ramble ramble ramble ... I guess sometimes it's just nice to blow off some steam.
I find it very frustrating, it's part of the challenge, sure but also part of the allure, that you can't just rush ahead banging out the most damage you possibly can and trying to get ahead.
To be honest, I waste a ton of peds doing small runs, or gambling on a big mob here and there. But I know what I'm doing, and try to take it in stride. Last time I went out to mine with 30 ped worth of probes and my rookie finder, I got about 40 drops in and was like "screw it" and dropped the rest with my 105.
So a few drops in arkadia underground and I'm going home with something like a 15% return. No reason to complain, as you see what the responses to those sort of complaints are, blame the player. So, I'm one who knows better and I keep my mouth shut. But that doesn't mean that I don't find it incredibly disappointing.
This game had ("back in the day" lol) a very particular demographic, and an uncommon enough allure with the RCE that certain patterns were set, and they still manage to persist. The game was designed from the beginning (or at least since CE2 conversion) to support a small player base playing at high turnover. That's the nature of the beast.
On the one hand, it seems that could be clearer than it is in the advertising, tutorials, new player experience, etc... Having players give advice like "avoid 2 of the three professions int he game and only do (whatever works for me)" to new players after they've wasted whatever their starting resources were and come to the forums upset doesn't really do anyone any good either.
I think that if they want to continue in the same vein, they need to start advertising it as a premium experience, and work to attract the right kind of player, instead of the current evony-imitating ad campagn that I'm sick and tired of being blasted with all over the internet.
Speaking of which they really need someone to manage their ad dollars a lot better I suspect 80 - 90 percent of the PPC ads are being shown to existing players.
So, when I hope to play and spend a long time at it, I'm relegated, after nearly five years, to a rookie miner, or a looted noob gun and hunting mobs from the starter missions on caly. Maybe some low end stuff on arkadia. Don't even get me started on the incredible imbalance of mobs on RT. If neverdie actually understands how the loot engine works, it's a shame that he has balanced many of the starter/low end mobs there (mostly humanoid types) to basically !!!! low level players of their peds.
That's it though, that's the deal. If you want to play on a low budget or seriously try for that (fabled IMO) consistent 90% you have to learn the rules of the game engine, and work with them. Even then it's not easy, and yeah it discourages tons of players from the game.
Crafting is my favorite profession, and I can't even stand to walk up to a construction machine any more. It's ridiculous to talk about long runs and cycling high budgets if you just want to take a shot at the 8 click (L) BP you looted.
I used to have a better budget, and I spent some money on property. The apartments are basically useless, but I bought 10 CLD in the initial sale, and later sold them for 1400 ped each and bought a shop and a booth. After some very long breaks, that's what brings me back, logging in and seeing that I have a couple hundred peds to play with, or at least should take some time to restock the shops so that it can continue. The last time I came back (just in october) I saw a lot of new stuff so, I've been playing again, a little bit. But I find that nothing significant has changed for the better, and small budget/short playtime activities are being penalized at least as bad as ever.
Might just stock up the shops and wait another year, to see what it's like.
I think if they want to expand the player base, they need to rebalance again, and make it so that global/HoF means something again, put an 80% return on basically everything as a baseline (mob returns 80% of offensive cost to kill on a dpp basis, crafting click returns 80% of material TT in one form or another, probe returns 80% in some form of mining shrapnel/residue at least) and build the HoF pool out of the rest.
That would be a huge start, and you could do a lot more in the game, people could try and push their skills/limits without being absolutely destroyed or needing 100k on the pedcard.
For a casual gamer, someone who wants to spend $10 - $50 a month on this game and isn't already established in some way, the whole game is a big turnoff. There is no such thing as playing "properly" when you have 1 - 3 hours of play time per week, and it's a shame that there has to be a super specific way to play what's supposed to be a "sandbox" game "properly".
So they either need to learn how to reach out to the right crowd, and perhaps explain things a little better at the official source, or change they way they are balancing things drastically for the general sense of disgruntlement to go away, IMO.
In the meantime, I love the game I just wish that I had the time or money to do it the way it needs to be done on a regular basis. I miss the days of being in a good soc and able to have fun, hunting levi or whatever for hours in a large team on just 200 ped. It makes it awfully hard for me to be satisfied "grinding" on puny maffoid.
Sorry it's a disorganized post but just some of my semi-random thoughts on the matter. Like OP I have gear in storage to easily solo hunt at least stuff like big argo, levis, or many other mobs but I don't ever ever do it because (not sure about OP on this one) two crappy mobs and a no looter and my monthly budget is blown.
So I play when I can, wait for peds to 'cycle' in the shops, and think nostalgically about the good old days while, mostly, I just watch the forums for about 10x the amount of hours I'm in game (Can't afford excitement? The drama is free!) and get on with my day.
Not really whining here, just sort of explaining where I'm at with it. I suspect there are a lot of players in the same or similar boat. Obviously though, not everyone is as accepting of the whole "that's just how it is" status-quo. If it ever changes for the better, I'll probably still be here checking it out.
Though some days I do wonder if I could get "the right price" to just sell out and move on. It would take a very ah, enthusiastic offer to get me out of my ark properties though