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Drug Booster Balancing issues

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Dr Halberstam
Nine Eyes Medical
#141 - 2011-11-23 13:49:01 UTC
Cailais wrote:
I'm still not convinced that 'price rises' are a reason not to implement a change. Equally you could argue that those that use them more, become more successful in PVP contests so others start using them to remain competitive and so on and so forth.


And here you imply that all will be well, as they will cheapen eventually. Read on - they wont.

Cailais wrote:
The manufacturers can't complain if demand is high or profits are good - so that rules out that group of objections.

Limited access to the raw materials might be argued to be a 'bad thing' but then again the areas where these resources can be found will encourage conflict for those resources - another objection discounted as it would encourage PVP.

Lack of supply simply means these boosters will have a high demand - and therefore might be worth smuggling.

Even if the argument that they will become 'mandatory' for effective PVP is a false argument as that just reflects back upon the value of the resources and production chain. The only group in this case who can argue are those that can't get them, or cant afford them: which just means they need to try harder.


I think you miss our point. I think what CCP wants to fix is how boosters are not used by many people atm. They do not (I hope) want 10 people to use 2500 more boosters, they want 2500 people use 10 more boosters

The issue is not that producers like me can not make a tidy enough profit. We can, oh boy we can.
In fact Im shooting myself in the revenue by even arguing this "buff" - but I care for some reason about stuff other than my wallet, and this does not make my reasoning any less valid.

The issue is that we can not satisfy the existing demand due to scarcity and expensiveness of materials, hence the client base is small, as people are discouraged by the lack of (reliable and affordable) supply, and the obscurity of moving their purchase.
More people would use boosters, if they could get them more easily, i.e. for less, and in reliable quantities - from a balanced and supplied market, where they are not at the mercy of the seller (which in turn is caused by the produceers being at the mercy of the raw material holders)

If you simply up demand by making boosters a no-contemplation-required kind of disposable hardwire, our product will become indispensable. We will sell at very high prices, thus further excluding the masses from booster use - they will not be able to afford them.

You could say that material supply will increase in time, as the inherent rise in product price would result in materials rising in price also (as producers will demand more of it)
And this is where your line of reasoning falters. In any other market, this would lead to eventual cheapening of the materials as people over-supply them, thus producers buying it for less.

This, in our opinion, will not happen with booster related raw materials. What we think will happen is that raw material supply will remain a bottleneck, where each cloud will have exactly one large volume supplier - the alliance holding the respective constellation. There will be no competition forcing them to lower prices.

An example: the only source of malachite cyto and impro/strong bpcs for mindflood is Delve. S2N hold sov there. They will find their resources grow in price, they might even export to Jita. But why would they lower prices? Users will hoover up all the mindflood regardless of price, hence producers will hoover up all clouds regardless of price. There will be no oversupply of clouds, no competition, just eight separate monopolies on eight separate kinds of gas.

Aside: if the demand is higher, ninja harvesting gas will not be a real factor. There will be large amounts of gas needed, and the only entities capable of supplying in those amounts are the ppl who hold sov in a booster constellation. To harvest a lot of gas, you need to sit several vulnerable ships in an exposed location for extended times, in only a handful of systems per gas - ie you cannot hide.

Add to this the fact that whomever not using boosters will be at a certain and severe disadvantage compared to those who do. And those ppl will be rich, established players. Is this what you wish to happen, the introduction of deadspace hardwires? Because thats what these will be, deadspace hardwires which come from a handful of plexes, all monopolisable by one entity for each flavor. Come on.
Cailais
The Red Pill Taker Group
#142 - 2011-11-23 13:56:53 UTC  |  Edited by: Cailais
Emperor Salazar wrote:


Value of a product should never be considered as a balance measure. People try to justify the dramiel as balanced because its an expensive frigate. Yet, these things are abundant as hell.

If these changes go through, the fact that demand/prices will go through the roof really isn't important. What is significant is the fact that there will be no other negative aspect of boosters, no reason to not use them.


Ive bolded what I think is the real issue - the negative aspect of boosters. But rather than focus upon what benefit the boosters provide (or don't provide) the aspect we should be looking at is their legality.

The cost of the boosters is largely irrelevant for a number of reasons I've already explained, not least that 'cost' is a downside in and of itself. If the design aim is to make the a 'niche' item (i.e not commonly used in mass numbers) then that contradicts the goal of making them 'more popular'. Which is quite a conundrum.

