a result of the "rebalancing" of the skill progression, people at the top of the game were effectively given insane amounts of tt skill value as a result of the changes. The skill gains from iron missions really do become insignificant in relation to the gains made in that changeover.

VU8.8 skill changes

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...vel-100&highlight=chages+to+skill+progression

Skill Devaluation soon after

https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...lues-in-freefall&highlight=devaluation+skills

Skills have been devaluing ever since that point and further as (L) SIB weaponry came along, not sure really what the answer is but even with mission skill gains it will be more or less impossible for people to attain the likes of star etc. The iron missions have been popular and i think a successful addition to the game, i don't think people would grind as much for tokens... but i may be wrong ofc.

At the end of the day there are less buyers for skills at the moment, that can change very quickly with a big influx of players. Anyone who was around at the time of CNd will know this well how quickly the market can become inflated again.

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Nice one Norbert, that seems to explain the situation perfectly.

The small amount of skill given after a long period of grinding, pales into insignificance compared to this.

And without the skill reward at the end of some missions, they will become less popular and have a negative effect on the economy I would have thought.

What could fix this would be a large influx of players that we then retain, the game is good, and looks great, but we need to get and then keep a lot of new blood to stimulate the economy, and this may mean looking at the new player experience some more, mentoring will almost certainly help, but whether it is enough is yet to be seen.

Originally posted by Fishface: As for devaluing skills? I'd say that it does devalue them to some degree, but that it doesnt matter. As soon as they put ESI's into the game, skills were doomed to spiral downward in value. The reason for this is simple. Whenever anyone with any amount of skills leaves the game, they chip out and sell their skills. So the sum total amount of skills in the game will forever be increasing. Add to this the 2x and 3x bonus periods and the declining population base and it's easy to see why skill prices are in the toilet. A few iron missions may add to that a little bit, but not much.

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I believe this to be a major issue as well skills though when extracted you only lose (10%) the other 90% stays ingame circulating forever as it continues to keep on growing. But I don't think this will ever change.

I mean the mission rewards are a nice alternative for those who never want to chip in skills. They see this process as natural as natural grinding with an incentive to carry on hunting naturally. So for these people (a part of your customer base) who don't like buying skills in any case, the value of skills to them is irrelevant, how they were obtained are. This is why I said missions helped me to realise that chipping in a few skills wouldnt hurt that much. Ok so don't replace rewards with tokens (I guess bad idea?) as it's the same thing but I still want rewards, damn it!! .

To be honest Ace your probably right, but I honestly don't think they could add enough skills with enough missions to give them that would lead people to become ubers in a short space of time anyhow. Previously it took 2 years to be uber, now that is about 6 years to do it naturally I think. Whether that's fair or not isn't the point, I still need some aid or incentive to carry on because right now there is no incentive to do so.

I've pretty much reached the pinnacle of my hunting career (for now) in terms of eco & dps (guns) available to me in the laser range. Only thing left to do now is buy a higher dps gun that is ul and has sib. Great motivation that I'm not so keen on. But I guess it will eventually lead to that path anyway... *sigh*.

I vote a definite NO. Like many others, I am persuing a load of missions, and hope I will get to see all those NPCs and get my well rewarded skills boosts. But this will be small of course compared to the skills I gained and peds ( I could have spent on skills ) to get said skills. I do it because it is my choice.

What does and will and continues to devalue skills is one thing only : the lack of a big playerbase.

How many skills have the likes of kimmi or Stryker absorbed in one avatar when a guy like this wants to invest big in the game?

10 000 new players = 1 such new player ( megachipper ) = skills go UP in price, considering the skillpoint value at uber level in relation to cost to mid / low players to get them first.

Skill value is a factor of popularity of EU, and missons can suck it up, all of it, if we had a shitload of players. Do the numbers.

