Forums » Suggestions
Gravity Mine Refill cost
125k is WAY too high for what it does.
Reduce to 25k.
Reduce to 25k.
You guys keep saying there should be money sinks, but then you're unhappy when things are expensive.
It's a new weapon. It's probably going to be more common to veteran players for awhile, who have more cash anyway. It's costly to reload, so there's a little downward pressure on the number 8-hour mines sitting around.
It's unique and one of the longer-lived mines. It may have interesting ramifications when combined with other types of mines.
Anyway, I need more specific arguments than just "too high".
It's a new weapon. It's probably going to be more common to veteran players for awhile, who have more cash anyway. It's costly to reload, so there's a little downward pressure on the number 8-hour mines sitting around.
It's unique and one of the longer-lived mines. It may have interesting ramifications when combined with other types of mines.
Anyway, I need more specific arguments than just "too high".
I agree with Incarnate everyone here always says there should be more money sinks and this is a great example of a new money sink that's quite reasonable. For what potential this has I think 125k is fine. Veteran players will for sure use this mine to snag great kills. There's easy ways to make 125k from my view point I don't find that hard at all.
"You guys keep saying there should be money sinks, but then you're unhappy when things are expensive."
?
I think I was clear. It's too expensive for what it does. i.e., make it do more to justify the cost, or lower the cost. Money sinks are fine/great, so long as there is incentive to sink the money.
Now if a future version does more (see other suggestions for this mine), then the cost might be justified. But as it stands now, aside from a preliminary test, I wouldn't use this mine given the reload cost, combined with other mines or not.
Just my 2c.
?
I think I was clear. It's too expensive for what it does. i.e., make it do more to justify the cost, or lower the cost. Money sinks are fine/great, so long as there is incentive to sink the money.
Now if a future version does more (see other suggestions for this mine), then the cost might be justified. But as it stands now, aside from a preliminary test, I wouldn't use this mine given the reload cost, combined with other mines or not.
Just my 2c.
I'm kind of surprised that it can be refilled, as it seems to have something the hive drops, and is not made by the races in the game.
Perhaps it was supposed to be reverse-engineered with the new mineral(s), but the lore and minerals haven't been implemented yet?
(Perhaps strangely) I agree with Greenwall. Incarnate seems to be missing the point. There needs to be more analysis into reforming the economy - it's not as simple as making sure expensive weapons are only added from now on.
If a player has to fork out 125k x 8 for a minefield that has a chance to net them like one 100k ship, it's a money sink for the player that has to go and take the positive gameplay action, and less so for the victim of the mine, who's already incentivised to stay away from the conflict by holding on to his 100k ship.
It should be reversed - the player who seeks the pvp interaction needs to have a cheaper outlay while the player avoiding should have expensive money sink outlay risk in the ship.
In other words, if the mine is going to be 125k credits, average ship prices and possible reward cargo prices need to be much higher, otherwise the mine won't get any use because the attacker automatically doesn't get an in-game economic benefit for a successful use. The attacker will pick a cheaper weapon every time.
In a defensive scenario it's the same problem, why waste a bunch of 125k credit mines to get away when your ship costs less to lose. You will go with the mine that is economical and increases your chances, rather than eating your profits with every use.
Under circumstances where the rest of your ship prices don't change, I think Greenwall is saying you need to bring the price in line so it has appeal in normal use cases.
If you want more input on what overall suggested ship/weapon/reload prices should be, I suggest releasing a spreadsheet which has all the ships and weapon and ammo prices. We can each have a go at populating with suggested price changes to rebalance the economy. You can pick your favourite proposal or we can vote on it, and then you can push the changes and we can see how it works.
If a player has to fork out 125k x 8 for a minefield that has a chance to net them like one 100k ship, it's a money sink for the player that has to go and take the positive gameplay action, and less so for the victim of the mine, who's already incentivised to stay away from the conflict by holding on to his 100k ship.
It should be reversed - the player who seeks the pvp interaction needs to have a cheaper outlay while the player avoiding should have expensive money sink outlay risk in the ship.
In other words, if the mine is going to be 125k credits, average ship prices and possible reward cargo prices need to be much higher, otherwise the mine won't get any use because the attacker automatically doesn't get an in-game economic benefit for a successful use. The attacker will pick a cheaper weapon every time.
In a defensive scenario it's the same problem, why waste a bunch of 125k credit mines to get away when your ship costs less to lose. You will go with the mine that is economical and increases your chances, rather than eating your profits with every use.
Under circumstances where the rest of your ship prices don't change, I think Greenwall is saying you need to bring the price in line so it has appeal in normal use cases.
If you want more input on what overall suggested ship/weapon/reload prices should be, I suggest releasing a spreadsheet which has all the ships and weapon and ammo prices. We can each have a go at populating with suggested price changes to rebalance the economy. You can pick your favourite proposal or we can vote on it, and then you can push the changes and we can see how it works.
It's not purely a question of economic gain / loss. For me (and others, I suspect, hence the post) it's a question of what kind of gameplay benefit you get for the economic cost. I get that the price has to start somewhere, but at 125k per empty launcher (not per mine) it disincentivizes use beyond trial-for-curiosity.
it's not as simple as making sure expensive weapons are only added from now on.
Yes.
it's not as simple as making sure expensive weapons are only added from now on.
Yes.
How about this for a global suggestion on this topic:
Reloads on every new weapon should *start* cheap and then become expensive if their excessive use is observed to be a problem.
The price of buying or building the launcher limits who's going to have them early on. The price of the reloads limits who is going to use them.