The illegality however of boosters - and the smuggling mechanisms associated with them - means they could be a 'niche' item in another respect i.e where they are available and at what price. Lawless null sec they might be relatively common place and cheaper than high sec because the barrier of trade (illegality) is removed.

C.
IHaveCandyGetInTheVan69
Crouching Woman Hidden Cucumber
#143 - 2011-11-23 14:01:59 UTC
AkiRoss wrote:
Today on SISI isn't that the same ? The only difference is the result, not the initial question. With Side-Effects you have the risk to waste your money. People won't waste 30M ISK if they don't need to. Not everyone play with a Slave, not everyone can spend 30M every day (yes, this is 1h farming for most people).


No it different on both SISI and TQ the side effects mean their use isn't certain, people don't want to lose 20% velocity or armour or cap.

I dont pop and exile the second I get in a myrm/domi/cap I wait until its use is absolutely necessary, under the new system you may as well before the fight. This will lead to highsec bears popping pills from the safety of stations for a static buff.

1 hour farming? What are they doing?

AkiRoss wrote:
I am sorry but 95% of EvE Players not using Boosters are really happy with this change. While I don't really like side-effects, I love the idea of having addictions mechanics later on.


Great you don't like side effects that last about an hour but you wont mind long term addictions?

AkiRoss wrote:
Anyway, I hope this modification will hit TQ next week ;)



When you say that everyone reads


AkiRoss wrote:
I am a scrub who finds current gameplay too challenging, please make it easier so I can just shell out some ISK for an advantage
Cailais
The Red Pill Taker Group
#144 - 2011-11-23 14:03:31 UTC
Dr Halberstam wrote:


An example: the only source of malachite cyto and impro/strong bpcs for mindflood is Delve. S2N hold sov there. They will find their resources grow in price, they might even export to Jita. But why would they lower prices? Users will hoover up all the mindflood regardless of price, hence producers will hoover up all clouds regardless of price. There will be no oversupply of clouds, no competition, just eight separate monopolies on eight separate kinds of gas.


Add to this the fact that whomever not using boosters will be at a certain and severe disadvantage compared to those who do. And those ppl will be rich, established players. Is this what you wish to happen, the introduction of deadspace hardwires? Because thats what these will be, deadspace hardwires which come from a handful of plexes, all monopolisable by one entity for each flavor. Come on.


You might be right in regard to the available quantity of supply - and the establishment of single entity monopolies: but this in turn means that those given areas of space become more valuable and therefore worth fighting over - which is separate (but related) stated design aim for EVE as a whole.

In short we cant just look at boosters in isolation. Whilst S2N might be rubbing their hands at the thought of even fatter wallets someone else will be looking at S2N and be thinking theyd like a slice of that pie.

C.
Dr Halberstam
Nine Eyes Medical
#145 - 2011-11-23 14:07:00 UTC
Cailais wrote:
You might be right in regard to the available quantity of supply - and the establishment of single entity monopolies: but this in turn means that those given areas of space become more valuable and therefore worth fighting over - which is separate (but related) stated design aim for EVE as a whole.

In short we cant just look at boosters in isolation. Whilst S2N might be rubbing their hands at the thought of even fatter wallets someone else will be looking at S2N and be thinking theyd like a slice of that pie.

C.


And the brand on the booster package will keep changing according to whomever is the "current S2N" any given month, sure.
Not that the consumers will see any of that, as there wont be any incentive to lower prices.

I thought this was about the consumer, at least to a degree
Emperor Salazar
Remote Soviet Industries
Insidious Empire
#146 - 2011-11-23 14:11:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Emperor Salazar
Cailais wrote:


Ive bolded what I think is the real issue - the negative aspect of boosters. But rather than focus upon what benefit the boosters provide (or don't provide) the aspect we should be looking at is their legality.

The cost of the boosters is largely irrelevant for a number of reasons I've already explained, not least that 'cost' is a downside in and of itself. If the design aim is to make the a 'niche' item (i.e not commonly used in mass numbers) then that contradicts the goal of making them 'more popular'. Which is quite a conundrum.

The illegality however of boosters - and the smuggling mechanisms associated with them - means they could be a 'niche' item in another respect i.e where they are available and at what price. Lawless null sec they might be relatively common place and cheaper than high sec because the barrier of trade (illegality) is removed.

C.


I hope the people that are in charge of this aren't stupid enough to think like this. Legality as a deterrent is complete garbage. You think pvpers are going to care about their standings being impacted and fines being applied? Unless legality control moves to players and players can set some other sort of penalty for smuggling boosters that would actually matter, then this is a horrible direction to take.

