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There really wasn't a "booster issue" until someone discovered the change on SiSi. This is whats been fascinating to me about this thread. Before the booster change was discovered, hardly anyone was complaining about how boosters needed to be nerfed / buffed / turned into harmless candy. Now that the spotlight is on them, people are starting to throw out ideas for overhauling them now that they think there's some kind of "problem". This debate just didn't exist prior to a week or two ago, certainly not compared to all the the other fixes in the game that needed attention first.

Assault ships, EAF, fixing nullsec sov mechanics and Sanctums / Haven nerfs, hybrid weapons (still not totally balanced according to the threadnaughts), faction warfare, and a thousand other items all ranked much higher than boosters on the triage list of stuff needing attention. Hence, the almost universal negative reaction when CCP went to go fiddle with them. It caught everyone by surprise, because most people here that use or make boosters were quite happy with how they were working, and didn't understand why this took priority in Winter Expansion over all the other items that didn't make it into the expansion.

If you've got ideas for improvement, great! I for one am interested in hearing them. I like boosters, and make them, but I still think there's lots of ways to make them cooler. I (and a lot of others here too) just never really considered them "broken" to begin with. But that's no reason for people not to share whatever they've come up with. CCP will monitor this thread I'm sure, I just hope that in the end they use their resources wisely and address the player base's top list of fixes first, before they go on to fiddling with minor features of the game that were working just fine before.

You have provided zero evidence yourself, which you could easily do with no risk to losing a competitive edge because you claim you're not involved with booster manufacturing. You're asking me to potentially compromise my operation simply to prove a point, I won't. You've had every opportunity to debunk me, and rather than use any hard evidence, you simply want to keep calling me a liar like a broken record. If you're not willing to show numbers, please stop insisting I show mine.

If you can link me some threads that show that booster manufacturing and sales fixes were a high priority to past players, I'll happily concede this point to you.

As for it being a waste of time, that's completely subjective. Sure, you can get more out of a boosting alt than out of blue pill, but there's plenty of pilots who do both. Again, no one's taking sympathy because you've had bad luck with boosters, your bad experience is not enough to ask CCP to change them all cause you can't handle the penalties. a dozen other pilots at least have come forward and said the penalties are quite manageable.

Do you fit shield extenders or plates on all your active tanks? Why or why not? Do we really need to have a lesson on why EHP takes lower precedence over absorbed DPS rate when designing active fits? This is pretty basic stuff. If you're relying on active tank, more HP per boost cycle is vastly more significant than a bit more shield buffer. The boosters make you more vulnerable to an alpha, sure, but thats just something to tactically consider before you pop it. Again, your bad luck doesn't mean much when a lot of other pilots in the several threads about this topic have said that the side effects are quite manageable.

Strong Exile is one of the most popular boosters for carrier pilots. Not a single one of them is whining because they take a EHP hit when they pop one. The increased repair rate more than makes up for that hit.

As for me making money off this, I only would have stood to gain by the changes. The billions in stock gas, pure boosters, and finished products I already own could have been sold for a large multiplier after Crucible went live. I would have made a fortune. But this is not about me personally profiting - its about fighting a silly nerfbuff that removes all danger, risk, and complexity from a system that is working just fine. If you don't have the balls to use boosters because of side effects, thats fine. But plenty of other pilots do. Go back and read the first few pages of the thread if you don't believe me.

And besides, your last statement is pure hypocrisy, you've already blatantly said in multiple posts how much you want these change so that you can make more isk off the regions you live in. You have no business calling me out for the exact same thing, especially since now that we've gotten the changes fixed I stand to profit no more in 5 days than I did before this argument even started.

Well, I'm glad that we can put this to rest. If this is all that matters to you, is me showing you what I buy where from whom at what price, and what I sell where, and to whom and at what price, than we can just call it good and move on.

LOL and no, there's no "secret sauce" in my boosters. They work just the same as everyone else :) You've severely misunderstood me if you think I've been trying to say I've developed a magical system to make boosters differently or better than anyone else. Trade is Trade, both open market and black market. If you've found things you can buy cheaply in one place (or acquire yourself and skip the part where you pay someone else to do it and lose profit), and sell for more in another, and you use this to generate income, you don't share the details with everyone. Same thing with if you've developed a way to observe or predict patterns in the market that you trade to take advantage of. Explaining those discoveries to everyone else means you'll eliminate that advantage in no time. That doesn't make me a monster, or a liar. That's just common sense.

