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OfBalance
Caldari State
466
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Posted - 2013.05.15 04:01:00 -
[1] - Quote
Bi-Mi Lansatha wrote:Tom Gerard wrote:Risk vs. Reward doesn't scale well
A 200m skillpoint character is not any safer than a 20m skillpoint character and yet has 10x the risk. Then don't use it. If you have trained up a 200M skill point character and then want to use them in a frigate... you have made a poor choice.
Proof we will all eventually fly titans, amirite? |
OfBalance
Caldari State
466
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Posted - 2013.05.15 04:14:00 -
[2] - Quote
Tippia wrote: DIsincentivising the use of small ships by old players is horrible design that has no upsides whatsoever.
/thread
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OfBalance
Caldari State
466
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Posted - 2013.05.15 04:48:00 -
[3] - Quote
Corey Fumimasa wrote: High clone costs are detrimental to high SP characters. Those characters have very substantial advantages. The cost of clones dampens those advantages, in effect limiting the difference between old and new players.
Except we know only a certain amount of sp is going to be relavent to a given ship. The clone cost advantage is redundant and does not help new players. It only negatively affects vets.
Corey Fumimasa wrote: To remove them would further separate old and new characters/alliances, and exacerbate the aforementioned issues of mudflation and creep. It would be like giving all players a 20% bonus to their current SP, pushing the highest skilled characters even further ahead.
I'm not following this logic. In what way does reducing clone costs give any player a combat advantage? It is absolutely neutral in this regard.
Corey Fumimasa wrote: There will come a point at which the newest players have no way to effect the older players, and at that point you are not playing on a single shard, rather 2 or 3 shards that are on the same server.
In the long run we'll all have infinitely high skillpoints and will pay infinitely higher clone costs. At that point the cost disincentive is universally negative since clone prices will be much higher on everyone relative to their income. You can safely hand-wave about vets being far too wealthy to bother over clone costs when we're a minority, but when the average player is at 200m sp? I suppose you could argue inflation would negate that, but I don't think predicating game design on that premise is a good idea.
Corey Fumimasa wrote: I for one want to have more competition, not less, even if my char wont be as ubber as I want him to be right this instant.
Then you should be all for eliminating the artificial disincentive. The competition (combat) we're talking about is discouraged by this tax on veterans. It means only the vets with isk to burn will hop into a ship that would easily render them a pod-kill. In a situation where this disincentive were gone. More vets would be able to fly cheap and disposable ships (which give better odds to their newer opponents).
It's a case not of eliminating risk, but of moving risk into actual combat where it belongs.
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OfBalance
Caldari State
467
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Posted - 2013.05.15 20:09:00 -
[4] - Quote
Gogela wrote:I don't know how you can have such strong feelings about clone costs. There's a balance... I mean yah it's inconvenient for those w/ a fair amount of SP, but it's not a deal breaker at this point in the game. The flip side is that clone costs are a big ISK sink (I think it's big... or it should be...). Do you really want to remove or nerf a sink? We need more ISK sinks not fewer.
I used to feel the same way. Not much bother to me putting several high sp characters into new clones regularly, after all most of my ~risky~ pilots were throw-away dictor alts.
At this point; however, I have to say I'm completely on the side of reducing costs. It's only "balance," in the sense that it is a punitive action against a player who might have an advantage, but for the reasons that have been covered here (only so much sp can be relevant to the ship one is flying, there is an income plateau for most vets who aren't completely lifeless out of the game, etc.) this penalty seems ridiculous.
Much as I dislike inflation, I don't recall clone costs being -the- huge sink. Secondly, reducing their cost spurring more risky pvp would probably lead to more isk being sunk after the fact. In much the same way reducing taxes IRL has been repeatedly shown to increase revenue because it allows for more economic growth. So while I am onboard with concern about removing isk sinks arbitrarily. I think this one is demonstrably bad for pvp and bad for the game. |
OfBalance
Caldari State
470
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Posted - 2013.05.16 01:37:00 -
[5] - Quote
Gogela wrote: That's a good argument. I don't know how big of a sink clone costs are tbqh... I guess if I knew that I'd have to re-evaluate my position. If it is significant relative to overall sinks, say 30%+ of total sinking... then I'd have to disagree with you. Much less than that and you'd turn me around on the topic.
The economic premise that a lower clone cost encourages more risk-taking and thus more overall instances of isk being "sunk," really makes the argument valid either way.