Not to mention the fact that we have everything we need to produce boosters right in 0.0. You really want 0.0 players to have that much more power?

There needs to be a proper deterrent to using boosters. With the current changes, there is none.
Cailais
The Red Pill Taker Group
#147 - 2011-11-23 14:18:05 UTC
Dr Halberstam wrote:
Cailais wrote:
You might be right in regard to the available quantity of supply - and the establishment of single entity monopolies: but this in turn means that those given areas of space become more valuable and therefore worth fighting over - which is separate (but related) stated design aim for EVE as a whole.

In short we cant just look at boosters in isolation. Whilst S2N might be rubbing their hands at the thought of even fatter wallets someone else will be looking at S2N and be thinking theyd like a slice of that pie.

C.


And the brand on the booster package will keep changing according to whomever is the "current S2N" any given month, sure.
Not that the consumers will see any of that, as there wont be any incentive to lower prices.

I thought this was about the consumer, at least to a degree


There's a consumer element of course, but that's not the whole story. Id agree that the current spread of gas types across EVE could be looked at - if CCP wanted to introduce an element of competition to the price. My personal feeling is that the gas types should occur relatively abundantly across EVE (with higher concentrations from low sec through to null sec). The process of manufacture (the specific tools such as blueprints / reactions) should be less commonly available and the end product should be illegal in given areas.

If we equate boosters to narcotics: poppies are abundant, cheap and (unprocessed) largely useless, heroine manufacture is quite a bit more complicated and heroine itself expensive and illegal (in most societies).

C.
Dr Halberstam
Nine Eyes Medical
#148 - 2011-11-23 14:27:14 UTC
Cailais wrote:
There's a consumer element of course, but that's not the whole story.


And here i was thinking this was about the use of boosters

Cailais wrote:
Id agree that the current spread of gas types across EVE could be looked at - if CCP wanted to introduce an element of competition to the price. My personal feeling is that the gas types should occur relatively abundantly across EVE (with higher concentrations from low sec through to null sec).


Absolutely

Cailais wrote:
The process of manufacture (the specific tools such as blueprints / reactions) should be less commonly available


And presto, you have preserved the bottleneck. Or just got it a new name.

Cailais wrote:
and the end product should be illegal in given areas.
If we equate boosters to narcotics: poppies are abundant, cheap and (unprocessed) largely useless, heroine manufacture is quite a bit more complicated and heroine itself expensive and illegal (in most societies).


So what is the point to a load of clouds if only a few can get bpcs to cook from them? To make everyone else sad? You will just create a new bottleneck, supply will remain anemic, and nothing will change. Some ppl will grumble that ladars are now clogging up their scan results, and boosters will remain "the stuff of legend that maybe RnK used in Clarion Call 3"
Simc0m
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#149 - 2011-11-23 14:54:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Simc0m
Emperor Salazar wrote:
Value of a product should never be considered as a balance measure. People try to justify the dramiel as balanced because its an expensive frigate. Yet, these things are abundant as hell.

If these changes go through, the fact that demand/prices will go through the roof really isn't important. What is significant is the fact that there will be no other negative aspect of boosters, no reason to not use them.


You are arguing that price should never be used as a balance measure, but isn't that exactly what we have with faction/officer modules? Can't the exact same argument be made against them? ie. "Faction/Deadspace/Officer mods are unfair because there is no reason NOT to use them EXCEPT that they are expensive!!" That arguement is rubbish IMO. Price can and should be used as a balance, but in the case of boosters I DON'T think it should be the only balance. The addiction mechanism proposed by the CCP Dev is a good middle ground in my opinion. I agree though that the addiction mechanism should be included in crucible, I think that would go a long way in calming people's nerves.
Smuggo Smuggins
Semicompetence Online
#150 - 2011-11-23 14:59:09 UTC
Dr Halberstam wrote:
Cailais wrote:
I'm still not convinced that 'price rises' are a reason not to implement a change. Equally you could argue that those that use them more, become more successful in PVP contests so others start using them to remain competitive and so on and so forth.


And here you imply that all will be well, as they will cheapen eventually. Read on - they wont.

Cailais wrote:
The manufacturers can't complain if demand is high or profits are good - so that rules out that group of objections.

Limited access to the raw materials might be argued to be a 'bad thing' but then again the areas where these resources can be found will encourage conflict for those resources - another objection discounted as it would encourage PVP.

Lack of supply simply means these boosters will have a high demand - and therefore might be worth smuggling.