Split hairs all you want...

chevrons said:

I think you have missed the main problem with introducing more and more iron missions - it isn't the skills which are the problem, it is the attribute gains. These set off as a nice bonus, but then grew until you could get a large amount from just doing the missions up to the 1k level.
The other planets did the right thing, and stopped this inflation, and now it seems MA have also realised their error.
There isn't a problem with skill gains; the other big problem with missions is the effect they have on non-mission mobs and LA's.

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Tbh the attribute arguement can go both ways, infact this gave UBER players a BIGGER advantage as their attributes are ofcourse a lot higher & 1 point counts regardless of where you stand, this shouldn't be allowed imo. Attributes like skills should be based on TT not points (ffs). I probably won't ever pass 80 in any attribute now, as I was not around skilling attribute before these missions came. So I had to seriously compromise waiting maybe several years before starting any? What's the use honestly... .

Infinity01 said:

Sorry i couldn't vote! My answer is Yes, skilling missions definitely have an impact on skill price, but I guess not so much. No, Iron missions shouldn't be removed, in fact they should add more. It's one of the factor that motivate people to hunt. Human behaviour is strongly influenced by goals and rewards. Iron missions are providing that.

The new calypso missions are great, have important goals but yet many (including myself) are a bit discouraged coz there is no skill gains. Personally I really dont' care much about the token and the armors. I'm more interested in skill gains & there are many like me in the game.

This game is fundamentally all right, except some issues with implementations.

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Bold I totally agree with you. But iron missions are not being removed, it's that more may not be added in future or they will, but not with skill rewards or attribute gains for that matter.

Part of the solution some others have said that non mission mobs suffer & mission mobs markup plummets. Is very simple to fix, make an iron challenge for mob ingame that has a "decent" spawn this should balance this kind of situation to not occure in future, as multiple choice spreads out influx.

Rather than only adding 1 or 2 new ones like what they did with Sumima's & Scipulors on the day Medusa was up & running. The markup on those mobs was decent up untill the mission started, markup shrunk. MA would have to add a large package of iron challenges with thought out reward plans, if any.

Jimmy B said:

I'd like to see more Iron missions in time, although I've got a long way to go with the current ones so for me it's more a matter of more choice than needing new missions. I'd like to see a Formidon one for instance, then I'd happily camp the formi/scip spawn for a long time.

Not unhappy to see the new missions with tokens as rewards, seems a shame if they're saying no more skill rewards ever though. Maybe skill chips could be purchasable with tokens one day...

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More missions = more choice to hunt what you want to hunt. Not hunt something cause you have no choice as the mob you like has no missions for it. But I agree with your statements, more choices & not happy with no skill rewards being added.

Mega said:

I wasn't aware of that - so we will never see a Silver / Gold challenge then?

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Based on the feedback on this thread, what I've said to (MA). It is totally their call I cannot change their final decision only make suggestions that contrary their believe, I am one of many. But it does not seem like their will be any silver or gold challenges in future.

If this is something you want changed speak up now or forever hold your peace. I at least tried to make (MA) think about their choice of action some what. Missions are good that's why we have the system in the first place, it stimulates the economy on different levels which is what I believe & is a good thing.

But like I said for it to be fair and balanced they would have to add a lot of iron challenges, its not fair that an LA owner with Ambu's doesn't get an iron challenge but another owner who has atrax on his land area does.

MartinXVI said:

I love Iron missions, but I don't think the skill devaluation is the problem here. Whats worse is MU on looted items going down almost instantly after new iron mission added, that's not good for me as an eco hunter. Imagine they would add drone mission then gazz would drop to 110% and all spawns crowded. So I say bring more iron missions but do it on all mobs in one VU.

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As I'v said above twice now . It would only be fair to add challenges for all mobs on calypso that have a decent spawn. If they only added 1 mission tomorrow or next week & that was drone. Reward or not you'd never see me hunt them again, markup has gone to sh*t on that mob. So I would hate that if so, if that were the case gazz is the only redeeming thing about drones imo.

