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A Summary of Increased Repair Cost Problems (for BW/EA)


Daemonson

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Reason #1...

 

This is the easiest MMO ever made, with the most inconsequential penalties for dying since Duke Nukem. Putting in a penalty of any significance may lead some to believe that it is actually an MMO.

 

And where were you advocating this urgent and necessary change prior to the patch?

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So, let me get this straight. You and your guild know that there are ways you can handle the increased cost for repairs, but are unwilling to make the changes needed, so it's up to BW/EA to lower the costs, even if it was a legitimate bug fix?

 

do bw/ea want to remain employed or will they watch sub numbers circle the drain?

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Reason #1...

 

This is the easiest MMO ever made, with the most inconsequential penalties for dying since Duke Nukem. Putting in a penalty of any significance may lead some to believe that it is actually an MMO.

 

Where does the description of a Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game imply that there should be "a penalty of any significance"?

Massively? No mention of penalties there.

Multiplayer? No mention of penalties there either.

Online? Nope, not here.

I'm not seeing the requirement for your significant penalties anywhere.

Oh well, it must just be that I don't understand those three words properly.

 

Game. That must be it. By calling it a game THAT must be what requires people to pay this penalty.

Edited by TheSkate
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It would seem the people who have been paying higher costs would disagree with you that this isn't a legitimate bug. Are we to just say "well, sucks to be you, been this way for a year trollololol."

 

And the priceless part is you actually included that line that I bolded, while people were already paying more for the same thing.

 

the change affectewd all moddable gear..not just orange.....so who exactly has been raiding in greens and blues?

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But the problem is that a broken gold sink is not positive for the game. A game with a broken economy hurts all players and eventually the game goes away. The bad logic is assuming a broken gold sink is good for the game. It is not.

 

 

 

Eventually? Everyone does. See above.

 

 

 

All good ideas, but again a truly effective gold sink needs to be universal. Gambling sinks are not as not everyone is going to gamble. Therefore the only true effective gold sink in the game is the repair cost. Most certainly I would advocate for lowering that cost somewhat if additional gold sinks are added to the game. However, this is what we have so it is necessary to ensure it continues to be effective.

 

BJ

 

I just used those as examples of some of the ones I remembered off the top of my head. There have been others. The point is there are other ideas out there other than what they did. Not everything has to be an across the board hit on people either. Some people don't have the time and resources to be a.big contributing factor to a super saturated market as I think.we are seeing. But if you put some of these other types of money sinks into the game you will see those with expendable income, as it were, the ones who would be contributing most to a super saturated market will start spending money on them. No its not a perfect system but its a might bit better than what they decided was the best solution so far.

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unless that person has no 50's and repair costs are eating them alive leveling....will you do dailies for them? stop being selfish and think about others

 

I level a number of characters and as I tested it today there is no evidence that what you are saying is true.

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Died twice on Ilum in the PVE area today; running with all 61/63 gear.

 

Repair bill was 45,000 credits and nothing was under 50%.

 

Normally, I can only hit 30,000 credits for repair bills when I wipe multiple times and have numerous pieces south of 30%!

 

I am not liking this....

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And where were you advocating this urgent and necessary change prior to the patch?

 

I have been advocating that the difficulty of this game should be drastically increased since I started playing it.

 

Maybe I wasn't very clear in my original post. I think steep penalties for failure in TOR (as it is) are a bad idea. The game is simple and barely an MMO since the vast majority of its players treat it as a solo game. It could use a heavy dose of oldschool MMO challenge re-design but the last two things from oldschool MMO's that anyone should ever think to emulate are the length of time to level and steep penalties for failure.

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I have been advocating that the difficulty of this game should be drastically increased since I started playing it.

 

Maybe I wasn't very clear in my original post. I think steep penalties for failure in TOR (as it is) are a bad idea. The game is simple and barely an MMO since the vast majority of its players treat it as a solo game. It could use a heavy dose of oldschool MMO challenge re-design but the last two things from oldschool MMO's that anyone should ever think to emulate are the length of time to level and steep penalties for failure.

 

Personally I still think XP loss is the best penalty for death. De-levelling in a fight because you didn't build enough of an xp reserve was always funny

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I have been advocating that the difficulty of this game should be drastically increased since I started playing it.

 

Maybe I wasn't very clear in my original post. I think steep penalties for failure in TOR (as it is) are a bad idea. The game is simple and barely an MMO since the vast majority of its players treat it as a solo game. It could use a heavy dose of oldschool MMO challenge re-design but the last two things from oldschool MMO's that anyone should ever think to emulate are the length of time to level and steep penalties for failure.

 

Thank you for the clarification.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. Challenge should be derived from the mechanics of the encounters within the game. Gating content with boring, repetitive grind work is the least effective, least enjoyable method of design possible.

