heya in an adaption to a long forgotten thread in EF, now PCF of mine from 2007, i wanted to write it here as well and see if changes may occur due to it this post is shifted in 2 parts, first i bring my observation and question, below a copy and paste from PCF with the "backup" figures and explanation since the introduction of limited items, melee lost any real option to skill it at a decent cost the repairable non SIB ones, make your ped card bleed fast, at least they did for me repairable SIB ones are unaffordable for the average joe leaves basically L stuff wouldn't be much of a problem, if availablity would be good and prices would be decent "availability" and "useful prices", each point an impossibilty for L melee the actual "problem" are easy conclusions of a fact thats so stupid, that noone thinks about it, even melee users dont too often the fact is melee doesn't use ammuntion totally stupid to state it, i know, but out of that, many problems arise conclusion one: the no ammo, hence more decay the base eco of weapons is all roughly the same if a gun uses 2 pec ammo and 2 pec decay for 8 damage, a sword would use 2.02 pec decay instead for the same 8 damage so generally you can say therefore, melee does damage with just decay, ranged splits to decay and ammo conclusion two:impossibilty for useful prices since the sword doesn't use ammo you can get for tt, the whole markup for the limited item is brought to your whole using cost e.g. with the example above, for a 200% L weapon, the 8 damage would cost for a gun: 2.04 (the 0.02 decay*2+ammo) a sword: 4.04 (2.02 decay*2, since no ammo is used) if you play with the figures a bit, you come to a useful price for L melee of around ~103-105% a price of that is pretty hard to get, hunters mostly tt that low % stuff crafters cant craft at a low %, as their residue already cost more i was fairly amazed today, seeing the technician weapon bp on Arkadia has the gun using animal oil thus allowing the gun, which could get a higher % on market for not much of an eco drawback, being crafted with cheap oil residue, to keep the % low the sword tt however, can just be increased with the (usally) more expensive metal or matter residue thus increasing its % to an, for eco terms, ungodly levels for melee weapons question 1 would there be any plans or possibilities, for L melee, especially crafted L melee items to be cheap obtainable (a 200% gun is as eco as a 106% sword, just to make it clear again) for example with the blueprints using cheap residue (thus dropping that residue in a decent amount too) or some other options, to keep L melee usable? conclusion 2, very very bad availability another interesting conclusion of "melee doesnt use ammo" and thus just decay is an even simplier one since it just uses decay, the tt of the sword decreases faster than the tt of a compareable gun, which uses mostly ammo to deal damage thus, a sword breaks way faster to make a rough comparison if a gun lasts for 2000 ped rotated (ammo cost mostly, say 200 ped decay) you would need 20(!) 100 ped tt swords now if you take a look at the auction, you see like probably see currently more breer laser guns than melee in total thus, to skill melee, you need -alot- of swords question 2 are there any plans or possibilies to increase the availability of melee weapons (i speak of loads here) thanks for reading so far already, i am infamous for long posts to have some more figures, below a copy and paste from PCF and based on calypso weaponry (i dont know the Arkadian weaponry really well, but also, i dont think there are any compareable swords yet; but dont let the names bother you, its the background that matters) imagine, i would like to get a more eco L sword why is that hard, or basically impossible? the price more than 106% isn't useful "??, hey, us ranged hunters have to pay 200% on our weapons, shut up!" yes? not really for this examples i will always use a weapon with opalo stats, a maxed one that means damage: 4.0-8.0 ammo burn (if ammo used, since that is about melee too): 2 pec decay 0.02 pec or cost per shot/slice, 2.02 pec, at tt value i will count with max eco, means always 8 in that case so, eco of that weapon 8 / 2.02 = 3.96 dam per pec now, imagine its limited, and you pay 200%, that means your decay is doubled 8 / 2.04 = 3.92 worse, ofc now it is a limited melee weapon, your decay is doubled 8 / 4.04 = 1.98 exactly, melee weapons deal damage just with the decay, not mainly with ammo, bought at tt simply imagine ammo would have the same price as the weapon you buy, and