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Dev blog: Researching, the Future

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LHA Tarawa
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#981 - 2014-05-15 15:48:07 UTC
Chi'Nane T'Kal wrote:
Seith Kali wrote:

The majority (read: entirety) of the tears in this thread come from people who have spent a ludicrous amount of time researching blueprints past optimal and feel entitled to some form of remuneration - despite the fact that in real terms they got nothing for all this research already aside from the satisfaction of levelling up their 'Pokémon cards'.


There's currently 2 very strong arguments against the flat transition Me10+->Me10 regardless of research time:

1) For a lot of important BPOs, notably battleships, the difference between ME10 and ME50 is non-neglectable, so the flat transition would reward 2 kinds of people there that are generally deemed undeserving: impatient/lazy people and those incapable of simple math.

2) AFTER the patch for a lot of BPOs researching to ME10 will take a lot longer than it does currently. That is especially unfair towards new players, but essentially again it rewards people that would normally be considered undeserving: established players that META-game the system by researching BPOs to ME10 pre-patch.


IMO it seems understandable that people affected by (1) feel betrayed by a flat change, and most of the affected people seemed to argue quite reasonably about that instead of creating a flood of tears. Also IMO ANYTHING that puts new players at a further disadvantage to the established players should be avoided at any reasonable cost. Especially if it can be abused pre-patch.


I'd still maintain, that the fairest and most transparent system would be one, where BPOs gain experience from research, which directly translates into a general BPO (ME=TE) level, 0-10. That would allow:

- stopping BPO research at any time, partially researched levels would simply be ignored
- full market integration of all BPO levels, partial research would simply be rounded down to the last full level when the sale is completed
- better transition of BPOs, since research time pre-patch could convert directly (there would still have be a cutoff at some point, but that could be a lot closer to reasonable research levels)
- for a change no advantage of established compared to new players




While I see both of those as valid, I would like to add my additional concerns.

It so happens that round(round(x * 1.1111) * 0.9) = x. So, changes from waste to reduction were not immediately apparent.



The trouble started with the design on how to remove the hard cap on lines and then set prices based on solar system wide usage. With infinite slots, there became no reason to have a POS or build/upgrade an outpost where the advantage was additional slots. So, they decided to convert those advantages to material reductions, without thinking it through. And by the time they were forced to think it through, the train was heading toward the cliff and no attempt to turn away could be done without admitting the foul up... so...

The ability to get additional ME reductions, even as small as 5%, completely breaks the math.

When x is 4, round(round(x * 1.1111) * 0.85) = 3.

That tiny little 5% extra reduction actually results in a 25% reduction in need when the percentages are applied to need, and rounding inflection points are identified (WHICH was ALWAYS where the complexity of research existed anyway).

So, the decision was made to hack a fix, and change a round to a ceil (round up). When x is 4, ceil(round(x * 1.1111) * 0.85) = 4.

Oh, but. That just breaks 5. ceil(round(5 * 1.1111) * 0.85) = 6.

Hmmm... lots of problems from not thinking this through.

Can't admit we messed up the move to infinite slots, so let's just keep hacking at manufacturing. Let's move the round from the per-run level to the per-job level so that the actual ME reductions can actually be achieved, with a large enough batch.

Well, that ceil at the job destroys the idea of a perfect BPO below 10% reductions. Oh well. Just ignore that we said that is ME 3 was perfect before, then it will be converted to 8% reduction and that will be perfect after.... Hope no one notices THAT.


Ceil at job level creates a whole other set of problems, when combined with the move of extra materials to base. When we needed like 1 rifter to make a wolf, and were rounding at the run level, there was no issue. Whether we were adding 40% or subtracting 10%, the round would always be back to 1. HOWEVER, changing to a ceil means we'd need 2 rifters to make a wolf with an invented BPC, and the moving to job level rounding means that it would be possible to make 10 wolfs with 9 rifters... SO..... even more last minute hacks to compensate for not having thought though the changes up front. Take away 2/3rds of the profit potential of T2 BPOs by altering invention to produce ME 0 BPCs, alter material requirements for T2 build to compensate for the lower needs of invented BPCs and set a minimum of one item per run.



All this, simply because the move to infinite slots was not thought through, and the idea to base costs on solar system usage instead of jobs currently running in a specific facility was FUBAR. So, that poor decision on cost scaling has, like a snow ball rolling down hill, grown into a behemoth of unintended hacks. Change bonuses for slots to be bonus to ME, Ceil at job level instead of round at batch, require multi-run jobs to take advantage of reductions, destroy profit potential of T2 BPO...