Even if the argument that they will become 'mandatory' for effective PVP is a false argument as that just reflects back upon the value of the resources and production chain. The only group in this case who can argue are those that can't get them, or cant afford them: which just means they need to try harder.


I think you miss our point. I think what CCP wants to fix is how boosters are not used by many people atm. They do not (I hope) want 10 people to use 2500 more boosters, they want 2500 people use 10 more boosters

The issue is not that producers like me can not make a tidy enough profit. We can, oh boy we can.
In fact Im shooting myself in the revenue by even arguing this "buff" - but I care for some reason about stuff other than my wallet, and this does not make my reasoning any less valid.

The issue is that we can not satisfy the existing demand due to scarcity and expensiveness of materials, hence the client base is small, as people are discouraged by the lack of (reliable and affordable) supply, and the obscurity of moving their purchase.
More people would use boosters, if they could get them more easily, i.e. for less, and in reliable quantities - from a balanced and supplied market, where they are not at the mercy of the seller (which in turn is caused by the produceers being at the mercy of the raw material holders)

If you simply up demand by making boosters a no-contemplation-required kind of disposable hardwire, our product will become indispensable. We will sell at very high prices, thus further excluding the masses from booster use - they will not be able to afford them.

You could say that material supply will increase in time, as the inherent rise in product price would result in materials rising in price also (as producers will demand more of it)
And this is where your line of reasoning falters. In any other market, this would lead to eventual cheapening of the materials as people over-supply them, thus producers buying it for less.

This, in our opinion, will not happen with booster related raw materials. What we think will happen is that raw material supply will remain a bottleneck, where each cloud will have exactly one large volume supplier - the alliance holding the respective constellation. There will be no competition forcing them to lower prices.

An example: the only source of malachite cyto and impro/strong bpcs for mindflood is Delve. S2N hold sov there. They will find their resources grow in price, they might even export to Jita. But why would they lower prices? Users will hoover up all the mindflood regardless of price, hence producers will hoover up all clouds regardless of price. There will be no oversupply of clouds, no competition, just eight separate monopolies on eight separate kinds of gas.

Aside: if the demand is higher, ninja harvesting gas will not be a real factor. There will be large amounts of gas needed, and the only entities capable of supplying in those amounts are the ppl who hold sov in a booster constellation. To harvest a lot of gas, you need to sit several vulnerable ships in an exposed location for extended times, in only a handful of systems per gas - ie you cannot hide.

Add to this the fact that whomever not using boosters will be at a certain and severe disadvantage compared to those who do. And those ppl will be rich, established players. Is this what you wish to happen, the introduction of deadspace hardwires? Because thats what these will be, deadspace hardwires which come from a handful of plexes, all monopolisable by one entity for each flavor. Come on.


Very good post, please read it devs.
Madner Kami
Durendal Ascending
#151 - 2011-11-23 15:06:49 UTC
Dr Halberstam wrote:
Cailais wrote:
I'm still not convinced that 'price rises' are a reason not to implement a change. Equally you could argue that those that use them more, become more successful in PVP contests so others start using them to remain competitive and so on and so forth.


And here you imply that all will be well, as they will cheapen eventually. Read on - they wont.

Cailais wrote:
The manufacturers can't complain if demand is high or profits are good - so that rules out that group of objections.

Limited access to the raw materials might be argued to be a 'bad thing' but then again the areas where these resources can be found will encourage conflict for those resources - another objection discounted as it would encourage PVP.

Lack of supply simply means these boosters will have a high demand - and therefore might be worth smuggling.

Even if the argument that they will become 'mandatory' for effective PVP is a false argument as that just reflects back upon the value of the resources and production chain. The only group in this case who can argue are those that can't get them, or cant afford them: which just means they need to try harder.


I think you miss our point. I think what CCP wants to fix is how boosters are not used by many people atm. They do not (I hope) want 10 people to use 2500 more boosters, they want 2500 people use 10 more boosters

The issue is not that producers like me can not make a tidy enough profit. We can, oh boy we can.
In fact Im shooting myself in the revenue by even arguing this "buff" - but I care for some reason about stuff other than my wallet, and this does not make my reasoning any less valid.

