Inquisitor Kitchner
Galaxy Punks
Executive Outcomes
593
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Posted - 2012.12.10 11:00:00 -
[1] - Quote
I don't often unironically take a dig at CCP as I think you guys do a great job and you engage with the community more then literally any other game developer ever. Properly engage too, not just reply to tweets with one word comments on a leaked screenshot, actually making changes based on opinions.
That said this devblog is total rubbish. The links between cause and effect of any of the figures used are not what the blog says they are, or at least there's no evidence to prove it is what they say they are.
Let's look at the points:
Quote:The mining barge changes, however, caused a gigantic spike in the production of the smaller vessels. The average monthly number of Retrievers produced in the first half of the year was 13,600 ships....Manufacturing figures for the Procurer are even more dramatic, as its average monthly figure of nearly 2,000 ships was exceeded by 4781% in August and by 9706% in September.
Considering these are the earliest mining ships people can just into I wouldn't put too much on these figures. Firstly they are effected by changes in production cost (I believe) and secondly if the changes were to make mining a better option for income on an alt people will be looking to buy these.
Interesting the ship that is high yield and low hold (i.e. the ship designed to be used for "team" mining) is the one that dropped off in terms of production...
Quote:Manufacturing of exhumers shows a similar pattern, albeit at a much smaller scale.
If by "similar pattern" you mean that Mackinaws (high cargo hold, "low" tank) now form a much high percentage oh ships produced then yes you are right. Unfortunately that's not the point you were making.
What the figures actually show is mining ship production has dropped off (implying that either demand isn't as great, or the spike pre-changes is enough to satisfy demand for quite a while) BUT Mackinaws now form a disproportionate percentage of mining ships produced, in fact if you look at the graph they form a pretty similar percentage as hulks did when "everyone only ever used hulks" which was the "cause" for the change.
This would imply that Mackinaws and Procurers are the new used ships of choice (as otherwise why bother including the figures for ships produced?). If only we had those figures! Oh wait, we do...
Quote:The new versions of the ships clearly provide useful mining alternatives to pilots willing to trade off some mining output for a reduced risk of suicide ganks or less workload shoveling ore to a jet can.
This statement is just wrong.
Firstly the graphs don't imply anything about useful mining alternatives. they shows that the two ships that now show overwhelming use are the two ships that allow for the "best" AFK mining. The retriever far outstrips (no pun intended) it's brothers in terms of mining barges and the Mackinaw has overtaken the Hulk in terms of useage for miners. Now the decline in useage of Hulks is not as steep as the mining barge decline, and Mackinaws have not yet hit the disparity of useage that Hulks once had, however exhumers are much more of a significant investment for miners, so no-one is going to be in a rush to sell off their old hulks.
Further this has been measured over just 3 months, I suspect the delta between Mackinaw and Hulk usage will only increase over time.
Quote:Of course, the last part means greater opportunities for AFK-mining. That, in turn, probably explains why the Retriever has become the most commonly used mining ship, and also why the increase in mining activity is focused on high-security space.
The only observation worth reading in the blog.
The blog then goes on to talk about mining indices, however the only one that has significant changes is ice prices. Which again is the best source for AFK mining.
So in short what the Dev Blog should have been saying was that all the mining changes have achieved is that over a 3 month period:
- The production for exhumers is down, the production for mining barges is up
- Procurers and Retreviers form the largest part of mining barge production
- Mackinaws form by far the largest proportion of the exhumer production
- Mackinaws and Retrievers now form the largest part of the mining ship population
- The only mineral price to be drastically effected is ice
To me the conclusion should be that AFK mining has been given a significant boost (as the high cargo hold ships are the ones dominant) and that is what more players are now doing (as mainly ice prices have decreased which is the best AFK mining source). The reason that AFK mining has increased was due to the favourable ship for AFK mining (high cargo space) also having a "medium" tank preventing as many deaths (which is why production has slowed, as there is less demand for the ships).
Further more I'd expect that over the coming months the Hulk figures will continue to slowly erode (as old hulk players leave, new mining players start in mackinaws moving from the massive retriever boom) until eventually they replace the Hulk in terms of disparity between that ship and all of the others.
I have to say I am really disappointed with CCP, this is a sham of a devblog. I'm not actually against AFK mining per se, however what I am against is mis-representation of statistics.
"If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared." - Niccolo Machiavelli |