I really wish the 6 week delay had caused them to reevaluate the cost scaling. Then slot bonuses could have remained slot bonuses, the reason to have a research POS would have remained, the round(round changing from waste to reduction would not have broken, would not have had to move to job based rounding, would not have to break T2 BPO by fixing invention...


Tiny little snowball of the costing scaling mechanism grew into SOOOO much larger changes to industry.
Apelacja
Sad Najwyzszy
#982 - 2014-05-15 16:02:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Apelacja
i wish to touch a convertion of old t2 bpc for new proposed one.

Right now we deal with 10 % waste at me -1 and 20 % waste at me -2 with decryptors 10 X run me -2, 1 X run me -1.
If bpc will be transfered from to the prosed system from 0-5 % old difference of 10 % will become a difference of 1-2%.
In general it is a big lost for anybody who have stockpiles of invented bpces. ( considerng that invention successes are similar for presented decryptors).

Another story is where would be a decryptor me -1 being used?

Let`s check JF invention :
bpc cost is say like 40-50 mio ( will be cheaper after patch)
datacores cost is around 13 mio.
chance around 40%

all together it place one invention try in around 200 mio.

for 10 X run decryptor chance is like ( lets say) 35 %.
Cost to run is 250 mio maybe.

so pleasure to have me -1 costs u 170 mio.

now if it will be transfered to the new system 1 % is like 35 mio....in old system it was 300 mio enough to cover affor for doing me 1 inventions.

And JFes are the most expensive example with the biggest diffrence visible. The same is about t2 bses.


However i support lowering difference between t2 bpos and invention


CCP Greyscale wrote:
We are currently of a mind to shift invented BPCs so they have positive (or at worst 0) ME and TE figures. This a) prevents the removal of extra materials giving invention an extra-hard kick, and in particular b) prevents every invented T2 item from requiring two of the relevant T1 items (due to always rounding up materials). This will probably put all invented BPCs in the 1-5% ME/2-10% TE range, with decryptors adjusted to match. We may adjust T2 build costs upwards across the board to put the net T2 resource usage roughly where it is currently, so we don't end up nerfing the demand for T2 components. (This obviously also serves to close the gap somewhat between invention and T2 BPOs; this is not a goal here but it's an acceptable side-effect.)
LHA Tarawa
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#983 - 2014-05-15 16:02:25 UTC  |  Edited by: LHA Tarawa
Loraine Gess wrote:
LHA Tarawa wrote:
Quintessen wrote:
Please consider that new players probably won't be guaranteed access to a POS and so it's probably a bad idea to calculate all the numbers with that in mind.

I would imagine you would want to take into consideration the time of the trial into account. Research that requires time beyond the trial for the beginner stuff is going to prevent them from fully testing out industry beforehand.


The new industrialist is going to find that his production price is above market sell price. He'll go read blogs to learn that if you aren't building with the best teams, then there is no point to building at all. He'll then discover that all the best teams are in null, or in solar systems without station services where all the moons have a small POS of a mega alliance.

He'll then have the option of paying dues to belong to one of the mega alliances that have cornered the market on best teams, or just mining and selling minerals to members of the mega alliances.



Assuming this is feasible (its not), why is this a bad thing?


Some people have a life outside EVE. They log in for a couple hours, a couple times a week. They are not really interested in the hassles that come from being in a mega alliance.

Think about the number of accounts vs. the online numbers. 300K accounts and 20K online. 6.7% online at any given time? That is a lot of casual players.

Pre-change, even the casual player could compete. Buy a BPO and research it to perfect, or close enough. Put up a mineral buy order in a trade hub, come back days later to see it filled. Move the minerals a couple jumps and put in a build job, come back days later to see it completed. Move the items a couple jumps to trade hub, put up a sell oder, and wait for days for people to buy your stuff. There was no special advantage to being part of a mega alliance.

This sort of casual player is a HUGE chunk of CCP's revenue, and this industry overhaul destroys them.

Minimum price is going to be set by hardcore null bears and mega alliances that control the teams. If you're not one of those, you will not be able to obtain minimum production price which sets market, and therefore, will not be able to manufacture at a profit.