Reloads on every new weapon should *start* cheap and then become expensive if their excessive use is observed to be a problem.
The price of buying or building the launcher limits who's going to have them early on. The price of the reloads limits who is going to use them.
It's a hive drop.
Incarnate seems to be missing the point. There needs to be more analysis into reforming the economy - it's not as simple as making sure expensive weapons are only added from now on.
Everyone is strategically ignoring the fact that the mine is pretty long-lived compared to most mines. As I said:
It's costly to reload, so there's a little downward pressure on the number 8-hour mines sitting around.
Some people are saying "well, let's keep it cheap unless it's overused!". That's nice. I don't want it to get to that point. There are limits on how effectively I can manage that scenario right now. Plus, I've had problems in the past where people will stockpile large numbers of things, to get around potential price-hikes in the future, and then I'm back where I started; or I have to actually erase content from people's inventories, something I'm strongly reluctant to do.
It's clear you all think this is some kind economy-balancing issue. It isn't. I'm explicitly limiting usage, for the moment, of a specific weapon, through economics (in a sense, this thread is evidence that that is working.. good?).
Anyone who thinks this is the same as "making sure weapons are expensive from now on" is not reading everything I wrote. The fact that it was a money-sink was a orthogonal "point of note", and not related to the explicit goal.
Anyway. The feedback is interesting. The picture looks different from where I'm sitting, where I'm looking ahead and not just at this single piece of content, in a vacuum. We'll see how things evolve.
Everyone is strategically ignoring the fact that the mine is pretty long-lived compared to most mines. As I said:
It's costly to reload, so there's a little downward pressure on the number 8-hour mines sitting around.
Some people are saying "well, let's keep it cheap unless it's overused!". That's nice. I don't want it to get to that point. There are limits on how effectively I can manage that scenario right now. Plus, I've had problems in the past where people will stockpile large numbers of things, to get around potential price-hikes in the future, and then I'm back where I started; or I have to actually erase content from people's inventories, something I'm strongly reluctant to do.
It's clear you all think this is some kind economy-balancing issue. It isn't. I'm explicitly limiting usage, for the moment, of a specific weapon, through economics (in a sense, this thread is evidence that that is working.. good?).
Anyone who thinks this is the same as "making sure weapons are expensive from now on" is not reading everything I wrote. The fact that it was a money-sink was a orthogonal "point of note", and not related to the explicit goal.
Anyway. The feedback is interesting. The picture looks different from where I'm sitting, where I'm looking ahead and not just at this single piece of content, in a vacuum. We'll see how things evolve.
It's clear you all think this is some kind economy-balancing issue. It isn't. I'm explicitly limiting usage, for the moment, of a specific weapon, through economics (in a sense, this thread is evidence that that is working.. good?).
Good for you, maybe. But not good from a gameplay perspective (for us). But at least we now know it was your intent for the damn thing to not really be used at all right now. Don't hold it against some of us for suggesting gameplay improvements because we can only see the game for what it is in its existing version.
I'm not sure why you think the 8-hour life is some major bonus we haven't fully considered. In the case of capital ship hunting, nobody is interested in sitting around for 8 hours to see if a capship runs into their mines. In the case of smaller ships, the cost is too high, economically *and* from a deployment perspective (even when used in combination with other higher damage mines), just to grab a single potential kill. Anyway, such analysis apparently doesn't really matter since it's clear this mine plays a larger role in a yet unrealized version of the game.
Good for you, maybe. But not good from a gameplay perspective (for us). But at least we now know it was your intent for the damn thing to not really be used at all right now. Don't hold it against some of us for suggesting gameplay improvements because we can only see the game for what it is in its existing version.
I'm not sure why you think the 8-hour life is some major bonus we haven't fully considered. In the case of capital ship hunting, nobody is interested in sitting around for 8 hours to see if a capship runs into their mines. In the case of smaller ships, the cost is too high, economically *and* from a deployment perspective (even when used in combination with other higher damage mines), just to grab a single potential kill. Anyway, such analysis apparently doesn't really matter since it's clear this mine plays a larger role in a yet unrealized version of the game.
Don't hold it against some of us for suggesting gameplay improvements because we can only see the game for what it is in its existing version.
I really don't, I wouldn't expect you to know that; and as I said, the feedback is interesting.
But by the same token, don't hold it against me for using mechanisms to intentionally limit usage in situations that are evolving. People seem to often think I'm being myopic or "missing the point", to quote the above response, and while that's always possible, it's probably reasonable to give me a little more credit than that.
Like, for instance, if I tweak the power drain parameters of the mine, as Suggested elsewhere, that would completely alter the relative value, risk and merits of the mine.
Same is true if we end up tweaking the nature of how the "implosion" reverse-force impacts ships.
There is a bigger picture as well, but for a lot of different reasons, while a weapon is brand-new and still changing, I'm likely to use mechanisms to exert some downward pressure on usage.
I really don't, I wouldn't expect you to know that; and as I said, the feedback is interesting.
But by the same token, don't hold it against me for using mechanisms to intentionally limit usage in situations that are evolving. People seem to often think I'm being myopic or "missing the point", to quote the above response, and while that's always possible, it's probably reasonable to give me a little more credit than that.
Like, for instance, if I tweak the power drain parameters of the mine, as Suggested elsewhere, that would completely alter the relative value, risk and merits of the mine.
Same is true if we end up tweaking the nature of how the "implosion" reverse-force impacts ships.
There is a bigger picture as well, but for a lot of different reasons, while a weapon is brand-new and still changing, I'm likely to use mechanisms to exert some downward pressure on usage.