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Personally I still think XP loss is the best penalty for death. De-levelling in a fight because you didn't build enough of an xp reserve was always funny

 

I thought Vanguard did death penalties the best. It was like EQ dialed way down with multiple ways to recover from the dying, and mutiple ways to escape from wiping in the first place.

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I level a number of characters and as I tested it today there is no evidence that what you are saying is true.

 

Likewise. On all my alts below 50 the repair costs have been as trivial as usual. On my main 50, I saw a roughly 30% increase in repair cost, but that is to be expected considering I was wearing oranges and what proportion enhancements make of the set.

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I have been advocating that the difficulty of this game should be drastically increased since I started playing it.

 

Maybe I wasn't very clear in my original post. I think steep penalties for failure in TOR (as it is) are a bad idea. The game is simple and barely an MMO since the vast majority of its players treat it as a solo game. It could use a heavy dose of oldschool MMO challenge re-design but the last two things from oldschool MMO's that anyone should ever think to emulate are the length of time to level and steep penalties for failure.

 

Yes, I would agree that x00% increases in repair costs do not equal increased difficulty in this game without a major redesign, at least not the kind of difficulty most players I've encountered would find enjoyable.

 

The fact is there was no major push from the community to enhance the gaming experience by doing what EA has done here. It may not affect some players. Some may be indifferent. But the position by some posters that this is a positive change (not you, as you have clarified) is belied by the absence of tangible community support prior to EA just doing it.

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It seems fairly clear that the vast majority of the posters anyhow all tend to agree. Bad idea, poor manner in which it was explained and no one wants to pay more for something that they get no benefit from.

 

Something allowed to exist for more then a year is not a bug but a feature.

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Um, when this game first launched repair costs were higher than they are now. You know, back when there were more subscribers. Two deaths in KP (this was soon after release..) could amount to over 50k in repairs. When they reduced the costs it was a MAJOR decrease in repair fees, to the extent that many of us were gleefully shocked. Same goes for extracting mods. 22-25k, if I remember correctly, for each purple, high level mod. I had to do dailies, to keep up with my expenses.

 

While it's not fun having to pay a higher fee for repairs, I think this also has some positives of making people take wipes a bit more seriously. With the amount of godawful pugs happening lately (apparently I've had extraordinary luck in the past) perhaps now people will actually put a bit of effort into not dying.

 

Another potential benefit is the possibility that people won't ravage the in-game economy by wiping out markets on the GTN with their lack of basic understanding of economics, or perhaps laziness; heavy undercutting and listing items for vendor price, or less. I've seen items listed for less than the listing fee. Perhaps now, they'll put a bit more thought into how much they're selling things for, seeing as they'll want the extra credits.

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Reason #1...

 

This is the easiest MMO ever made, with the most inconsequential penalties for dying since Duke Nukem. Putting in a penalty of any significance may lead some to believe that it is actually an MMO.

 

Word.

 

"UGH. YOU MEAN I HAVE TO WAIT FOUR WEEKS AND WORK FOR AWESOME GEAR???" /UNSUB

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Word.

"UGH. YOU MEAN I HAVE TO WAIT FOUR WEEKS AND WORK FOR AWESOME GEAR???" /UNSUB

 

Hyperbole? If this game is no longer targeted at casuals, BW/EA should say so. At least I know where I am standing then and would have a foolproof reason to unsub. This current mish mash of direction the game is heading toward is a PR fiasco. And they do it all over again with every thing they implement. It's just not funny anymore.

Edited by Lent_San
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I'm a bit confused by the conclusion that people upset about the repair cost increase just want things handed to them.

 

Not one person has insisted that something be handed to them for nothing. Everyone still wants to experience the content, they want to earn their gear through learning the mechanics of the fights, winning those fights and getting the appropriate drops therein. What they don't want is 3+ hours of mindless grinding to be able to afford to do that.

 

The penalty for failure is the time you spent trying, and the fact that when you fail you have to start over. No one can magically progress from dying enough. There's no point in an op where the game decides you tried hard enough so the raid boss switches to easy mode.

 

We don't need exorbitant repair bills on top of that. Back in 1.2 they lowered repair costs for end game gear because it made end game progression prohibitive. That is still the case. It doesn't matter if you personally have millions of credits and don't care if you have to spend more on repairs.

 

It doesn't matter if you are in a guild that is run like a business that has millions of credits to pay for everyone's repair bills.

 

Just because the mechanic is not prohibitive for you specifically doesn't mean it's not prohibitive in general.

 

The one thing I will agree on is that we can no longer make any progress from debate on this subject. We need official word from Bioware as to whether or not this "fix" is working as intended, and if it is, what was their reasoning in implementing it, at which point we can start making a case for or against the change.