I get that the mega alliances like these changes that squeeze the casual players out of the game. I'm just not sure it is such a great thing for CCP, or the game, or the casual players that being in the bulk of CCP's revenue.

With these industrial changes, blob warfare comes to manufacturing..
LHA Tarawa
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#984 - 2014-05-15 16:08:43 UTC
Apelacja wrote:
i wish to touch a convertion of old t2 bpc for new proposed one.

Right now we deal with 10 % waste at me -1 and 20 % waste at me -2 with decryptors 10 X run me -2, 1 X run me -1.
If bpc will be transfered from to the prosed system from 0-5 % old difference of 10 % will become a difference of 1-2%.
In general it is a big lost for anybody who have stockpiles of invented bpces. ( considerng that invention successes are similar for presented decryptors).

Another story is where would be a decryptor me -1 being used?

Let`s check JF invention :
bpc cost is say like 40-50 mio ( will be cheaper after patch)
datacores cost is around 13 mio.
chance around 40%

all together it place one invention try in around 200 mio.

for 10 X run decryptor chance is like ( lets say) 35 %.
Cost to run is 250 mio maybe.

so pleasure to have me -1 costs u 170 mio.

now if it will be transfered to the new system 1 % is like 35 mio....in old system it was 300 mio enough to cover affor for doing me 1 inventions.

And JFes are the most expensive example with the biggest diffrence visible. The same is about t2 bses.


However i support lowering difference between t2 bpos and invention



You are very behind.

The plan was to convert -1 BPC to -10. -4 to -40.

However, that was changed because of hacks on top of hacks (round at job level instead of run, and always round up) would have broken stuff when combined with the move of extra materials to base materials.

So now all invented BPC will be ME 0, and during the patch July 22nd, all existing BPCs will be adjusted accordingly. -4 = 0..

Oh, except I've not yet seen details on what hack they're going to do to alter decryptor behavior.
Apelacja
Sad Najwyzszy
#985 - 2014-05-15 16:08:55 UTC
LHA Tarawa wrote:


Some people have a life outside EVE. They log in for a couple hours, a couple times a week. They are not really interested in the hassles that come from being in a mega alliance.

Think about the number of accounts vs. the online numbers. 300K accounts and 20K online. 6.7% online at any given time? That is a lot of casual players.

Pre-change, even the casual player could compete. Buy a BPO and research it to perfect, or close enough. Put up a mineral buy order in a trade hub, come back days later to see it filled. Move the minerals a couple jumps and put in a build job, come back days later to see it completed. Move the items a couple jumps to trade hub, put up a sell oder, and wait for days for people to buy your stuff. There was no special advantage to being part of a mega alliance.

This sort of casual player is a HUGE chunk of CCP's revenue, and this industry overhaul destroys them.

Minimum price is going to be set by hardcore null bears and mega alliances that control the teams. If you're not one of those, you will not be able to obtain minimum production price which sets market, and therefore, will not be able to manufacture at a profit.


I get that the mega alliances like these changes that squeeze the casual players out of the game. I'm just not sure it is such a great thing for CCP, or the game, or the casual players that being in the bulk of CCP's revenue.

With these industrial changes, blob warfare comes to manufacturing..


As a casual player i have to admit u are right.

It will be end of casual manufacturing i even started prepearations to move into null :/ - despite i rly dislike null. Also it forces me somehow to become hardocre null producer to cover additional cost. Hard to say i like this but i realised if i will not adopt i will have to, i dont know, unsub almost all accounts and stay with one to watch eve world ?
Yuki Kasumi
Some names are just stupid
#986 - 2014-05-15 16:57:20 UTC
@CCP How will research jobs that are pending when the release hits be transitioned to the new system? Will they still be pending a "free" slot or will they be started right away?
Throwaway Sam Atild
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#987 - 2014-05-15 19:32:02 UTC
I've reformatted my question to hopefully qualify as a Great Big smile, or potentially average-good X post. I'm not exactly certain what level of post is required to merit a response. Roll

I would still like to see the issues arising from changing copy time on invention to be addressed or clarified. According to the Dev Blog the intent was to reduce copy times by putting them on par with build times. The reality is that in many cases copy times are being increased greatly. Many T1 modules, (E.G. drone damage amps, damage control units, warp disruptors) are seeing an 8x fold increase in copy time.

This 8x fold increase has a significant affect on the invention process for many T2 modules. The bottleneck is moved from building to copying, and the total time from the first copy to the finished product is increased ~5x fold.

