Greedy Goblin

Monday, September 3, 2012

FW fix and the future of highsec missioning

Contrary to the spreadsheats of Gamerchick42 FW LP income will be seriously nerfed. To understand that, let's look at Cybernetic subprocessor - improved, the +5 int implant.
As you can see, you have to pay 65M ISK and 65K LP to get one, still you could buy them in Rens for less than 65M when Minmatar hit T5 last time. How? The trick is that the above prices are from a highsec LP store that equals to T3 faction control prices. At T4 the prices are currently half of this and in T5 they are quartered. Both the ISK and the LP prices. Please note that it's an opportunity cost ISK print as an implant purchased in the FW LP store at T5 instead of a non-FW LP store will remove 48.75M less from the player economy than it should.

The new system will be implemented in the winter expansion (or maybe earlier if the ISK print goes rampart). At T3 will give +100% LP gain, T4 +150%, T5 +200%. The important change is that the ISK costs will no longer be reduced. Below I show how much ISK one can get for 1 "old LP", which is the unit of effort, since at T5 you do the same effort, just get 3x more LP to cash out, which is equal to getting 1 "old LP" and cashing it out at 1/3 price. The X axis is the sell price of the implant, the ISK you get from the buying player on Jita:

If you can sell an implant for 65M, you made no profit from the LP as you paid 65M at the LP store. It's true for highsec and for the fixed system. In the current system even at T4 you get bigger profit on this 65M sale than you could get in highsec for selling at the all-time high 120M. Only when I read recent posts I realized that ISK costs are discounted too, making LP a sure and safe ISK print. It is totally broken and to be honest I wouldn't settle with just fixing it (now, not in the winter expansion), but I would negwallet everyone for the ISK discount he got in T4-T5 as he (even without exploiting intent) was using a totally broken mechanic. It seems not only I missed this point, the calculation of Gamerchick42 also ignores the ISK cost discount, that's why she says that it buffs the T4 income, despite it's a huge nerf (or rather, fix).

Anyway the new system will provide fix 3x higher ISK/LP for FW missioners than highsec ones and it seems to be the intended usage. I mean in the current FW fix posts there isn't a word about the status quo: Minmatar and Caldari totally own their FW zones, Amarr and Gallente are non-existing. With the new defensive plex LP rewards they will further solidify the current zone domination. I think the point was never faction war, it was to move profitable missioning to lowsec from highsec. The iterative changes make highsec safer and safer but less and less profitable. The end goal seems to be changing highsec a newbie zone where newbies are completely safe but totally poor, just like they are in the current starter systems. It is a great change as it finally make PVE players be motivated to seek cooperation with PvP entities. Further steps this way are the highsec station nerf and the mining barge buff. This sounds surprising but the increased barge EHP and ore hold rewards AFK mining and botting, putting the active players out of business in highsec. They can only mine in low-null, where being active gives bigger protection than any EHP.

On the long run I expect the LP/ISK ratio halved for Minmatar and Caldari items, practically driving away "serious" missioners of these spaces, leaving only casuals and newbies who can't care less of their ISK/hour. The Amarr, Gallente and pirate LP/ISK ratio will suffer a 20-30% drop due to several items are shared with Minmatar/Caldari (like learning implants) and the displaced highsec and non-FW lowsec missioners will switch to these factions.


Sunday morning report, which is still not really reliable: 155.8B (3.5+1.0 spent on main accounts, 2.4+0.7 spent on Logi/Carrier, 2.2+0.5 on Ragnarok, 1.6+0.5 on Rorqual, 1.4+0.5 on Nyx, 1.8+0.5 on Avatar, 2.6 received as gift)
Monday morning report, which is still not really reliable: 157.1B (4.5 spent on main accounts, 3.1 spent on Logi/Carrier, 2.7 on Ragnarok, 2.1 on Rorqual, 1.9 on Nyx, 2.3 on Avatar, 2.6 received as gift)

10 comments:

Bobbins said...

