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Asharee Intrefer
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Posted - 2004.04.07 23:43:00 -
[1]
I just came to think of something that might be a solution to the problem leading to the disabling of mining agents:
How about setting a minumum time on mining missions? It could be a time randomly chosen from a range representing the completion time of other mission types, a guess would be a range from 10 to 35 minutes. Then it would just be a matter of integrating the time into the mission briefings, and that can be solved by adding lines like "The transport that will redistribute the minerals will dock at this station in 15 minutes" or "You have to deliver the goods directly to the factory manager who needs them. He is currently out for lunch, but will be back to recieve the shipment in 25 minutes"
That way, those who like to mine one night and finish the missions the other can still do it, but they won't be able to do it faster than people doing other missions, or those who actually mine for each mission.
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Extreme
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Posted - 2004.04.07 23:52:00 -
[2]
In another thread i suggest another possible solution:
A bit of CCP math could tweak the idea to perfect balance.
Turning down a mission will give a time penalty
as long as no mission has been refused or aborted there's no time penalty.
The agent has to be set a maximum (instant) missions wich will trigger a courier mission when the limit has been reached.
In case an undefined amount of missions has been turned down/aborted in an X-periode of time you get penalised for longer time not being able to do missions for that faction.
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Morkt Drakt
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Posted - 2004.04.07 23:59:00 -
[3]
Yup - put like that Extreme it does sound rather good. 
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Nathan Adler
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Posted - 2004.04.08 00:43:00 -
[4]
How about if the agent recognises how fast a mission was done, and the next mission could possibly depend on the timing of the one before. So if you complete a mission within two or three minutes of it being accepted, the agent then gives a courier, or other type of more time consuming mission. This prevents insta-missions from being consecutive, and promotes a type of variety.
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Vin Nova
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Posted - 2004.04.08 01:47:00 -
[5]
i dont see anyting wrong with the way it is... you still have to mine the minerals. whats the difference with mining a bunch at once, instead of going back and forth with every mission. its totally stupid in my opinion. its just another way to get us to slow downm while the only people complaing are the ones who did the exact same technique or they were just too dumb to think about it themselves.
this is a joke.
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Asharee Intrefer
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Posted - 2004.04.08 02:13:00 -
[6]
It's no joke, but simply a matter of game balancing. The devs are trying to uphold a certain risk/reward factor to make the game challenging, and they wouldn't have plugged mining agents if it hadn't meant that, in the devs' opinion, some people were making too much money with too little risk.
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Foomanshoe
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Posted - 2004.04.08 03:00:00 -
[7]
just put the mission delay back in and set it to 10 mins
problem solved
_______________________________________________
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WhiteTiger
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Posted - 2004.04.08 03:54:00 -
[8]
 Quote:
i dont see anyting wrong with the way it is... you still have to mine the minerals. whats the difference with mining a bunch at once, instead of going back and forth with every mission. its totally stupid in my opinion. its just another way to get us to slow downm while the only people complaing are the ones who did the exact same technique or they were just too dumb to think about it themselves.
this is a joke.
I'm afraid you don't get it. I haven't worked for a mining corp. but my agents do throw me a few odd mining missions. I have completed most of those missions using only a Kestrel - which happens to have 4 launchers and NO turrents. The missions overall pay more than market value for the minerals so you can just buy them and still make a profit on the mission. So if you wanted to exploit a mining corp you only really needed to get an indy go buy a bunch of minerals then insta-mission to insta-isk. Mining is not required at all, at least as long as there where still miners that hadn't figured this exploit out and where still selling their minerals to the markets instead of cashing in at the agents for much higher than market prices.
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Chepe Nolon
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Posted - 2004.04.08 08:27:00 -
[9]
Yep, put the 10 minute delay in again, and/or just make a few of those "get me some minerals" to say "get me some minerals, and deliver them to <another station>".
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Verbal Kint
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Posted - 2004.04.08 12:42:00 -
[10]
What Extreme said sounds like the best solution here.
If you put in a 10 minute 'Artificial' limit, wich is an option then the the situation will be askew again. If you insist on a timer, then make it a hidden random one from 1 to (yikes) 10 minutes if that would satisfy the rest of you.
Many aspects of the game are to Stringent as it is without having a timer set at the precise same time every time. We tried that allready and it was neither fun nor did it help you believing in the gameworld.
Overall with all agent's the litle thing where she say's "there is nothing to do at the moment" is lacking, sometimes you should get that message.