Without a reduction in max-run copies for this broad category of blueprints (those with large increases to copy time) to make up for this change, or other adjustment, the invention process will become severely dependent on copy time.

Currently if I want to build 10 T2 Focused Medium Pulse Lasers the process looks like this:

600 minutes copy time (2x max run copies which require 1 min/copy x 300x max run) -> 300 minutes invention time (2x invention attempts) -> 1060 minutes production time (off of 10x T2 BPC)

So on a single character this balances sort of well, with 900 minutes lab time and 1060 minutes manufacture time. In this manner an organized person can string their production together in a decently balanced manner.

If, as the post says, copy time is put on par with the T1 build time for medium pulse lasers, it will change from 1 min to 8 min per copy which means:

4800 minutes copy time -> 300 min invention time -> 1060 min build time

This does not balance well, as the character now spends 5100 minutes copying and 1060 minutes building.

The bottleneck point moves from manufacturing (.73 days) to science (3.54 days). This results in the ~5x fold increase I alluded to. I'm not an economist or anything, but this potentially reduces the amount of these goods made significantly, and seeing as how they're probably important to the market (A lot of fits use DC II's) I think that this issue needs to be acknowledged.

Now supposing that the DEV intent is to, in fact, increase the time it takes for inventors to build things 5x fold, then this isn't a great way to do it, and here's why: Players can train a bunch of alts to gang up on the copying step. However this adds more clicking and character switching to the already frustrating invention process.

Also if any of the other experienced folk in this channel have some insight here I'm missing, I would love to hear it.
Clothildis Dorthe
Hedion University
Amarr Empire
#988 - 2014-05-15 19:45:48 UTC
Throwaway Sam Atild wrote:

This does not balance well, as the character now spends 5100 minutes copying and 1060 minutes building.

The bottleneck point moves from manufacturing (.73 days) to science (3.54 days). This results in the ~5x fold increase I alluded to. I'm not an economist or anything, but this potentially reduces the amount of these goods made significantly, and seeing as how they're probably important to the market (A lot of fits use DC II's) I think that this issue needs to be acknowledged.


This is easy to fix: copy time is set to to the lesser of [what it is now, current build time]. Any case where bpcs were faster than copies remain that way. Any case where copies took too long get shortened. I can't really think of any problems (except the often-repeated "but what about copying t2 bpos") with that approach.
Throwaway Sam Atild
Republic Military School
Minmatar Republic
#989 - 2014-05-15 19:52:59 UTC
Clothildis Dorthe wrote:
Throwaway Sam Atild wrote:

This does not balance well, as the character now spends 5100 minutes copying and 1060 minutes building.

The bottleneck point moves from manufacturing (.73 days) to science (3.54 days). This results in the ~5x fold increase I alluded to. I'm not an economist or anything, but this potentially reduces the amount of these goods made significantly, and seeing as how they're probably important to the market (A lot of fits use DC II's) I think that this issue needs to be acknowledged.


This is easy to fix: copy time is set to to the lesser of [what it is now, current build time]. Any case where bpcs were faster than copies remain that way. Any case where copies took too long get shortened. I can't really think of any problems (except the often-repeated "but what about copying t2 bpos") with that approach.



I prefer your solution to my proposed idea of adjusting max runs proportionate to the copy time change.
LHA Tarawa
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#990 - 2014-05-15 19:53:27 UTC
Throwaway Sam Atild wrote:
I've reformatted my question to hopefully qualify as a Great Big smile, or potentially average-good X post. I'm not exactly certain what level of post is required to merit a response. Roll


I'm reminded of 20+ years ago when I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh (Hey, I was young and ignorant). Every few months he would give an explanation of what makes a good caller.
1) the purpose of a caller is to make the host look good.
2) the purpose of a caller is to provide transition to a topic the host already plans to talk about.
3) the purpose of the caller is to give a false impression of a conversation to what is essentially a one-way telling you what to think.


Notice the one post that was called "good". The post suggested a minor tweak to the new design, that CCP Greyscale has already contemplated, giving CCP Greyscale the opportunity to explain his thinking in creating the design as he did.