'but I would negwallet everyone for the ISK discount he got in T4-T5'
Wouldn't that bypass people who are likely to benefit from the winter changes such as traders who bought them of the market before the fix.

Anonymous said...

Re: Mining barge changes.

One of my side activities used to be can flipping/ore theft in a half dozen systems near a major trade hub, but since the changes Retrievers and their giant ore holds are everywhere and jet cans have all but disappeared.

Whether those Retreivers are actual bots or just substantially AFK players isn't clear. I don't watch them long enough to know, but it's clear that high secminers are no longer optimizing for yield, but instead for maximum AFK time.

Anonymous said...

"The new system will be implemented in the winter expansion (or maybe earlier if the ISK print goes rampart)."

for the 9002nd time, the FW LP store is an ISK sink - ISK is being destroyed, not printed.

Gevlon said...

"Please note that it's an opportinity cost ISK print as an implant purchased in the FW LP store at T5 instead of a non-FW LP store will remove 48.75M less from the player economy than it should."

Anti said...

"opportinity cost ISK print"

that's not a thing.

i get what you mean. but it's still not a thing.

for the same reason that you'll still get a ticket if you reverse the wrong way down a one way street.

Anonymous said...

The pushing by CCP for players to enter low-sec or null and join alliances has been on since probably the game started. In four years it's been nerf after nerf to high. Lvl 5 missions at one time would spawn in high for example. This mentality of herding players in a direction to me screws with the sandbox idea. FW is a joke, although it's been re-introduced this way to gain player attention before it gets nerfed. We have seen this before in other parts of the game. PI went same way. This mining barge buff lol. Imho will be countered with 25% or 35% (maybe worse) refines at high-sec stations. Tears are coming.

Just as history shows us the older crowd sees the writing on the wall. The new guy gets in not knowing or understanding the past. Do you remember 35 cent gasoline? Guess we are paying premium for those nebula, a screwy inventory system, UI tweak, and so some madman could take the sails off the Vagabond.

They have to constantly make more off of fewer people. (Even without competition in the gaming industry per se). Like RL economy today. You adapt or fall out of the game. Competition in the game is fine. Competition with the manufacturer of the game is ludicrous. CCP when ppl fall out of the game they aren't there to make you anymore money. No matter. There is a world wide market place of noobs. Why keep who you already have?

Anonymous said...

If they want to push us into null, they should offer some fun way to make money there. At the moment, you can shoot crosses or drill rocks for money in there. Which are the least interesting gameplay elements I ever saw in any game in the last ~15 years.

Kristophr said...

Anon 08:00 :

My transport alt does some mining and manufacturing of ammo for LP conversion, Anon.

Retriever owners are not trying to maximise AFK time.

They are maximising tank. One asteroid scanner to cherry pick big rocks, and a full armor tank. And five t2 drones to murder the 'rats.

Set 'em on aggressive, and abandon wrecks after each NPC pirate kill.

It's not that we are trying to AFK, but that mining IS deadly boring.

Anonymous said...

http://outofcake.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/factionwarfaregamingthesystem.pdf

Have you read this yet? Take a look at actual numbers and measure them against your past and current FW assumptions and see how your speculations held out.

Anonymous said...

There's a HUGE component to this nerf that your post does not mention: Right now, you only need to be at a high tier for a few hours to cash all your LP at the massively improved rate. Now, you need to be at a high tier *all the time you're earning LP* to reap the improved LP generation. I don't do FW so it's whatever to me, but it's a huge deal you're glossing over.

On another note, I can't resist pointing out that negwalleting is a terrible idea that they won't even consider; the mechanic was broken, but they won't burn people out for using an _obvious_ mechanic for _months_ that CCP didn't take the first opportunity to fix. It's part of the game, somehow made it through testing on sisi, and to say it should be negged is completely dumb. Bobbins point on this is also quite right.