*V.K.*
Verbal Kint - Grumpy ol' c0ot. |
Aelita
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Posted - 2004.04.08 13:07:00 -
[11]
Quote:
Quote:
i dont see anyting wrong with the way it is... you still have to mine the minerals. whats the difference with mining a bunch at once, instead of going back and forth with every mission. its totally stupid in my opinion. its just another way to get us to slow downm while the only people complaing are the ones who did the exact same technique or they were just too dumb to think about it themselves.
this is a joke.
I'm afraid you don't get it. I haven't worked for a mining corp. but my agents do throw me a few odd mining missions. I have completed most of those missions using only a Kestrel - which happens to have 4 launchers and NO turrents. The missions overall pay more than market value for the minerals so you can just buy them and still make a profit on the mission. So if you wanted to exploit a mining corp you only really needed to get an indy go buy a bunch of minerals then insta-mission to insta-isk. Mining is not required at all, at least as long as there where still miners that hadn't figured this exploit out and where still selling their minerals to the markets instead of cashing in at the agents for much higher than market prices.
Not completely true :) Go to my home and try buy ores from market on 4C-B7X. If you try haul ores from Empire you will 100% not pass thru FD-MLJ or PF-346 with your indy. So no insta minral missions without hours of mining for low ores with spawn of up to 6 cruisers on your back. LOL that's problem not all people live in Empire and can buy ores off market. So we never was able do insta mining missions because we must mine these ores before. It's danger and it time sink. On oposite in our region are non mining division agents rare. After nice change ORE have only one L3 agent in Outer Ring and he is really poor quality -14. We did lost level 1 and level 2 agents completely and now our new members are unable to do any missions in Outer Ring with us.
All cooperative play and corporate spirit is wanished by just blink of eye without any replacement. If mining division agents are exploit OK then replace them with something else not FUBAR players.
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Oori
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Posted - 2004.04.08 14:35:00 -
[12]
It seems to me that two things are apparent here.
1 - Some people are upset about the mining agent change and as a result are still arguing that there was nothing wrong.
2 - Some people are doing some griefing with regards to the change that has already been made.
Seems to me that the decision that mining agents need tweaking has already been made. Thus, arguing or griefing will do us no good.
I would suggest posting possible "fixes" to the mining agent system rather than griefing and/or arguing. From my past gaming experience, arguing over a decision that's already been made only serves to anger or upset the development/GM staff.
The idea that I've seen that makes the most sense thus far is to change mining agent missions so that you actually have to transport the ore/mins to a different station. Sadly however, this will then make mining agents the worst of all agents (bar R&D) because you have a step BEFORE the courier part of the mission. Courier missions will be easier/faster than a courier "mining" mission. Maybe not the best idea after all.
I thought about upping the requirements for mining missions (maybe needing 10x the ore/mins that you need currently) but then people would just have bigger stockpiles. Maybe if there was a time delay in addition to the 10x minerals (30-45 mins to complete for time bonus.) At least that way it would encourage folks to actually go out and mine the stuff.
Most of the ideas I've seen involve either (a) new code or (b) tons of mission re-writing time. While I don't claim to know or have the best solution, if Papa and his team needs help doing rewrites I'd be happy to volunteer my time to do so.
Anyway - keep the ideas coming! I'm sure that Papa is watching these threads and the "solution" to the problem will probably come as a result of someone's idea here.
Regards,
Oori
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Xa'Zel
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Posted - 2004.04.08 14:39:00 -
[13]
An easier solution would be to add a flag to minerals for who mined them and refined them or something, if you buy them, that flag won't be you so the agent could reply:
"Don't try and pass someone else's work off for your own you cheeky little snot."
Problem solved.
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Caleb Ayrania
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Posted - 2004.04.08 15:24:00 -
[14]
All these things would not be a problem if...
agents and all NPC demands and payouts, and facility pricings were actually using a dynamic system..
FIXED pricings are killing the gamedynamics.. it should be put on the top of CCP agenda so we can route out all thes problems once and for all..
Also agents rising in popularity should change, both in quality and in the type of missions they issue.
If monitoring the way people use agents was put in focus, maybe by giving logs or similar to relevant volunteers, these things would be changed instead of simply plugged...
So please lets cut the symptomtreatment at strat focusing on a better solution to the actual ailment..
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JardaR G'Kar
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Posted - 2004.04.08 17:28:00 -
[15]
Don't be stupid why there should be some delay time for delivery/mining mission. Only one best solitions are PENALTIES.
Agent offer work:
If not accepted mission is offered. After 1 hour mission fizzles with NO PENALTY.
New mission offered.