Posts that point out things that have not been thought through, and have not been addressed, are not going to be considered "good" until CCP has decided that something is going to be done, at which time the post will be used as a means of presenting CCP's mandate in a way that makes it appear it was a decision based on 2-way conversation.
LHA Tarawa
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#991 - 2014-05-15 20:00:03 UTC  |  Edited by: LHA Tarawa
Clothildis Dorthe wrote:
Throwaway Sam Atild wrote:

This does not balance well, as the character now spends 5100 minutes copying and 1060 minutes building.

The bottleneck point moves from manufacturing (.73 days) to science (3.54 days). This results in the ~5x fold increase I alluded to. I'm not an economist or anything, but this potentially reduces the amount of these goods made significantly, and seeing as how they're probably important to the market (A lot of fits use DC II's) I think that this issue needs to be acknowledged.


This is easy to fix: copy time is set to to the lesser of [what it is now, current build time]. Any case where bpcs were faster than copies remain that way. Any case where copies took too long get shortened. I can't really think of any problems (except the often-repeated "but what about copying t2 bpos") with that approach.


With the hack to make invention produce ME0 BPO and jump in build time from not being able to remote build at POS, , increased production from T2 BPO via shortened copy is the least the holders deserve. (especially considering that in the cases where the higher production suddenly exceeds demand, profits are likely to actually fall because of higher production).
Arronicus
State War Academy
Caldari State
#992 - 2014-05-15 20:00:45 UTC
LHA Tarawa wrote:
Throwaway Sam Atild wrote:
I've reformatted my question to hopefully qualify as a Great Big smile, or potentially average-good X post. I'm not exactly certain what level of post is required to merit a response. Roll


I'm reminded of 20+ years ago when I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh (Hey, I was young and ignorant). Every few months he would give an explanation of what makes a good caller.
1) the purpose of a caller is to make the host look good.
2) the purpose of a caller is to provide transition to a topic the host already plans to talk about.
3) the purpose of the caller is to give a false impression of a conversation to what is essentially a one-way telling you what to think.


Notice the one post that was called "good". The post suggested a minor tweak to the new design, that CCP Greyscale has already contemplated, giving CCP Greyscale the opportunity to explain his thinking in creating the design as he did.


Posts that point out things that have not been thought through, and have not been addressed, are not going to be considered "good" until CCP has decided that something is going to be done, at which time the post will be used as a means of presenting CCP's mandate in a way that makes it appear it was a decision based on 2-way conversation.



Very well said, hah.
Dibble Dabble
Capital Assets Inc
#993 - 2014-05-15 20:26:16 UTC
Quintessen wrote:
Please consider that new players probably won't be guaranteed access to a POS and so it's probably a bad idea to calculate all the numbers with that in mind.

I would imagine you would want to take into consideration the time of the trial into account. Research that requires time beyond the trial for the beginner stuff is going to prevent them from fully testing out industry beforehand.


I suspect CCP don't see new players being industrialists, this will be for the producer alliances. The changes will eliminate any hope of a new player being able to compete with the core alliances in a significant capacity other than maybe selling the core basics where players don't care about the price. This would be T1 ships less than maybe 20 mil, ammo, basic mods.

There maybe opportunities for new players to distribute goods such as the basic T2 mods to non hub stations to save the null sec alliances the trouble.

CCP want new players to do PVP. Its PVP that sells the game. The alliances of course want new players to become lemmings once they hit maybe 10mil SP so until then new players will PVE (looks like PVP), even the null sec alliances need their implants. Some will mine and some will try PVP via empire suicide ganking if that can be called PVP.

As for industry I guess someone has to make ammo and shuttles.



Seith Kali
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#994 - 2014-05-15 20:29:29 UTC  |  Edited by: Seith Kali
Let's have a look at just how mis-informed you are shall we.

LHA Tarawa wrote:

Some people have a life outside EVE. They log in for a couple hours, a couple times a week. They are not really interested in the hassles that come from being in a mega alliance.

Think about the number of accounts vs. the online numbers. 300K accounts and 20K online. 6.7% online at any given time? That is a lot of casual players.

Pre-change, even the casual player could compete. Buy a BPO and research it to perfect, or close enough.


For a start, there are 38k on right this second. Secondly perfect, or optimal? In which research slots exactly? Think about why these questions need to be asked and yes, the fact they do is the problem being addressed here.

LHA Tarawa wrote:

Put up a mineral buy order in a trade hub, come back days later to see it filled. Move the minerals a couple jumps and put in a build job, come back days later to see it completed. Move the items a couple jumps to trade hub, put up a sell oder, and wait for days for people to buy your stuff.