The issue is that we can not satisfy the existing demand due to scarcity and expensiveness of materials, hence the client base is small, as people are discouraged by the lack of (reliable and affordable) supply, and the obscurity of moving their purchase.
More people would use boosters, if they could get them more easily, i.e. for less, and in reliable quantities - from a balanced and supplied market, where they are not at the mercy of the seller (which in turn is caused by the produceers being at the mercy of the raw material holders)

If you simply up demand by making boosters a no-contemplation-required kind of disposable hardwire, our product will become indispensable. We will sell at very high prices, thus further excluding the masses from booster use - they will not be able to afford them.

You could say that material supply will increase in time, as the inherent rise in product price would result in materials rising in price also (as producers will demand more of it)
And this is where your line of reasoning falters. In any other market, this would lead to eventual cheapening of the materials as people over-supply them, thus producers buying it for less.

This, in our opinion, will not happen with booster related raw materials. What we think will happen is that raw material supply will remain a bottleneck, where each cloud will have exactly one large volume supplier - the alliance holding the respective constellation. There will be no competition forcing them to lower prices.

An example: the only source of malachite cyto and impro/strong bpcs for mindflood is Delve. S2N hold sov there. They will find their resources grow in price, they might even export to Jita. But why would they lower prices? Users will hoover up all the mindflood regardless of price, hence producers will hoover up all clouds regardless of price. There will be no oversupply of clouds, no competition, just eight separate monopolies on eight separate kinds of gas.

Aside: if the demand is higher, ninja harvesting gas will not be a real factor. There will be large amounts of gas needed, and the only entities capable of supplying in those amounts are the ppl who hold sov in a booster constellation. To harvest a lot of gas, you need to sit several vulnerable ships in an exposed location for extended times, in only a handful of systems per gas - ie you cannot hide.

Add to this the fact that whomever not using boosters will be at a certain and severe disadvantage compared to those who do. And those ppl will be rich, established players. Is this what you wish to happen, the introduction of deadspace hardwires? Because thats what these will be, deadspace hardwires which come from a handful of plexes, all monopolisable by one entity for each flavor. Come on.


Quoted because the point is important. Booster Gas clouds are just Technetium in disguise, with added transportation problems. Supply is limiting the current use of Boosters much more then their drawbacks, especially when we're talking about Synth and Standard.
Dr Halberstam
Nine Eyes Medical
#152 - 2011-11-23 15:08:45 UTC
Simc0m wrote:
You are arguing that price should never be used as a balance measure, but isn't that exactly what we have with faction/officer modules? Can't the exact same argument be made against them? ie. "Faction/Deadspace/Officer mods are unfair because there is no reason NOT to use them EXCEPT that they are expensive!!" That arguement is rubbish IMO. Price can and should be used as a balance, but in the case of boosters I DON'T think it should be the only balance. The addiction mechanism proposed by the CCP Dev is a good middle ground in my opinion. I agree though that the addiction mechanism should be included in crucible, I think that would go a long way in calming people's nerves.


Concur on the addiction / general need for a deterrent.

To refine the point on pricing / the deadspace analogy:
Imo boosters as they are now (especially the improved and strong types) have a lot in common with deadspace items from back when plexes were static, and could practically be owned by a given alliance.
This resulted in a handful of actual sources for a given item in the entire game. One dedicated entity could control all the Bhaalgorn sources in the game, for instance. This is not possible anymore, why should boosters act in the same manner?

(and yes, I know the control on e.g. Bhallgorns was not 100%, as there were belt sources, and mission sources. but the overwhelming majority, and the reliable supply, came from the controlled sources)

Ladar resources are essentially the static plexes of old, only restricted to a constellation instead of a couple beacons. This stifles supply, and makes competition in materials supply practically nonexistent in market with high demand

Some little competition exisst now, as the smaller amounts ninjaed from 0.0 or losec can compete due to the sheer minusculity of the gas market. That will not be the case once demand skyrockets, they will just be drops in an ocean.
Ryans Revenge
Federal Navy Academy
Gallente Federation
#153 - 2011-11-23 15:08:55 UTC
All the above supply/demand/profit posts previously are all well and good. But the real issue is do we really want eve to have potions/buffs?

Most things in eve are about risk. That's what makes the game fun. Remove that risk and items become the standard necessity. As described before with rigs, everyone fits them now because otherwise you are at a disadvantage. This will also happen with boosters.

Yes they may put addiction mechanics in eventually but by the time they come to do this there will be no need or demand for this to happen anymore as everyone's happy boosting away.

As CCP have stated they need to fix multiple things wrong with boosters. By including this in the 29th Nov patch they will be changing boosters for good and more than likely permanently by going about the changes in the wrong way.

