Intentional Concord Bringer
Evil Rotten Bastards
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Posted - 2014.04.28 19:15:00 -
[1] - Quote
After reading, re-reading and then re-reading the dev blog, then reading all the comments... I think I understand these changes and largely agree with much of what others have already noted. I do, however, wish to add data points and recommendations to be considered.
First, I've been playing Eve since beta. My oldest current toon is from 2005. In the 10 years I've been playing, I've amassed a startlingly large collection of BPOs of which the vast majority of them are researched to the point of ridiculousness. There have been several good reasons for doing this. Despite diminishing returns, the ME curve did allow for increased profits for, say, a 100ME researched frigate blueprint vs. a 10ME researched blueprint. Not a ton, but the collection taken as a whole multiplied by how often I make stuff adds up to a lot of extra ISK per year. PE (now TE, finally lol) allowed me to manufacture them more quickly than my competitors with lower PE. And finally, BPCs with higher ME/PE sell for more and sell more readily than those with lower ME/PE values.
All of these combined to make investing large amounts of time into research and copying worthwhile. As someone who has spent 9+ years of his life maximizing the potential of his BPO collection, changing the system to only require ten levels to reach maximum production efficiency is a bit of a butthurt... I won't lie. This effectively means that one of my central gameplay joys is now almost entirely moot. Given the state of my BPOs I fully expect 99% of them will still be perfect ME/TE after the change, but I loose a substantial competitive advantage in the market post change, since now every Tom, **** and Harry player can reach perfection much more quickly than it took for me and anyone who already has at least 10ME invested in the vast majority of prints will generally seem to end up with a perfect print, post change.
I agree that the time (and isk) investment in building that collection and researching it as it is should be compensated in some way. I like both the idea of a) being given RU's much in the same way SP are given when skills are removed - this covers the time aspect pretty well and would allow me to further improve my collection as new prints are added to the game, and the idea of b) marking the BPO's with their old ME/PE levels, giving them collectors value which covers the isk invested aspect pretty well too. So, I vote for both as a good compromise to compensate for both time and isk investment. Granted, 'collectible' prints might not be a lucrative market now or ever, but it leaves the door open to at least add some additional value to those blueprints vs any purchased and researched after the change. It also leaves the dark side of New Eden alone where nefarious sellers can still convince the unsuspecting players with more ISK than brains that it's a better print than another, etc. even though it is not at that point.
I'd also like to cast some doubt on the T2 production changes. I also concur that anyone who was either lucky enough to get one in the lottery (which I didn't - full disclosure) or rich enough to buy one from someone desperate enough to sell one (which I ain't, lol) already have significant advantages over invention. Any changes to T2 BPOs should, therefore, be considered more internally before making the change. If it were up to me, I'd leave them alone and give the advantage to the inventors - as it was meant to be before the folly of introducing T2 BPOs to the game in such a limited way, which it only took about a year IIRC for CCP to figure out was a bad move and we've all had to live with it since. So, I'd consider giving the BPO owner no advantage while rewarding the BPC inventor some additional advantage over the BPO. Right now, invention isn't really that rewarding in and of itself. There's a lot of time and isk investment on the part of the inventor and a high failure rate despite maxed skills and decryptors, so the advantage should go to the inventor, not the BPO owner in this case, I feel. That's my 2 cents on that.
Having made all those points, I must contend that this is a good overall change to research for the future of the game. Industry hasn't been iterated on in a loooooong time, aside from introducing PI, new BPOs to research and toys to build. This change, coupled with the other changes I've read about so far, are a welcome change to the industry ecosystem of New Eden and despite being directly adversely affected by the changes, I agree it is something that has to be done.
Now... about those modular POSs we've been asking for since 2006... (sorry, had to be done).
Thanks CCP Greyscale - I appreciate the dev blog post, the responses given in the comments and all the hard work you guys are doing to iterate on the industry side of the game.
As an aside... you know what else I'd really like to see happen in summer 2014? Open up the stations, let us build the bars and strip joints and supply the beef and water, the spirits and tobacco consumables they need. Let us populate them with civilians, tourists, janitors and the like. Let us in dangit... I'm tired of looking at myself in the mirror and I want to have yet another avenue for manufacturing, research and PI. The original plan for that was awesome sauce for us indy types... too bad CCP fux0r3d it all up with NEX. :(
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