What part of that is changing? Now casual players will be able to seek greater margins by producing locally to where they mine and mission, further from the hubs dominated by the hardcore players.

LHA Tarawa wrote:

This sort of casual player is a HUGE chunk of CCP's revenue, and this industry overhaul destroys them.


Please tell me precisely how big of a chunk, where this data is published and how it destroys them?

LHA Tarawa wrote:

There was no special advantage to being part of a mega alliance.

Minimum price is going to be set by hardcore null bears and mega alliances that control the teams. If you're not one of those, you will not be able to obtain minimum production price which sets market, and therefore, will not be able to manufacture at a profit.



So why bother putting the effort in to create and hold a mega alliance? Why be an industrialist outside of high sec at all? That is yet another problem that is being addressed marvellously. And yes, it is a massive problem.

Teams are bought per system, the busiest hubs are gonna have tonnes of them. Organised players will be able to afford to take a thin slice of them, but buying the entire lot is madness. There is no way we have the man power to produce Jita level volumes of everything without the entirety of highsec producers packing up shop and moving to null. To produce the top 10 frigates by volume per day in Jita alone requires 200 lines of manufacturing.

LHA Tarawa wrote:

I get that the mega alliances like these changes that squeeze the casual players out of the game. I'm just not sure it is such a great thing for CCP, or the game, or the casual players that being in the bulk of CCP's revenue.
With these industrial changes, blob warfare comes to manufacturing..


Based on what, exactly?

Apprentice Goonswarm Economic Warfare Consultant - Drowning in entitlement and privilege. 
Loraine Gess
Confedeferate Union of Tax Legalists
#995 - 2014-05-15 20:43:52 UTC  |  Edited by: Loraine Gess
LHA Tarawa wrote:

Some people have a life outside EVE. They log in for a couple hours, a couple times a week. They are not really interested in the hassles that come from being in a mega alliance.

Think about the number of accounts vs. the online numbers. 300K accounts and 20K online. 6.7% online at any given time? That is a lot of casual players.

Pre-change, even the casual player could compete. Buy a BPO and research it to perfect, or close enough. Put up a mineral buy order in a trade hub, come back days later to see it filled. Move the minerals a couple jumps and put in a build job, come back days later to see it completed. Move the items a couple jumps to trade hub, put up a sell oder, and wait for days for people to buy your stuff. There was no special advantage to being part of a mega alliance.

This sort of casual player is a HUGE chunk of CCP's revenue, and this industry overhaul destroys them.

Minimum price is going to be set by hardcore null bears and mega alliances that control the teams. If you're not one of those, you will not be able to obtain minimum production price which sets market, and therefore, will not be able to manufacture at a profit.


I get that the mega alliances like these changes that squeeze the casual players out of the game. I'm just not sure it is such a great thing for CCP, or the game, or the casual players that being in the bulk of CCP's revenue.

With these industrial changes, blob warfare comes to manufacturing..




Again... why is this a bad thing?



e: Seith Kali doing the good work by posting his own numbers. Personally I am still waiting for LHA to show me why it's awful that effort = risk = reward.
Kenneth Feld
Habitual Euthanasia
Pandemic Legion
#996 - 2014-05-15 20:58:19 UTC
You mean after the patch I can't login once a week and find an extra 50 billion in my wallet due to the 3 production jobs i ran this week??

Death2casuals
Odoya
Aeon Abraxas
#997 - 2014-05-15 21:03:46 UTC  |  Edited by: Odoya
LHA Tarawa wrote:


Some people have a life outside EVE. They log in for a couple hours, a couple times a week. They are not really interested in the hassles that come from being in a mega alliance.

Think about the number of accounts vs. the online numbers. 300K accounts and 20K online. 6.7% online at any given time? That is a lot of casual players.

Pre-change, even the casual player could compete. Buy a BPO and research it to perfect, or close enough. Put up a mineral buy order in a trade hub, come back days later to see it filled. Move the minerals a couple jumps and put in a build job, come back days later to see it completed. Move the items a couple jumps to trade hub, put up a sell oder, and wait for days for people to buy your stuff. There was no special advantage to being part of a mega alliance.

This sort of casual player is a HUGE chunk of CCP's revenue, and this industry overhaul destroys them.

Minimum price is going to be set by hardcore null bears and mega alliances that control the teams. If you're not one of those, you will not be able to obtain minimum production price which sets market, and therefore, will not be able to manufacture at a profit.


