Friday with Means - February 6th, 2009

[CulannHS]

Perk Reset timers:

When I said "Modest fee" what I meant was small and affordable. I am leaning towards an incremental system that would see the more times used..the more expensive it gets. With of course a reset of this system for everyone following significant character related updates. I also believe this cost should "cap out" at a reasonable number for players who are earning credits at end-game rates. Those who are not at end-game levels should have no difficulty paying for the first few uses of the system. I also think 72 hours is plenty long enough to wait in between resets (considering the old took much much longer.).

The old "free" system will also not be removed. I don't see how this can be a losing proposition.

So:
First use: 10 000 Credits
2nd: 100 000 Credits
3rd: 500 000 Credits
4th: 1 000 000 Credits
5th: 10 000 000 Credits
6th: 50 000 000 Credits
7th: 100 000 000 Credits
8th: 500 000 000 Credits
9th: 500 000 000 Credits

I imagine we can argue about these numbers until they are close to what we all feel is "right". Minimal use of this system shouldn't punish the poor and favour the rich. With a reset with character updates everyone should have room to experiment without breaking the bank...expecially considering the old system stil exists and this system is ONLY for complete perk resets.

Thanks for the feedback on the idea so far...we'll have the first version of this next week.

Where should this NPC be? Ideas?

More importantly, I hope you have something to stop the credit spammers, and a way in place to deal with the influx of credits when people buy them to support this rather ludicrous cost proposition.

And for what it's worth..last week there were two on RK one that spammed clan OOC for over 4 hours straight.

Actually..just don't even implement the whole thing..that's probably the best move in this case.

Yeah I'm disgusted. Seriously.

[IHaveHugeNick]

People experimenting with various setups are not doing anything wrong I'd say...

Of course, but for experimenting you don't always have to do a complete perk reset. Most of the time you wont. Current system is perfectly fine most of the time, except we should be able to at least reset whole lines .

[Hulk]

Started to write basically the same, then decided just to quote yours

Edit:
Only thing I might add is that people will usually use these resets in pairs so to speak...
Meaning that you reset your perk in order to go for twinking perks, after which you reset your perks again back to fighting perks...

Based on that I'd suggest:
1st: 25 000 Credits
2nd: 25 000 Credits

3rd: 500 000 Credits
4th: 500 000 Credits

5th: 10 000 000 Credits
6th: 10 000 000 Credits

7th: 50 000 000 Credits
8th: 50 000 000 Credits

9th: 150 000 000 Credits
10th: 150 000 000 Credits

xx'th: 250 000 000 Credits
xx'th: 250 000 000 Credits


and I think a 24 hour lock is sufficient and appropriate...

This is exactly what I was thinking


Means, listen to this plz

[Hulk]

How about a price decay system on top of that ? As in after, lets say, a month - the cost gets one level lower.


As for the NPC - those buildings in the ICC whompah area can be turned into working buildings (actually have an entrance) & have some Jobe representative (they're the scientists/researchers after all...) inside giving you that toxic stuff that makes you forget all your (perk) skills.

And this too please

[MachSchau]

I think the decay should be every 3 months. If you look at FC patch history each new patch takes roughly 3 months to hit live. Not to mention its very rare that they introduce new symbiants to the game that would require a player to do a full perk reset.

[Technogen]

Means, any idea if we could expect to see something like this with full IPR resets but at a much steeper price?

[Lupusceleri]

*snip*

You can hotswap belts. First you unequip the NCUs which are 10s/each, and pre-AI you used to be able to delete them right out of your Decks to get rid of them instantly as well. Then you started swapping the belt, which takes two minutes, and you are wearing your new 6slot belt. Next step is put some gimp mems on, ladder it all back up to the point where you can cast Trading Mogul, and you're here.

So, Hacre was right although he could have worded it cleared.

The only "used to" that applies at all comes pre 14.2.1 when belts and ncu's both had 30s equip time. After that patch, the only hitch was the inherent delay before people figured out how to do it (ie; buff combinations, right ql ncu's, imps, etc).

Aaaand before that, you could instantly delete the memories out of your Deck to get rid of them, if I'm not mistaken.

[Mastablasta]

Notice that the price is only at 500 million once you're at a 8th reset. How often do you actually reset perks? If you want to just reset 10 perks to get a different line, obviously you'd use the old system. If you want to reset 50 perks to get abilities and treatment for new symbs, obviously you'd use the new system. Which in the end would require a minimum of 2 resets. Maybe 3 if you are into weird stuff, 4 if you're fumbling around and don't do them all at once. Meaning you'll have paid less than 2 million so far.