M Rufen Power said:

So I would hate that if so, if that were the case gazz is the only redeeming thing about drones imo.

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It's interesting ( to me ) how the most elaborate arguments end in irrelevant statements about their own questions.

Try to see things as they are. EU is not a club - a least it shouldn't be - as if people are trying to make sense of their lives before a pogrom.

Skill value has FA to do with missions.

GeorgeSkywalker said:

It's certainly not the solution and doesn't help the situation. The other causes can be corrected by the system in due time. Producing skills from thin air will only increase inflation.

I too would like an easy way to skill up but frankly that is not this game and making it easy to skill up will only damage this game as whole. The bigger picture is what matters, so although it's hard to skill up it really should stay that way. The fact that it's hard is what creates value for skills. If it were easy skills loose value and mission rewards make it easy.

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The big picture... The big picture is that the game needs to develop. Treasure hunting (should it actually exist some day, the fact that it is missing in roadmap is not encouraging[1]) and vehicular hunting (of space mobs) are big important additions. But what we need to get is 4th loot based major profession. And in 5 years after that, another one. Simply reshuffling things and minor tweaks and more planets will not give a long term future or stability.

[1] will make a thread to ask about it

remontoire said:

The big picture... The big picture is that the game needs to develop. Treasure hunting (should it actually exist some day, the fact that it is missing in roadmap is not encouraging

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I am a qualifed Treasure hunter... so don't attack me.

Yes, make that thread, but make it such a way the desperados cannot answer from it.

I am tired of dumping money into EU. You know why? because I get poor returns? NO.

Because I see a lot of people hanging on to their foolish ideas? NO

Because I see a lot of people with indecent (* poorly thought out ideas*) NO

But because they are daft? YES

Wise up entropians, Don't you get it yet? If we got our shit together, we would ALL do well.

I don't need EU, I need real people. How many of you have thought this? lots I guess. So do it...

*** fin ***

Skills = value of skills = worth of skills = participants. Not ubers, or mid-lvl players or MA to blame ( mostly ) but the number of players. If we thought outside the box = problem solved. The solution? ahhh.

aridash said:

how about "yes" but the impact is too little to be a big issue, so have more iron missions anyway.

I think they should be available for all mobs, to even out activity. currently hunting is focused on mobs offering skill bonuses (with a few exceptions for uber/ath chasing), which skews hunting returns. Certain mobs are now unhuntable if you have any expectation of sensible period to see a decent return.

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Another player who agrees that all mobs should have available iron missions to even out activity. It will only be when people get to find out and realise what rewards are available (at the end ofc) will people be swayed or not to other mobs. Also missions create a lucrative business opportunity to land owners example like the bronze types. Hard to find natural spawns the easy convinience provided by the LA's = a service they provide & should be compensated for, imo this sways the right not to hunt on LA's now just for the previledge of completing it sooner & being more convinient.

remontoire said:

I voted no. There should be more iron missions. There are two parts to this really.

The Balancing partIron missions are an excellent way of balancing which mobs get hunted and introducing variety into this alongside providing a structure to what we do. However, if you want to change people to hunting other mobs, what you have give them an incentive to do this. Give people a carrot, and they will go and hunt stuff they'd otherwise laugh about hunting any great amounts of, be these foul or droka or eviscerator or longu or even atrox old and up.

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Give me the caroot MA, I want the caroot .

fluske said:

the iron/bronze missions is what motivated me to start grinding again,couple years ago i started selling out..mind you,im talking about 300-400k ped here if all was sold,
now im motivated again to grind..but im running out of missions,i was looking forward to seeing iron missions on ambus/osseos/levis etc..and silver/gold missions for feffs/trox

those new missions dont do anything for me,in fact,i find them annoying..i dont want to go to position a or b and collect something,i just want to shoot 16k mobs and get some nice skillrewards

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Here is the perfect case study for MA to look at and observe. Was ready to quit the game (was in selling out mode) when missions came to stave of the boredom & gave the player a new way to stay and be an active participant. Sounds great!