I get that the mega alliances like these changes that squeeze the casual players out of the game. I'm just not sure it is such a great thing for CCP, or the game, or the casual players that being in the bulk of CCP's revenue.

With these industrial changes, blob warfare comes to manufacturing..


Somone else has observed the "NASH index effect" elsewhere in one of the original posts whereby MMO markets prices (in general) are set. Perhaps paraphrasing badly here, I understand this to mean the least efficient producer sets the price. Why would a mega alliance forego easy profit? I can see a less efficient producer getting priced out in a race to the bottom, but market prices never seem to start at the lowest price. I do not think every decision to decrease an item price to below build rate is based on perfect knowledge. I observe all kinds of bad decisions in Jita. How would you prove this claim?

I am not disagreeing with the risk as you state it, but the concept of megaalliance seems better expressed in terms of high SP players and/or players with game wealth sufficient to access better BPOs. I posit that charging exports taxes whereby goods suffer markup based on their selling destination relative to their manufacturing origin would achieve a lumpiness that provides easy onramps for newer toons.

But the other interesting claim that casual players constitute a huge chunk of CCP's revenue. How do we know this? I think a problem when one reads something like the various quarterly reports it is obvious that loss of subscriptions due to negative game changes is not measured in a meaningful way. However, CCP does acknowledge a cyclical subscriber base somehow tied to changes in the game. The basic observation is that game play "peaks" around releases, ie, drops. Restated, CCP does not care if it loses subscribers because of rollouts.

If a subscription goes inactive, that is, is not renewed after a major change that demotivates a player from player, how does CCP know? Subscriptions can taper off, subscriptions may be active but no one logs in etc. What would constitute a meaningful metric to indicate success or failure of all these proposed changes? it is an earnest question because increasing the need for cooperative play or competition in industry can be expressed by several values that can obtained from player data. This is important to me because the T2 market is not the first thing a new player strives for after starting Eve. It is a more subtle playstyle not easily discerned from the typs of metrics reported in CCP quarterly reports. So how is actionable feedback beyond bug reports or angry rants received?

The strongest selling point of T2 for me was that it was not obvious but not hidden either. SP are required but unlike using plexes to buy reactor poses for reacting goos bought in Jita and hauled to 0.0 and back, T2 required critical thought and active management of orders in Jita.
LHA Tarawa
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#998 - 2014-05-15 21:30:10 UTC
Seith Kali wrote:

For a start, there are 38k on right this second. Secondly perfect, or optimal? In which research slots exactly? Think about why these questions need to be asked and yes, the fact they do is the problem being addressed here.


Perfect v. optimal is accidental hack and not part of original design changes. Greyscale clearly stated that perfect before would be perfect after... until the hacks to round round up at job level was add to cover up other foul ups.

Design by hack to cover up unintended side effect is rarely a good design.

Seith Kali wrote:

What part of that is changing? Now casual players will be able to seek greater margins by producing locally to where they mine and mission, further from the hubs dominated by the hardcore players.


That is not how supply and demand works. There is nothing in the changes that fundamentally supply nor demand, only alter the minimum cost of production. Prices will adjust to be the same slim margin above minimum cost to produce that we have now. If you do not produce in a way that results in the new minimum cost of production, then there will be no profit margin.

It is illogical to think the option will be "produce for high cost and sell for slim margin" or "produce for lower cost for higher margin". Too many will choose the "produce at lower cost" causing prices to fall to a slim margin above that level. That means any option that involves producing at higher cost is not a real option as no one is going to intentionally produce at a loss. Since the small corps of casual players will not be able to afford to bid for the best teams, and it would be STUPID for those that can afford the best teams to put them in locations where anyone can benefit, the small corps of casual players will be out of business.


Seith Kali wrote:

Please tell me precisely how big of a chunk, where this data is published and how it destroys them?


While I do not have precise numbers, the imprecise "big chunk" can be inferred based on other game mechanics CCP has created to attract and retain casual players.

IF the industry changes have the effect I expect, then CCP will be changing the mechanics soon after introduction. It would be nice if they would change their idea BEFORE the mass un-subs occur, but we'll see.


Seith Kali wrote:

So why bother putting the effort in to create and hold a mega alliance? Why be an industrialist outside of high sec at all? That is yet another problem that is being addressed marvellously. And yes, it is a massive problem.