Thanks for at least clarifying what you were really after here, I think others in the thread were beginning to wonder whether your rants were actually serious or not because you kept bouncing from one complaint to the next. And, everyone will be happy to see an end to the ranting, and my verbose explanations about why such rants are unfounded.

Hopefully our "dialogue" here will at least be useful to other players, in terms of learning more about a system that is still a mystery to most. There's some value in that at least, even if you and I aren't about to change our minds about our viewpoints.

And for the record, I fully support nullsec and lowsec improvements. We simply disagree that the best way to improve these regions is to drop a few more rare drops into the game for everyone to camp and fight over. There have been myriad more creative solutions to improving gameplay in these regions than just dumping more isk out there. That's the lazy way to do it. Fixing sovereignty mechanics in conjunction with increased resource value is what is truly needed, most feedback has been about how boring structure shoots are.

Just in case you haven't been paying attention, CCP are already buffing nullsec regions in terms of value. So its not like your cause is being ignored and booster changes were "our only hope for improvement" I totally get that you're not into ratting, but guess what, running LADAR sites is basically ratting too. And the mining itself, even more boring than ratting. I completely agree we need to work on these two regions of the game (null and low) and you should certainly go argue that case. However, if ratting, no matter how lucrative, isn't a good enough solution for you than increasing the value of LADAR sites (which include ratting or worse, mining) certainly is not improvement.

I'm not forcing anyone to read my posts if they don't want to. I'm quite content if slow readers find it to be a chore and skip to the one-liners. Those that are interested, will read, those that won't, won't. Since most of my response is directed at Grath, who certainly is reading everything I type, there's no need to abbreviate anything.

The fact that this exchange happens in a public thread serves as a resource for those that might be interested. Talking about my experience with the booster trade could be useful to someone here, but it won't if me and Grath just emailed back and forth. Again, anyone finding me to verbose is welcome to skip and post about something else.

Fine - here's a concise version, just for you my friend. Now that Grath has stated that all he cares about is me revealing what I trade where at what price, which I won't (as any smart trader protecting his advantage wouldn't), there's nothing more for the two of us to debate.

Also, he has complained that the side effects are simply too much for him to handle. That's fine, he can decline to use them, but anyone reading the thread in entirety can see many many other players that think the side effects are more than worth the benefits.

Lastly, my dedication to this thread is not about trying to protect personal profit. I would have made a fortune with the proposed changes, now that they were rolled back, I won't. Grath is a hypocrite because he has stated in multiple posts that he wants boosters changed so that he can make more isk off them.

Are we all happy now?

CCP was just trollin the speculators, nothing more to see here, move along.

Then you're an idiot.

The production process is quite fine.

/emote drinks up and enjoys.

Ahhhh, refreshing!

Also, thanks for keeping things respectful here. Good to know that you can keep your composure and have a decent discussion based on facts instead of resorting to emorage and name calling.

Indeed, delicious trader tears in those last 4 pages...
Everything after #167 is about "thank you CCP" and "omg my wallet was raped by CCP"...
Hope there´s something constructive here soon or i´ll stop lurking....

Ahhh, Grath, I totally understand you here. You want to make more isk where you live.



Fine fine, you got me, I'm a total liar. I cannot possibly be profiting off my activities at the moment. I'm totally wasting my isk!



Sorry that isn't working out for you.



Wait, I thought we weren't making any isk off this?? And now its suddenly wrong to want to earn more isk?



Bottom line? But you explained to me that I had no bottom line. I was losing money, remember? You said so.

Please correct me if I misunderstand you - lets recap:

1) Grath wants to be rich, fights for changes so that he can be rich.
2) Grath says NO one could possibly be making money off boosters.
3) Grath says he is sad because he isn't making money off boosters.
3) Grath says Hans is only out to protect his own income (the one that doesnt exist).
4) Grath is calls Hans a parasite for wanting to be rich. (What a monster!)