Futurama said:

Although I think the problem itself is in ESIs. They aren't common and are very expensive. If you look at the regular skills your avatar gains, most have very low values. Like anatomy (and many other combat related skills) for example - it costs around 800%, ESIs are ~600% or more. If ESIs had a lot lower value themselves we might actually see somewhat decent prices for skills themselves.

Nowadays they are worthless and a lot of not really worth chipping out. Arguments that ESIs provide some markup for the hunters and that you cannot take it away is invalid, because MA can always make something up and put it in the loot that has markup in order to replace ESIs markup

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Great subject matter I believe u deserve a +rep for this . When you take into account you loose 10% of TT upon extraction of skill & a further possible 60% when purchasing the item to contain the skills (esi) you've lost a total of 70% on your skill instantly, isn't this what really devaluates skills? seems so to me. When you see your skills value next time on the skillscanner deduct 70% to get the real figure .

fluske said:

it wasnt impliying you were fishing for info mark
it was more an general remark regarding info given by ma-officials,
i was there at the troxqueen event when ma-official told us stuff what i thought was stuff that he should not have told,it was info regarding adjustments that would heavily influence marketvalues of items when implemented

although i applaude the increased communication by ma,important info should either be not told at all or to all in an official statement

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Thanks for having faith in me .

Nooba said:

And without the skill reward at the end of some missions, they will become less popular and have a negative effect on the economy I would have thought.

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I wanted to focus on this particular part of your comment Nooba. If it wasn't for the iron atrax mission noone would even of thought to hunt them. But there are those that even with eco gear/skills & reward mission will not hunt them. For those that do, well done you are indeed very brave. Currently still on 5k .

Peezle said:

I vote a definite NO. Like many others, I am persuing a load of missions, and hope I will get to see all those NPCs and get my well rewarded skills boosts. But this will be small of course compared to the skills I gained and peds ( I could have spent on skills ) to get said skills. I do it because it is my choice.

What does and will and continues to devalue skills is one thing only : the lack of a big playerbase.

How many skills have the likes of kimmi or Stryker absorbed in one avatar when a guy like this wants to invest big in the game?

10 000 new players = 1 such new player ( megachipper ) = skills go UP in price, considering the skillpoint value at uber level in relation to cost to mid / low players to get them first.

Skill value is a factor of popularity of EU, and missons can suck it up, all of it, if we had a shitload of players. Do the numbers.

Split hairs all you want...

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Great post & constructive +rep.

Peezle said:

It's interesting ( to me ) how the most elaborate arguments end in irrelevant statements about their own questions.

Try to see things as they are. EU is not a club - a least it shouldn't be - as if people are trying to make sense of their lives before a pogrom.

Skill value has FA to do with missions.

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Not sure I quite grasp what your trying to say here peezle.. er thanks . But I mean I do enjoy hunting drones but not to the extent that I will always now end up with less than 90% return with markup, no thank you.

Voted no but I think the biggest threat for skill prices is all L-items we have.

valentin said:

Voted no but I think the biggest threat for skill prices is all L-items we have.

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Here's an interesting comment, let's add it further by saying this. For every time you use an L item that has markup. Lets take LR53 L @ 140% avg. Not only is this gun costing you above its decay rate + markup.

This also devalues your skills by the same amount cause they are gained through the markup of the weapon as well. So imo this also devaluates skills further due to extra cost to shot & through which skills are gained.

What do you think? or true .

M Rufen Power said:

Tbh the attribute arguement can go both ways, infact this gave UBER players a BIGGER advantage as their attributes are ofcourse a lot higher & 1 point counts regardless of where you stand, this shouldn't be allowed imo. Attributes like skills should be based on TT not points (ffs). I probably won't ever pass 80 in any attribute now, as I was not around skilling attribute before these missions came. So I had to seriously compromise waiting maybe several years before starting any? What's the use honestly... .