Why bother playing the game at all? For the fun of it.

quote=Seith Kali
Teams are bought per system, the busiest hubs are gonna have tonnes of them.
/quote

Why would anyone spend large sums of money to buy a team into a system that just anyone can use? I HIGHLY suspect the best teams will be purchased into systems with null outposts or for high sec, no station services, where a mega alliance holds all the moons and therefor, only they can benefit from the team.

It simply makes NO SENSE to spend ISK to get a team into a system where both you AND your competition can benefit. All that does is guarantee your competition a fatter profit margin since they didn't have to pay for the team.


quote=Seith Kali
Organised players will be able to afford to take a thin slice of them, but buying the entire lot is madness.
/quote

If there were only one large allinace, sure. With scores to hundreds of large alliance, the domination of the teams by large corps/alliances/factions is a certainty.

quote=Seith Kali
There is no way we have the man power to produce Jita level volumes of everything without the entirety of highsec producers packing up shop and moving to null. To produce the top 10 frigates by volume per day in Jita alone requires 200 lines of manufacturing.
/quote

Infinite slots, manufacturing alts. In the past I never bothered to train up alts because where I built was limited by slot counts. Me and my half-dozen casual playing friends, with 4 accounts each (reasonible number for multi-box mining in hulks) = 24 accounts and 9 or 10 jobs per account could easily stack up jobs in a 50 slot factory, without alts so no reason for alts to stack up longer waits for those slots. Take away the slot limits, multiply the 24 account by 3 toons to create 72 toons, and then multiply by 9-10 jobs each. Infinite slots tripled our reasonable concurrent jobs. NOW factor in all jobs start immediately instead of being stacked up over the next several says, and it is far more than that.

A big corp, with 1000 industrial players, with 3 accounts each, 3 toons each, 9 jobs each = 81,000 concurrent jobs, all with instant start. And with unlimited lines, hypothetically, all 81K concurrent jobs could be running from a single small POS, in a system with no station services, that has been loaded up with all the best teams.
Seith Kali
Caldari Provisions
Caldari State
#999 - 2014-05-15 21:54:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Seith Kali
Your nonsensical gibbering is utterly unintelligible. You are getting wronger and 'wrongerer' (presumably this is the kind of gibberish phrase you comprehend) with every post and frankly you should go back and read the dev blogs again.

For the sake of picking any particular example of where you are utterly wrong, let us look at this one.

LHA Tarawa wrote:

A big corp, with 1000 industrial players, with 3 accounts each, 3 toons each, 9 jobs each = 81,000 concurrent jobs, all with instant start. And with unlimited lines, hypothetically, all 81K concurrent jobs could be running from a single small POS, in a system with no station services, that has been loaded up with all the best teams.


The best teams are going to give a -2.5% material broad advantage + a 5% narrow advantage making a 7.5% total material advantage.

From the scaling blog...

Quote:

Manufacturing: The largest run price we generated from the snapshot we took was 15% of build cost in Saisio. 10th place is Juunigaishi at 8%, while 50th is Kakakela at 5%. Jita is in 106th place, at 4%.


So right then and there our 7.5% advantage will be down to a -7.5% loss by cramming everyone into the same system, but it doesn't end there.

From the teams blog...

Quote:

How much extra cost a specialized team demands depends on the overall efficiency of the team. The extra salary is a percentage that comes on top of the normal salary cost. The percentage can range from +2% to +18%.


15 * 1.18 = 17.7 so by even using the team at all we are down to a negative ME of -9.7%.

Some advantage...

Apprentice Goonswarm Economic Warfare Consultant - Drowning in entitlement and privilege. 
Babbet Bunny
#1000 - 2014-05-15 21:57:56 UTC
Dibble Dabble wrote:


CCP want new players to do PVP. Its PVP that sells the game. The alliances of course want new players to become lemmings once they hit maybe 10mil SP so until then new players will PVE (looks like PVP), even the null sec alliances need their implants. Some will mine and some will try PVP via empire suicide ganking if that can be called PVP.



CCP's own data shows that ~40% of new players prefer PVE. the 10% that go direct to PVP are probably RL friends of the people in the PVP corp. If all missions were designed like Incursions requiring and rewarding team play possibly more would stay and then learn PVP.

On topic- They have not clarified if they are using CEIL(), FLOOR(), or ROUND() in all cases.

They only stated that CEIL() would be used with the new math when calculating materials.