Remove the risk and you lose the idea that is eve. Every action has a consequence. Well taking drugs after this won't. We'll just all be addicts that will then hate ccp for putting side effects back in the future.

It's all backwards. Please seriously rethink this CCP.
Emperor Salazar
Remote Soviet Industries
Insidious Empire
#154 - 2011-11-23 15:13:07 UTC
Simc0m wrote:
Emperor Salazar wrote:
Value of a product should never be considered as a balance measure. People try to justify the dramiel as balanced because its an expensive frigate. Yet, these things are abundant as hell.

If these changes go through, the fact that demand/prices will go through the roof really isn't important. What is significant is the fact that there will be no other negative aspect of boosters, no reason to not use them.


You are arguing that price should never be used as a balance measure, but isn't that exactly what we have with faction/officer modules? Can't the exact same argument be made against them? ie. "Faction/Deadspace/Officer mods are unfair because there is no reason NOT to use them EXCEPT that they are expensive!!" That arguement is rubbish IMO. Price can and should be used as a balance, but in the case of boosters I DON'T think it should be the only balance. The addiction mechanism proposed by the CCP Dev is a good middle ground in my opinion. I agree though that the addiction mechanism should be included in crucible, I think that would go a long way in calming people's nerves.


I agree with you that price can play something of a role, but being the sole negative aspect of something that gives nothing but good things (like boosters) is just silly. And with modules, you still have to make choices; "use this mod and take up a slot that could otherwise be used for that mod" whereas with boosters....you will just take it, no choice to be made other than when to take it.

And honestly, I believe that if demand were to increase from boosters and they became more well known, prices for at least standard and possibly improved would stabilize to cheap prices as null sec industrialists dive into it.

People forget that in all the 0.0 alliances there are industrialists doing PI/mining/building. There are only a few doing boosters (I think 1 in TEST) because there simply isn't demand. When demand increases, we will start harvesting those massive gas clouds that we currently ignore.
Dr Mercy
Imperial Academy
Amarr Empire
#155 - 2011-11-23 15:15:53 UTC
Dr Halberstam wrote:
Cailais wrote:
I'm still not convinced that 'price rises' are a reason not to implement a change. Equally you could argue that those that use them more, become more successful in PVP contests so others start using them to remain competitive and so on and so forth.


And here you imply that all will be well, as they will cheapen eventually. Read on - they wont.

Cailais wrote:
The manufacturers can't complain if demand is high or profits are good - so that rules out that group of objections.

Limited access to the raw materials might be argued to be a 'bad thing' but then again the areas where these resources can be found will encourage conflict for those resources - another objection discounted as it would encourage PVP.

Lack of supply simply means these boosters will have a high demand - and therefore might be worth smuggling.

Even if the argument that they will become 'mandatory' for effective PVP is a false argument as that just reflects back upon the value of the resources and production chain. The only group in this case who can argue are those that can't get them, or cant afford them: which just means they need to try harder.


I think you miss our point. I think what CCP wants to fix is how boosters are not used by many people atm. They do not (I hope) want 10 people to use 2500 more boosters, they want 2500 people use 10 more boosters

The issue is not that producers like me can not make a tidy enough profit. We can, oh boy we can.
In fact Im shooting myself in the revenue by even arguing this "buff" - but I care for some reason about stuff other than my wallet, and this does not make my reasoning any less valid.

The issue is that we can not satisfy the existing demand due to scarcity and expensiveness of materials, hence the client base is small, as people are discouraged by the lack of (reliable and affordable) supply, and the obscurity of moving their purchase.
More people would use boosters, if they could get them more easily, i.e. for less, and in reliable quantities - from a balanced and supplied market, where they are not at the mercy of the seller (which in turn is caused by the produceers being at the mercy of the raw material holders)

If you simply up demand by making boosters a no-contemplation-required kind of disposable hardwire, our product will become indispensable. We will sell at very high prices, thus further excluding the masses from booster use - they will not be able to afford them.

You could say that material supply will increase in time, as the inherent rise in product price would result in materials rising in price also (as producers will demand more of it)
And this is where your line of reasoning falters. In any other market, this would lead to eventual cheapening of the materials as people over-supply them, thus producers buying it for less.

This, in our opinion, will not happen with booster related raw materials. What we think will happen is that raw material supply will remain a bottleneck, where each cloud will have exactly one large volume supplier - the alliance holding the respective constellation. There will be no competition forcing them to lower prices.

