Cyrillian Voth
Caldari Independent Navy Reserve
The Fourth District
1
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Posted - 2014.04.29 14:05:00 -
[1] - Quote
CCP_Greyscale wrote:
We're very un-keen on making any blueprints worse as a result of this change, that feels far more painful than "wasted time" and a better blueprint.
Time credit is something we could investigate, although it potentially requires a lot of work to allow you to cash it in.
TL;DR: Do you agree with the principle that the expansion should not make it harder for new industrialists to compete with those who established themselves before the expansion?
I'm concerned that you appear to have your priorities backwards here. Some owners of well-researched BPOs (especially those with high ranks) and tech II BPOs will gain an even greater advantage over newcomers from this change. Industry should be designed to allow newer players to make a profit if they're smart; instead you risk further entrenching the dominance of rich older players. The fact that they will squeal should not be a distraction from what's best for the game.
An example: Peter Plutocrat has a Raven BPO researched to ME 14, which took him under two months, cost next to nothing, and translates to a perfect ME10% under the new system. Along comes Natalia Newbie wanting to break into the Raven market, and decides to start by researching her BPO to ME10%. Not only does this cost her a fair chunk of ISK, it takes her nearly six months to achieve the same result. Meanwhile Peter is laughing all the way to the bank.
A solution: calculate the time invested in research, and re-apply it under the new system. Some BPOs will get worse as a result; too bad. They may squeal, but those owners still have the advantage of having done all that research at a lower cost under the old system, and there's still a level playing field for them to research further if that's what's required.
Similarly, the copying changes give an increase of several percentage points in the throughput (and hence profitability) of tech II BPOs; you're right that it's not a disaster for invention, but that's beside the point: it makes the gerontocrats' advantage greater when you should be working to reduce it.
A solution: find a way to increase the cost of copying tech II BPOs. You could require additional materials for copying (e.g. datacores as well as data sheets), require the use of expensive expert teams for tech II copy jobs, change the copy duration on tech II BPOs, etc. The aim should be to ensure that tech II BPO profitability either stays the same as it is now, or goes down. |