Now, let's say you did this after attaining a full set of Xan symbiants. How soon would you need to reset ALL your perks at once again? Maybe you'd just want to change like 2-4 perklines. That may be something like 6-40 perks. In the lower spectrum you'd opt for the free version. You may want to throw 10 mill at the next step. But you'd need to throw 50 to get back again if you find that this new setup is not for you. This is if you spent 4 resets on just new symbs.

I personally find the price a bit steep in climbing towards the end. A few extra steps like, 20/25 mill, after 10, instead of straight to 50, and 75 mill before going straight to 100. Keep a couple of lower increments in there, not 100-500, but 100-250, then 500 again. It starts out nice and cheap as it should. But overusers are heavily punished. I don't make credits of this caliber, not that I need to reset so many perks all the time, or really ever reset more than maybe 10-15, so I'd most likely never hit that ceiling.

However, I feel that with a few more increments before hitting the really high amounts would help encourage experimentation, while keeping the time required to invest into perkresets higher than just random impulse resets. You need to think before trying out a new spec, not just randomly do whatever.

[ArienSky]

A suggestion for the Omni position:
In the lab a little east of the Clon**** gridpost; near the OT mining museum (and Kringshaw I), behind the door with the sign saying "We bring order - Omni-Tek"

Entrance
Lab

Coordinates:
(1158.1 4034.3 y 15.4 670)
inside: (192.5 177.4 y 35.0 4240307)

You can hotswap belts. First you unequip the NCUs which are 10s/each, and pre-AI you used to be able to delete them right out of your Decks to get rid of them instantly as well. Then you started swapping the belt, which takes two minutes, and you are wearing your new 6slot belt. Next step is put some gimp mems on, ladder it all back up to the point where you can cast Trading Mogul, and you're here. :)

Thank you, I never realized that you could hotswap belt, I guess I have always equipped deck-modules from my NCU bag, meaning that can not be done ;)
That hotswapping is possible indeed defeats the long equip times.

Kind Regards
Ariensky

[PhoenixOfAges]

I believe it needs a decay system....

.... I don't want easier resets, but automatic ones. Make em 4 hours if you have to.)

I agree with both and had expected the coming change to be automatic reset options, not this. This is an improvement but with no decay system and rapid cost increase I don't see myself using the pay option much.

[Lheann]

Means,

I like your incremental cost approach. But may I suggest a different scale

1st: 10,000
2nd: 15,000

3rd: 100,000
4th: 150,000

5th: 1,000,000
6th: 1,500,000

7th: 10,000,000
8th: 15,000,000

9th: 100,000,000
10th: 150,000,000

11th: 900,000,000 and reset you to start of scale again.


Keep the cost in pairs since this will be mostly used in pairs. I still agree with your endgame levels and 6+ usage of this system costing big time. Furhter all the people complaining about it really need to rethink how often the would do a full perk reset. And maybe they need to realize this will clear all (every last one) of their perks when used. 60 perks * 2 hours = 120 hours of time to fully reset now if you can log on every two hours on the dot.

Now what I would like to see is the old way reduced to 1 hour vice two hours. That would be nice and maybe help people swallow the high cost that you are suggesting.

Now you will notice the my 11th usage is 900mil and stated that you get reset to the start of scale again. If someone is willing to permanently remove 900mil from the economy then why not reset the scale for them.

I really can not see why I would use this more than 4 to 6 time between boosters/expansions that would reset the scale for everyone. If people are really using that many resets then I would think they have not been playing the game at their full potential for some time as they must always be in perk reset of some level.

But thanks for stopping in and commenting. As for location. Use some unused building in Jobe Research. They were used during SL beta so I know the rooms are there and finished to a usable state. Just drop the NPC in one of them. Jobe and JAME seem like the right folks to hanlde perk resets.

[Hacre]

That hotswapping is possible indeed defeats the long equip times.

Kind Regards
Ariensky

Well gee, fancy that.

Apology accepted?

[wormx]

Lol this is completely wrong.

It lasts one minute, NCU unequip times are no longer than 10s. All you need is to buff up enough NCU, have 2 AI NCUs in (or just have 5 NCUs equipped) then start the belt swap.

Not sure if this got cleared up or not but the above looks like you can swap a belt without removing the NCU chips. I thought that was impossible.