Accepted mission and than declined:
You receive BIG standing penalty, agent don't talk to you for 1 day.
New mission offered.
Accepted mission and failed due time expiration
You receive small standing penalty.
New mission offered.
This is the best way how agent should comunicate.
agent: mining - 70 % mining missions
10 % courier of ore
10 % courier of mining report
10 % others missions.
With this noone can exploit this type of agent. Easy to implant it to existing system of agents missions.
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Rthor
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Posted - 2004.04.08 18:48:00 -
[16]
All you have to do to fix this is cut the rewards in half.
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MinorFreak
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Posted - 2004.04.08 22:14:00 -
[17]
 hi. i just started playing this game about a month ago and i did think the mining agents were a little too easily "exploited" (ie. it just begged for a nerf) because i could mine about 5000m3 of ore, refine half of each type and sit there on Etav 10.3 and plug away at my 2 level one agents till they coughed up a courier mission.
*shrug* I did the courier missions because it added variety to play.
Here's what i think should be done: put "back" the 10 minute delay (the "i'm busy" thing) PLUS penalize players who reject an accepted mission by increasing the delay to 24 hours.
______________________
Best darned links ingame and out (backup) |
Mr nStuff
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Posted - 2004.04.08 23:22:00 -
[18]
what's wrong with the agents exactly?
I mean if it's just because players were stocking up. That's not exploiting, it's being prepaired.
I don't get it.
5 R&D Agents, 10months, Zero BPO Offers..
Onboard navigational [Planetary Avoidance] computer.
My account will be suspended at the end of the current play period.
Expires on 19. September 2004 |
Lord Terror
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Posted - 2004.04.08 23:33:00 -
[19]
For how i understood it, it's that corporations working together on a single Level 3 mining agent in a station where they have an office at.
Players take stock from corphangars to fullfill the agents mission.
An unknown amount of corpmembers clicking ~4-6 missions a minute for a few hours declining courier missions.
The missions on a good quality L3 mining agent was like this:
243 nocxium - rerward 80K isk - Bonus 65K isk
12000 tri - reward 88K isk - Bonus 60K isk
1200 scordite - 98K isk - Bonus 85K isk
so an avarage of 160K per mission minus avarage npc cost of used minerals / ores -> ~ 125K prfot per mission.
4 mission per minute = 500K isk profit = 30M isk per hour
Now do that with a whole corp, say 12 members -> 360M per hour. 
See the problem ?
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Mr nStuff
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Posted - 2004.04.09 05:48:00 -
[20]
Yeah. But if you reject so many missions. pretty soon you find yourself not able to use the agent anymore.
oh well.. guess they will sort it.. They should just make it a bigger standing hit to decline a mission apposed to waiting 24 hours for the mission to expire.
Or somethin..
5 R&D Agents, 10months, Zero BPO Offers..
Onboard navigational [Planetary Avoidance] computer.
My account will be suspended at the end of the current play period.
Expires on 19. September 2004 |
Lord Terror
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Posted - 2004.04.09 06:39:00 -
[21]
well, for me it was ~12 mining/mineral missions in line before a courier mission appeared.
So it compensated enoeugh
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MasterTao
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Posted - 2004.04.09 06:46:00 -
[22]
Edited by: MasterTao on 09/04/2004 06:47:06
can't decline important missions and there are times when 6 courier appear in a roll 
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Audhra
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Posted - 2004.04.09 07:04:00 -
[23]
Hi,
I've only been playing the game for a couple weeks now, so I can't tell you what I think about implants or corp farming, or any of that. All I know is that I found mining missions more fun (and more rewarding) than hunting rats or hauling garbage, and now that I can't do them any more I've completely lost interest in my character. I just can't summon the interest to do more than train skills or pore over the market.
One thing I am sure of, though, is that you need to do a better job of informing us about these things. When I returned from a mission and my agent, who was still listed as being available to me in-station, was suddenly too busy to talk to me, and all mining and autosurveying agents from all corps were listed as being unavailable to me on the character sheet, I thought my character was bugged. I even submitted a request for help via "Ask a Question", though of course that was ignored.
I hope you figure this out soon, because all I can do until then is twiddle my thumbs. If I enjoyed having my enjoyment in a game undercut so thoroughly, I'd still be playing DAoC.
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Audhra
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Posted - 2004.04.13 00:19:00 -
[24]
I don't mean to spam the thread, but I need to know something: is this how it's going to be? Does CCP routinely make changes like this without announcing them (let alone announcing them in advance), or was there a news item somewhere that I missed? Am I the only one upset about the whole thing?
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