Corey Fumimasa wrote:I'm good with player crafted clones. lets say a beta clone would require 3000 tritanium and a corpse, and a Phi would require 3 corpses and 6 melted nano ribbons. That would actually stop clone costs from being eroded by inflation. +1
I like this idea. In regards to inflation, in general, however; there's no stopping it when isk faucets are unlimited. (And frankly there's no way to get rid of unlimited isk faucets unless CCP is willing to pull isk from idle accounts and return it to the economy by some method. The only one that's obvious is strictly verboten, so I think that's here to stay.) |
OfBalance
Caldari State
470
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Posted - 2013.05.16 02:54:00 -
[6] - Quote
Corey Fumimasa wrote: What clones do is help to close the power gap between high SP chars and low SP ones. It reinforces the idea of specialization and keeps everyone a bit nervous about combat.
I don't think clones close the power gap at all. A trivial cost being imposed on wealthy vets and a more meaningful cost retarding the activity of less active vets doesn't really close any gaps. All it does is incentivise (as you mentioned) the affected players being more wary of combat that risks their clone.
I don't know in what way that advantages the new player because I see their greatest benefit coming from fighting other players in similar ships. The more vets that are pushed into low-risk-mode the fewer and more lop-sided fights are going to come to the rookies.
Corey Fumimasa wrote: The route that CCP seems to be taking is one of removing limitations from the top of the player base and buffing the hell out of the bottom. I would rather they heavily constrain the top and buff the bottom a bit, thats not going to happen though, too many QQ players atm.
I don't have a problem with either approach, but my contention is that clones do nothing to constrain the veteran's advantage in combat in the first place.
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OfBalance
Caldari State
473
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Posted - 2013.05.16 22:20:00 -
[7] - Quote
The hypothetical arguments about what a vet ought to have (monetary, experience, or otherwise) don't even constitute an argument, really. Either vets (and players in general) respond to incentives and calculate their behavior based on the punitive cost adjustment of their clones, or they don't.
Even if the cost is negligible, it is still effectiely a disincentive to pvp for a portion of the population. So either disincentives don't matter and clone costs should be able to go as high as ccp wants for the purpose of pulling more isk out of the economy, or they do matter and this is a terrible place for an isk sink. |
OfBalance
Caldari State
473
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Posted - 2013.05.16 23:34:00 -
[8] - Quote
Corey Fumimasa wrote: The idea that clone costs are punishment is a perception, all the arguments for lowering clone cost follow this trend.
Punishment being your loaded substitute for disincentive, which is indeed the case. The argument doesn't change based on relative cost or your choice of words. You either have some mechanic that encourages pvp or you have something that discourages pvp. It's that simple.
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OfBalance
Caldari State
475
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Posted - 2013.05.17 01:40:00 -
[9] - Quote
Corey Fumimasa wrote: To me rules and limits in a game are the individual puzzle pieces that define the play area. Disincentives for certain actions and consequences for others balanced by rewards create a dynamic that makes gaming interesting.
And my argument is that they in-fact make the game less interesting. If you want to make a legitimate counter-argument, I would start with -why- you think that this disincentive makes the game interesting.
Yes, it is a consequence, but just because something is a consequence of your game actions does not validate it as a good mechanic worth preserving. AOE doomsday and old sov mechanics (not that the new sov. is much better) had a hell of a lot of consequences, but it wasn't making the game more interesting. It simply made the game more tedious.\
My point has been that it obviously discourages pvp, I believe that is the "interesting," part of the game. So your argument must be that discouraging pvp, to some degree, makes the game more interesting. And thus I really can't understand how you hold that position. |
OfBalance
Caldari State
476
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Posted - 2013.05.17 03:11:00 -
[10] - Quote
Six Six Six wrote:OfBalance wrote:Six Six Six wrote: You are wrong, it's only a disincentive for those people that can't afford to keep replacing them. If you have more isk than you know what to do with then isk becomes practically worthless to you and in those cases it's certainly not a disincentive.
And thus entereth the "all vets are impossibly wealthy," fallacy again. Not at all, just because you're a vet doesn't mean to say you have plenty of isk. But the more isk someone has above what they need the more worthless it becomes to them.
And thus this disincentive aimed at vets, makes no sense. It has nothing to do with removing idle isk from the economy because idle players or isk hoarders are not going to be risking their clones in pvp anyhow.
So just to sum the principle up again: Disincentive for pvp, bad isk sink, bad game machanic.
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OfBalance
Caldari State
476
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Posted - 2013.05.17 03:25:00 -
[11] - Quote
Corey Fumimasa wrote: Clone costs discourage PvP for a very small but vocal part of the player base; only those players who have skilled up to very high SP levels, that still want to PvP, and have trouble earning ISK.
And that legitimizes the mechanic is anything but bad?
So we know it benefits nobody. You've implied that it is a net neutral to the supposed majority of players it affects. You have also admitted that it negatively affects some players.
By your own description this is a bad mechanic and you're doing a great job of proving that point. |
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