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Hey Mark,

I think you've been around longer than I have, so to put this one part in perspective, you can easily reach 80. Im hitting 70 in Str in short order, and have just popped 60 in agility. I havnt really done alot of missions, most of the ones on my ticker are only at kill 100 of x. The only Iron Challenge I have completed is Argonauts.

So I'm just saying, you can get 80. Even more. Im expecting to see 100 str and agility next year, more if I religiously pursue missions.

I voted NO, becuse all old style weapons are maxed at LVL100 and personally I am far away from LVL100 for any weapon.
Chipping to that level would still cost a fortune, how could such small skillgains you get from missions threat the price for skills???

Whats the real threat for skillprices?

Well, a lot people met this LVL100 and are maxed at old style weapons. These players (already maxed!) have option to chip out some skill without dropping below the magic LVL100.
The more player reach that level the more skills will be chipped out and therefor threat the price for skills.

Another thing is those people that give up with EU and therefor chip out in order to get some money back. Well that will always happen, some come some go!

And then the basics of economy: demand and supply!
It needs people willing to buy skill chips to keep the price at high levels, and those people decide what they want to pay and whats to expencive.
As there is lack of new people willing to depo and chip.
Older players willing to chip in, reached there goals no more need to chip in.

Without new people willing to depo no price will stay at high level.

Magyar_Republic said:

Hey Mark,

I think you've been around longer than I have, so to put this one part in perspective, you can easily reach 80. Im hitting 70 in Str in short order, and have just popped 60 in agility. I havnt really done alot of missions, most of the ones on my ticker are only at kill 100 of x. The only Iron Challenge I have completed is Argonauts.

So I'm just saying, you can get 80. Even more. Im expecting to see 100 str and agility next year, more if I religiously pursue missions.

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Your post gives me hope thanks. I'm sure 90 isn't out of the question but 100? Hm not so sure.
Getting past 80 is hard enough but after 90 is almost impossible now, so I hear from players.

What is hurting skill prices is the lack of people willing to chip in masses of skills these days.

A quick and easy remedy to skill prices dropping would be to implement more higher level SIB weapons into the game.

Also bringing more players into the game.. that would REALLY help.

BTW, I guess you guys do realize that the devaluation or higher valuation of skill won't help the game much...

The value of skills is a secondary event, and as such trying to manipulate it's value without adressing the primary cause won't help the game!


The primary reason for devaluation is a non-expanding or stagnant player base (less demand) when skills are steadily increasing (increase supply).

The increase supply is in part accentuated by the players who are leaving this game .. because they have become frustrated wiht the monetary loss and or cost of playing this game!

Now, go figure what MA has to do to save the skill market .

MA shouldn't listen to the people who are crying cause their skill value is falling down...

Magyar_Republic said:

Hey Mark,

I think you've been around longer than I have, so to put this one part in perspective, you can easily reach 80. Im hitting 70 in Str in short order, and have just popped 60 in agility. I havnt really done alot of missions, most of the ones on my ticker are only at kill 100 of x. The only Iron Challenge I have completed is Argonauts.

So I'm just saying, you can get 80. Even more. Im expecting to see 100 str and agility next year, more if I religiously pursue missions.

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Hi..
The missions helps to get up the attributes, as for me i am a mid-level hunter but with the missions as a help i got.

Agility 102
Health 248
Intelligence 78
Psyche 71
Stamina 20
Strength 85

So the numbers have begun to grow.

As it stands majority of votes are at 73.08%.

No - they are not, so more iron missions should be added obviously.

Anyone else who needs to cast their vote or no vote but leaves a comment?

Please explain how skill values have anything whatsoever to do with missions...

More players = increase in skill values.

Peezle said:

Please explain how skill values have anything whatsoever to do with missions.
More players = increase in skill values.