An example: the only source of malachite cyto and impro/strong bpcs for mindflood is Delve. S2N hold sov there. They will find their resources grow in price, they might even export to Jita. But why would they lower prices? Users will hoover up all the mindflood regardless of price, hence producers will hoover up all clouds regardless of price. There will be no oversupply of clouds, no competition, just eight separate monopolies on eight separate kinds of gas.

Aside: if the demand is higher, ninja harvesting gas will not be a real factor. There will be large amounts of gas needed, and the only entities capable of supplying in those amounts are the ppl who hold sov in a booster constellation. To harvest a lot of gas, you need to sit several vulnerable ships in an exposed location for extended times, in only a handful of systems per gas - ie you cannot hide.

Add to this the fact that whomever not using boosters will be at a certain and severe disadvantage compared to those who do. And those ppl will be rich, established players. Is this what you wish to happen, the introduction of deadspace hardwires? Because thats what these will be, deadspace hardwires which come from a handful of plexes, all monopolisable by one entity for each flavor. Come on.


This guy gets it.

Make isk with PI: http://failheap-challenge.com/showthread.php?1207-What-to-do-PI-Processor-only-planets
Emperor Salazar
Remote Soviet Industries
Insidious Empire
#156 - 2011-11-23 15:16:10 UTC
Dr Halberstam wrote:


Ladar resources are essentially the static plexes of old, only restricted to a constellation instead of a couple beacons. This stifles supply, and makes competition in materials supply practically nonexistent in market with high demand


History Lesson:

This was changed 2.5 years ago, right before (or with) Apocrypha. Ladar sites spawn all over the region now, in low and null. The difference between the two is that null clouds are 4-5 times bigger than the low sec ones and the hacking sites have a lot more cans, thus increasing the chances for improved/strong bpcs/reactions.
Cailais
The Red Pill Taker Group
#157 - 2011-11-23 15:16:49 UTC
Emperor Salazar wrote:
Cailais wrote:


Ive bolded what I think is the real issue - the negative aspect of boosters. But rather than focus upon what benefit the boosters provide (or don't provide) the aspect we should be looking at is their legality.

The cost of the boosters is largely irrelevant for a number of reasons I've already explained, not least that 'cost' is a downside in and of itself. If the design aim is to make the a 'niche' item (i.e not commonly used in mass numbers) then that contradicts the goal of making them 'more popular'. Which is quite a conundrum.

The illegality however of boosters - and the smuggling mechanisms associated with them - means they could be a 'niche' item in another respect i.e where they are available and at what price. Lawless null sec they might be relatively common place and cheaper than high sec because the barrier of trade (illegality) is removed.

C.


I hope the people that are in charge of this aren't stupid enough to think like this. Legality as a deterrent is complete garbage. You think pvpers are going to care about their standings being impacted and fines being applied? Unless legality control moves to players and players can set some other sort of penalty for smuggling boosters that would actually matter, then this is a horrible direction to take.

Not to mention the fact that we have everything we need to produce boosters right in 0.0. You really want 0.0 players to have that much more power?

There needs to be a proper deterrent to using boosters. With the current changes, there is none.


Legality has got next to nothing to do with the end user (i.e. PVPer) - its the transport of those booster thats key and yes it does involve changing the smuggling mechanics: that's the whole point.

You could of course just scrap the entire idea of the smuggling mechanisms - just get rid of it completely and then have boosters as some pseudo disadvantage implant which doesn't really work as players just select the booster who's penalty has next to no impact on their ship.

That means changing nothing at all. And we haven't even looked at the inherent deterrent of the skill requirements for using boosters. When I last asked around fellow alliance / corp mates the number 1 reason they didnt use boosters (not that any were available) was because they couldn't see the point in training up the skills to do so (even though theyre relatively minor).

C.
Emperor Salazar
Remote Soviet Industries
Insidious Empire
#158 - 2011-11-23 15:25:57 UTC  |  Edited by: Emperor Salazar
Cailais wrote:


Legality has got next to nothing to do with the end user (i.e. PVPer) - its the transport of those booster thats key and yes it does involve changing the smuggling mechanics: that's the whole point.


So we end up with a bunch of smuggling alts that don't care about the downsides. Sweet. No changes to smuggling are being made right now, thus this is a moot point, as the current changes will have the current smuggling mechanics which are a joke. CCP is rushing this.

Quote:
You could of course just scrap the entire idea of the smuggling mechanisms - just get rid of it completely and then have boosters as some pseudo disadvantage implant which doesn't really work as players just select the booster who's penalty has next to no impact on their ship.