 

My guess is that since we have had no word at all it is probably not working as intended and they probably have no clue where the mistake is, and until they can find it don't want to say anything.

 

Granted my viewpoint is on the optimistic side, but really I can't fathom that this change was intentional given how divisive it has been.

 

No, but this may insure that people do their research prior to joining an Op, it may increase raid awareness, and possibly encourage them to work for just a few more upgrades (via dailies) before jumping into a HM EC/TFB run.

 

My raid groups aren't considering quitting. Because we run dailies (500k+ credits for one day, on one character - they're pretty much handing it to you, they're so easy.) We also craft in-demand items, materials, and run crew missions to generate revenue. The repair fees used to be much higher, and with so little need for credits, I think it's impacted the games economy, as no one really needed the money.

 

Guild Wars 2 is a successful game. It is a very, very slow process to earn gold. You have to either craft exceptional items, or sell materials that are rare to make any headway. This game practically throws credits at you. If someone is willing to unsub (which is proclaimed so often it's reminiscent of a dramatic wife threatening divorce over spilled milk..) or stop playing due to the costs of failure (that you can work to avoid) - expenses that are easy to cover, if one is willing to work for it -- then I think they may not know how easy they have it in this game.

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Thank you for the clarification.

 

I agree wholeheartedly. Challenge should be derived from the mechanics of the encounters within the game. Gating content with boring, repetitive grind work is the least effective, least enjoyable method of design possible.

 

Smart people create their own challenge..................they arent interested in foisting their version of "challenge" off on everyone else.

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Smart people create their own challenge..................they arent interested in foisting their version of "challenge" off on everyone else.

 

I'm not sure what I am supposed to take away from this beyond a pseudo-subtle attempt at questioning my intelligence. But if the developers are too lazy/inept/poorly directed to implement proper challenge within the content it's really not a requirement that I find my own within the confines of their game.

 

If I absolutely love the game despite all it's flaws I might be inclined to do so. (And, in fact, in this game when leveling alts I try to never out level the story content as I play through it so that every encounter is at least somewhat challenging.)

 

But short of trying content with fewer people than recommended (which I have done before,) or trying content using less than my best gear (naked pvp anyone?) I don't see what obligation I have to challenge myself within the confines of the game.

 

Furthermore, I don't see how this is at all relevant to a discussion about repair costs, money sinks, content gating, repetitive grinding, or any of the other myriad topics that have obliquely been referenced to in this ongoing debate.

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I'm not sure what I am supposed to take away from this beyond a pseudo-subtle attempt at questioning my intelligence. But if the developers are too lazy/inept/poorly directed to implement proper challenge within the content it's really not a requirement that I find my own within the confines of their game.

 

If I absolutely love the game despite all it's flaws I might be inclined to do so. (And, in fact, in this game when leveling alts I try to never out level the story content as I play through it so that every encounter is at least somewhat challenging.)

 

But short of trying content with fewer people than recommended (which I have done before,) or trying content using less than my best gear (naked pvp anyone?) I don't see what obligation I have to challenge myself within the confines of the game. city of heroes had a system where you could set your instances from 1 to 8 people worth of enemies anywhere from -1 to +4 to your level. That enabled anyone to challenge themselves however they wanted.

 

Furthermore, I don't see how this is at all relevant to a discussion about repair costs, money sinks, content gating, repetitive grinding, or any of the other myriad topics that have obliquely been referenced to in this ongoing debate.

Dont use stims, heal packs, companions etc. It isnt that hard. do 3 man hm runs. there are a lot of ways to increase your challenge. stop trying to force your vision of what a game should be on everyone else. you were the one that complained that the game was too easy. Some people play for the social interaction, not for frustration or to be a rat on a treadmill.

Edited by ivanhedgehog
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Dont use stims, heal packs, companions etc. It isnt that hard. do 3 man hm runs. there are a lot of ways to increase your challenge. stop trying to force your vision of what a game should be on everyone else. you were the one that complained that the game was too easy. Some people play for the social interaction, not for frustration or to be a rat on a treadmill.

 

I still don't see how this pertains to the debate in question. There is something potentially wrong with repair costs and a decent portion of us would like to know what is going on.

 

In no way have I tried to dictate how they create the challenge in this game beyond expressing a desire to not be forced to do repetitive content I don't enjoy in order to experience the content I do enjoy.

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Dont use stims, heal packs, companions etc. It isnt that hard. do 3 man hm runs. there are a lot of ways to increase your challenge. stop trying to force your vision of what a game should be on everyone else. you were the one that complained that the game was too easy. Some people play for the social interaction, not for frustration or to be a rat on a treadmill.

Think you might be responding to the wrong poster.

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