Middle of Will to Fight, obviously.

That made me laugh, thanks

[Hacre]

Not sure if this got cleared up or not but the above looks like you can swap a belt without removing the NCU chips. I thought that was impossible.

It is.

There's a reason I reference the length of Trading Mogul (60 seconds) and the equip time of 5 regular NCUs (10s a piece) or instant removal of AI NCUs.

Because you can start the belt swap with the comp lit buff still running, if you only have to take out 5 regular mems or 3 regular mems + 2 AI mems.

[wormx]

oh haha, brainfart. Stupid mondays

[Mikenche]

You can hotswap belts. First you unequip the NCUs which are 10s/each, and pre-AI you used to be able to delete them right out of your Decks to get rid of them instantly as well. Then you started swapping the belt, which takes two minutes, and you are wearing your new 6slot belt. Next step is put some gimp mems on, ladder it all back up to the point where you can cast Trading Mogul, and you're here.

Unless I'm mistaken, it was also possible to delete the whole belt from your equipment to get rid of all the NCUs at once. I don't remember if the chips were returned to your inventory or destroyed as well though. Never tried the deletion method myself, and it's been a while since I heard this from a friend too.

[lugoman]

Perk Reset timers:


Where should this NPC be? Ideas?

I think you should add a saddle to the Artillery Commander and have the perk reset npc sitting in that saddle.

[Keldros]

which reminds me.. dying in this game is horridly imbalanced in favouring the rich. they clearly can afford dying more than us poor people. so i suggest we remove this too.

You left out that CC is too rare and a full set should drop off each backyard leet.

[Keldros]

Middle of Will to Fight, obviously.

Wouldn't work, PVPers could never find it.

[Ellarisa]

Edit: holy hell, sorry for the wall of text ><

i like the idea of it, but the prices are wrong imo.
if the system had been in place for the last 2 years it would mean that my engineer would be up to 8 full resets done, and i'm not done yet with my symbs (need 1 more item >.>). i did full perk resets (2 of em each time ofc) at 201, 210, 215 and 220 so far. all of those just to keep my symbs up to date. my MP will be even worse by the time she gets to 220, i've done 2 full resets on her already and she's only lvl 165.
here's my thoughts on the prices and such. (leaving the timer aside)
keep em in pairs... kinda
1st reset: 10k
[lock out 72 hours]
if another perk reset is done within 48 hours after this then cost is 10k again
2nd reset: 100k
[lock out 72 hours]
if another perk reset is done within 48 hours after this then cost is 100k again
...
this way you keep the increment, but it doesn't go as fast for people who like to keep their symbs and such up to date while still going up kinda fast for people who love experimenting with a billion completly different setups.

what you should also consider is a reset of the cost at certain levels so that people who like to keep their symbs up to date while they level dont get hit with enormous costs for a full perk reset when they come to the high end symbs (250+ or something).

about the lockout timers:
72 hours sounds good to me. i personally dont mind sitting on my ass for 3 days while being useless (not like it'd be any different from right now ). it's more about the fact that i dont have to log in every 2 hours to reset a perk (most of all since now i have a job and it'd take me quite a bit more time to do a full perk reset).

a question on the lockout:
Will the lockout be a complete lockout, or will i still be able to do normal perk resets after using the full one? would suck if it was a complete lockout, since it happens once in a while that you have to perk something to be able to equip a twinking item and then need the perk somewhere else afterwards (ai tech for bracers or ai armor for example).

now about where to put him:
if you want him on RK:
- ICC
- omni trade/newland/some clan city
if you want him in SL: (which would prolly be the best idea, to avoid random newbies asking what the guy is for or something)
- Jobe Plaza outside, a little out of sight
- all 3 IPS buildings at the end, put a statue of Mr Macrosun or yourself next to the guy to keep it in line wiht the other people there
- Elysium or scheol gardens

onto other topics:
- the mine layers: i like em, except for some tweaks here and there, i have given my thoughts on em to Mr Metaing after some extensive testing. (thanks D for letting me blow you up constantly )
- the booster PFs: love em, mitaar hero is weird and very confusing though (i still dont have a clue on what to do in there)
- we need more chaos and anarchy on RK (this is Anarchy Online, right?), you should release ARK Nirvelle onto live for a few days and let him do his thing

all in all i'd say another very nice FWM
looking forward to this friday's edition
Greetings,



Ellarisa