calculate your eco again conclusion embra swords and other melee weapons above 106% are simply uneco tt sword beats it the rutic series is more like 103% even every % more is like a for melee users, while ranged ppl don't see that much effect compared to that so, basically, for a melee user a weapon is worth 106% say an embra say the tt of the melee weapon is 100 ped, 6 ped markup now a question do you tt your animal oil worth 106% ? that leads to availability what loots embra? phasms and if you can kill those mobs, you can't be arsed usually to go to auction and put an embra in, or can you? and the 100 ped sword was even an assumption, the lower the tt, the less useful to sell, just consider the auction fee of 50 pec... and the higher the chance you won't waste unnecessary time to auction it what loots kilic? attackers in pvp4 how many ppl do you actually know who could say or alread did say "Today i go to pvp4, to loot me a longsword!" how many ppl do you actually know who could or already did say "Today i go and hunt some Feffs, to loot me a korss 400!" 0:1000 ? i mean, who would be that insane to go to pvp4 to loot a longsword worth 104% (should be eco around that), with the risk to lose a substantial amount of his loot? for 104%? hell no who actually goes to hunt feffioids out in safety, worth 180%? 0:5000? ok, numbers are exaggerated hopefully might be a 1 on the left side though ^^ so most likely hunters either don't sell it, what I wouldn't blame them for, i guess i would do the same in that situation or don't even go to get one from an easy mob, and attacker is easy to kill easier than feff so, melee L is either very hard to loot (phasms), pretty impossible in peace (pvp4) and not often sold by hunters who did how about crafters? buy your resources, buy some residue craft a L melee at 103% (rutic, eco around that) and you are set! but 103% ? for a 100 ped sword 3 ped? nah, that isn't useful gotta push the tt up with residue oh, residue cost 102%? or more? useless to craft, huh ? not to mention the cost for the resources... can't blame them ^^ so in short it isn't sold very often due to lack of markup, what cannot be higher, because the eco is down the drain then, it isn't useful to craft really, and most hunters who could loot one in safety are simply hold by the low markup too and if you want to loot it you become the prey of a pker no amplifiers gues that sais everything already, but i will say something anyway about it the 180% korss is quite eco already if you put an amp on it it is hilarious eco the 107% sword is a disaster already no amp will help you... armor decay melee tends to cause more armor decay of course than ranged, that is logical, but that isn't what i talk about exactly did you take a look on the speed of L swords? (yes, the nano katanas have a decent speed, but melee weapon at 200 % ...) pretty slow, low dam per sec too causing even more armor decay as weapon with acceptable dam per sec had done tt and max tt value improved embra 1.4k the rutic, more than 1k thats a shitload of cash bind in one item and yes, i know, the standard uber doesn't leave the house with ammo worth 1000 ped but considering that that ammo can quite easily be archieved (tt) AND can be bought in smaller stacks, that isn't a useful point imagine you had to buy 1k ped ammo at tt all the time ^^ the "time of use" a korss for 100 ped you can use hours, you just buy ammo at the tt a sword for 100 ped, around 1 hour, then you have to get a new one at acceptable prices... hm, guess thats it, thanks for reading the whole thing
those are used in a galaxy far far away to quite some extend maybe even on Arkadia nowadays, as long supply is low (got my embra etc with me ofc )
I'm no hunter, so maybe some Arkadian Hunter would tell us how often do melee weapons loot from mobs on Arkadia atm? Dobson said that it takes some time for items to found their way to the loot... so how it looks for melee... more ranged weapons looted atm. than melee? My guess is, that melee is not that usual on loot from mobs than ranged weapons are... -- Hyssch --
In the bigger scale of things the system is well balanced and doesn't need to be changed. Why? well because to have a unlimited and limited items market both must have uses. If L item prices are dropped as you suggest that would adversely affect unlimited items. MA have a fine balancing act to play and they seem to be doing that well as far as I can see. I would agree in some specific cases some items could drop more e.g. the hl18 L which didn't seem to drop before.