That means changing nothing at all. And we haven't even looked at the inherent deterrent of the skill requirements for using boosters. When I last asked around fellow alliance / corp mates the number 1 reason they didnt use boosters (not that any were available) was because they couldn't see the point in training up the skills to do so (even though theyre relatively minor).

C.


All this boils down to: a lot needs to be done with boosters. Simply removing side effects is not the answer. Boosters are not one of the "thousand little papercuts" as that dev referred to them.

I like that you and others are throwing out all sorts of ideas for how this should change, and even that CCP has acknowledged that further work needs to be done. This is good.

HOWEVER, this essentially means that the changes going forward that are on Sisi right now should not be implemented. It is a rushed and halfbaked plan (the oversight of implants and lack of dev discussion is a good indicator of this).

Unless the current plan is to get a ton of people hooked on boosters with no risks and then to modify it later after they're hooked, in which case this will just result in a lot of tears later on.
Simc0m
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#159 - 2011-11-23 15:29:18 UTC
Cailais wrote:

This, in our opinion, will not happen with booster related raw materials. What we think will happen is that raw material supply will remain a bottleneck, where each cloud will have exactly one large volume supplier - the alliance holding the respective constellation. There will be no competition forcing them to lower prices.

An example: the only source of malachite cyto and impro/strong bpcs for mindflood is Delve. S2N hold sov there. They will find their resources grow in price, they might even export to Jita. But why would they lower prices? Users will hoover up all the mindflood regardless of price, hence producers will hoover up all clouds regardless of price. There will be no oversupply of clouds, no competition, just eight separate monopolies on eight separate kinds of gas.
.


Your post smacks of a misunderstanding of 0.0 life. An alliance can't "hoard" a material like gas, because it's not controlled by "the alliance" like moon goo is, it is controlled by INDIVIDUAL people. Each person makes an isk/hour calculation when they decide to do something, be it belt ratting, running anoms, plexing, mining ice, mining ore, harvesting gas, etc. there is a HUGE quantity of gas that has never been tapped, because people can easily make more isk/hour running anoms than gas harvesting. Now that prices are up 2 fold, It's actually worth harvesting gas. INDIVIDUALS are now starting to harvest the gas and transport it to JITA. The alliance that holds sov in the gas region has NO INFLUENCE on the price of the gas because individual people harvest it and will do as they choose with it. The price of gas WILL level out at a price at which harvesting it is about as profitable as belt ratting, and that's it. CCP can lower the jita price of gas by just making it easier to extract or reducing it's size per unit - hence making the isk/hour better, more people will harvest, and the price will drop. This idea that an alliance has the power to 'raise or lower' the price at will is a complete farce.
Dr Halberstam
Nine Eyes Medical
#160 - 2011-11-23 15:30:01 UTC
Emperor Salazar wrote:
People forget that in all the 0.0 alliances there are industrialists doing PI/mining/building. There are only a few doing boosters (I think 1 in TEST) because there simply isn't demand. When demand increases, we will start harvesting those massive gas clouds that we currently ignore.


And that will be cool, and seven other alliances will start harvesting as well. They will have no problem churning out standards (synths only come from losec), but things will get interesting with improved and strong. You will need to convince one of the other seven to not use up part of their cyto, but sell it to you. And then you will have to manage the import/export of all that gas, and boy, will it need cargo space.

Suppose you come to an undestanding, and the ppl sitting on the gas you need arent your mortal enemies or w/e. You will now be the sole producer of improved booster x, as the bpcs will only come from your backyard.
The monopoly persists (in your hands, which I guess is cool for you), and the average scrub still wont be able to afford the product, cos why would you lover the price - no one will force you to. No competition.

And with strongs you will need one more gas supplier from usually the other end of the universe.

My prediction? There will be oodles of standards produced in the eight constellations, and strong will be the stuff of nightmares. As there will be a handful of ppl in the cluster who can afford them regularly, and they will have a huge advantage over others as they will hoover up what small supply there will be.

Emperor Salazar wrote:
History Lesson:

This was changed 2.5 years ago, right before (or with) Apocrypha. Ladar sites spawn all over the region now, in low and null. The difference between the two is that null clouds are 4-5 times bigger than the low sec ones and the hacking sites have a lot more cans, thus increasing the chances for improved/strong bpcs/reactions.


I know. But there is a difference between secure and reliable sources, and insecure and less reliable sources. In a high demand market the original constellations will have a huge edge in profitability, due to certain respawns and so on. I agree, the difference is not entirely black and white, but it is still significant.