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I question MA's intelligence with this thread & reasonsings, because like some have said this has not been made an official statement yet, but they are planning to not add skill rewards (prove provided was when they added tokes in their place), due to how you put it "more players = more increase in skill values" no connection with missions from where I'm standing is there? No of course not .

~Mark~

M Rufen Power said:

As it stands majority of votes are at 73.08%.

No - they are not, so more iron missions should be added obviously.

Anyone else who needs to cast their vote or no vote but leaves a comment?

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Well I prefer all other missions over iron missions. Grinding 16.6k mobs is just boring
Some missions with story behind it!
Some missions with different ways to be done and different reawards for the different path (only one so far)
Some missions, wher you need to aquire some goods and get a valuable reward for it (f.e. deliver 300 PED in Liver Oil and get a 300 PED Mission Edition L gun for it), surely with story behind it and an ongoing chain after you got the gun.

Get the point!
Can´t care less about a few skillpoints or attribute points for a boring grindjob

GoNi said:

Can´t care less about a few skillpoints or attribute points for a boring grindjob

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Diversity is what I want, I can grind straight from 0 to the end of an iron mission. For me it's not boring, it's a real challenge to do it that way for me, both mentally & of course physically. It teaches me discipline & also drives my patience, but also adds on that extra bit of motivation to get the job done. Remove the attributes/nova's that I don't mind as it's rather unfair & replace them for these new tokens.

I don't mind but it's not just a "few skill points". It can seriously add up over time with the skills gained from hunting through the missions. Why not have both types? this is variety, this is choice I really want, not one or the other now. You add one thing ingame only to never add it again? If I'm on a long grind on an iron mission & I'm "challenged" I want to carry on playing on a mission then of course I can go do a token type mission, maybe the daily hunter one if I get to it this week.

Having both would be a real diverse mission system, then later an iron mission can incorporationg some of the complexities in these new token missions but still keeping to the element of an iron challenge. It doesn't have to be all the same. I just want more choices please to be available, diversity and variety. I'm sure later on you will get bored with token missions as I' am right now.

~Mark~

What I wanted to say is, that I can get these skillpoints by grinding without a mission.
I do missions for fun, grinding 16.6k mobs is not the fun I want.
Well I accepted all iron missions anyways and sooner or later (more later) I will finish them, but its not that kind of mission I prefer.

Hell yes, diversity is great, and very good we got that Iron Missions, too.
For those that like it there should be a Iron Mission available for every single mob

The iron mission devalue the market for skill, that is obvious.

They can, however add iron missions on all mobs, if they only give stamina at the end of the mission, since stamina can not be gain in any other way.

BlackHawk said:

The iron mission devalue the market for skill, that is obvious.

They can, however add iron missions on all mobs, if they only give stamina at the end of the mission, since stamina can not be gain in any other way.

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If it's so obvious then why have other skills devalued for which there is no mission rewards?

Prospecting, surveying..... etc, the devaluation is across the board, not only skills rewarded are affected.

MA View

MA want money through activity, skill system is a barrier - hence (L) intro, mission rewards...

When ESI's are at 110% you will know you are too late.

And I can now bump this thread .
With 99 votes counted thus far .
Anyone else want to be counted?

Think of this. When I said that one mentor should get the gift at 100 ped TT skilled naturally in any skill made by disciple, people said that most people will never reach that level. However, there are missions that give that in 1 claim in some skills.

If some people will never reach taht level, but get it in 1 claim, how is that not affecting the market?

Someone who would want to unlock quickness for example would have to cycle tons of peds to do so, or buy tons of skills. As it is, all it has to do is finish some quests and have reduced costs by a huge factor. Instead of buying skills from auction, one knows that he has to finish mission X and he'll be there.

Even more than that, some farm missions and just sell the skills right after the mission is completed. This is a fact.
If missions would give only attributes you can't get in any other way, it would all be fine.