Alice, I too started out as a melee hunter. Using the old 1x0 and 2x0 until they messed up the damage dealt by the 1x0 thus making it unreasonable to hunt with. Even when it was reasonable it certainly wasnt something to use on anything bigger than punys. That said I honestly dont think MA cares a flip about melee. They have all but abandoned it. It doesnt really fit the sci-fi realm well and, as you described, doesnt fit their gameplan. I would be OK if they would do away with the melee professions and put my earned skills into a dmg profession of my choice. I skilled melee for a long time. MA has waaaay too many things they need to fix and they keep making more trouble for themselves. Hopefully you can get something changed but im not holding my breath. Best of luck! Therred
Melee skilling is made useful now, at least in one way... to add more max.carried weight while strength increases and as a noob miner, I'm very happy with his new feature -- Hyssch --
[video=youtube;IBcCM-Q_-3Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBcCM-Q_-3Q&feature=player_embedded[/video]
Make a formula similar to the one used on vehicles but for the (L) melee items. Decay + structural integrity. The structural integrity can be repaired but the decay can't be. When you hit a mob the sword decays the same amount that a gun would decay and also loses structural integrity like it was ammo. Also make them have huge structural integrity so you can have a few hours long hunt. That would solve most of the eco problems I think. Or just change the melee weapons and make them all use ammo
as someone who bought and still owns a unL embra sword for 3000 ped in the past, which is now worth tt, i say screw the markup up unL melee weapons (god, there total what, like 14?) however, compare one single and easy thing say you compere the unLt15 (dunno, worth +20k ped?) and check how many comparable blp pistols are around if you cant afford the t15, you buy L, you can, as there are LOADS if you arent to picky, there are LOADS of apisses LOADS of laser carbines and whatnot now compare the say +20 000 niflheim how many L nifls do you see, or teslas, or sulfuries, or even rainbow swords about 5 in total? remember, melee doesnt use ammo, it is not like an apis lasting for dunno, 800 ped of ammo apises of which you have at auction like 10? 20? 30? each lasting for 800 ammo for EACH apis you would need like 3 or 4 (if all would be looted at full tt around 2) per apis at auction, to get you the idea so there -should- be like 60-150 -niflheims- at auction, just to get a roughly compareable amount of uses so to speak imagine you are fairly high skilled, you can run through one or two apis in a day i guess fairly easily (never tried), that would be 2-12 swords per person per day last time i spent around 6 months gathering decently priced swords after 2 days they were gone 6 months for 2 days! i give a shit about unL sword prices i speak about an option, a compareable option to hunt with swords as you do can do with ranged at least a step in that direction add to that, that the niflheim is JUST 20 000 ped worth atm, partially because very few ppl have the skills to use it (i do, i actually thought about buying one even, but thats another point) if more ppl would actually get skills that kind of weapons may be thought after and usable by the ppl and increase the price but that would need like a total overhaul of the melee system, which is a MA work, which brings me to the next quote i agree melee was always harder, partially a reason why i stayed with it (im stubborn ) but what i ask here for, is no real MA change i wonder if the Arkadian blueprints for swords for example, would use cheaper residue, which residue could also be provided afaik the planet partners decide whats used in the bp, no? if there would be sword drops, even better of course a whole new melee system they cant do, isnt what i ask for either, at least not in this forum
Just a reminder, we want brawler weapons too. And none in the tt makes me feel very sad about the future And to get into the unL SIB discussion, at least you who use anything else then brawler weapons have the option to buy a unL SIB weapon to take down an Oweko or Yuka which brawlers don't even have the option to do But I also agree to the general thoughts presented by Alice ofc, just wanted to make a post to not forget about other FUN melee professions which also ofc would bring loads of armor decay to the lootpool for you weak ranged "hunters"
sorry, i mostly come from the longblade side, its my highest skill and the area i knew most about however, i used some lowish power fists (there are no others) as finishers as well i agree, it is even worse than the longblade and shortblade situation (on Calypso) Arkadia has yet to bring a change in weaponry there hence my post with more a generel melee availability setup but more melee weapons themselves, also in brawler section, totally agree bring it on
The solution is simple, they just need to make melee weapons craftable, high tt, and use VERY cheap and common resources/residue. (AKA: Animal oils, and animal hides/wools, so they use oil residue and tailoring residue, which are very low markup) Example, Level 1 sword: 100 PED TT max, uses 30 muscle oil, 10 lyst, 20 oil, 5 generic leather. Level 2 sword: 150 PED TT max, uses 50 eye oil, 10 belkar, 20 melchi, 5 wool cloth. Level 3 sword: 250 PED TT max, uses 40 thyroid oil, 10 blaus, 15 alice, 20 soft leather. Not very hard to do.. don't know why it hasn't been done already.
They may not stay cheap, but by including animal oil residue as an option crafters will be able to use the cheapest. Heck, if leather was included tailoring remnants (an unused item) could sell. Choices are good.
look at muscle oil : it went from 103 to 110 in a short time, simply because huon, teladon and yuka don't loot them
This is true, but as with the high tt of the items, say if a 200 PED TT item only costs ~5 PED TT a click, if ALL the ingredients were 200%, that would still only add 5-15 PED on top of the sale price of 200 PED, which is only 2.5-7.5%. The rest would be made up by 101/102% oil residue and tailoring remenants which are mainly ttd at the moment.
i agree with Hijacker there melee often uses the most shit resources to be crafted with highest resources (based on Calypso so far again, but the bp in the tt at arkadia doesnt look much better either) while there are a couple of guns at Calypso and at least one on Arkadia (tt bp), which uses animal oil and thus animal residue can be used to increase the tt, the tt longblade on Arkadia already doesn't while the guns can easily go with a 110% markup without much problem, a sword cant, as stated already 90% or so of EU ppl are hunters in a way or another look at adrenal oil and that stuff, its pretty cheap, drops like crazy naturally, with a sudden use the price will increase, but it will prolly still stay better than a 200% resources which can just be found in 2 areas at 800m depth or something
