Feedback on Changes to Weapon SIB.

After a couple of days reflection I wanted to give some more considered feedback on the changes to Herman SIB ranges. I also wanted to pull it out of the release discussion thread and place it where it belongs in Dev Feedback. What's done is done but I want the devs to really understand my views. I believe that as a hunter and a crafter that specialises in Herman weapons I will feel the impact more than most.

Having re-read the info from ARK PPs the reason for the change is not at all clear, though the choice of How to implement makes very good sense to me.

MA require a universe-wide rebalance of weapons. Why? I don't see that the existing weapons were unfair. And why does increasing SIB make them more fair? It doesn't change eco, it does significantly reduce the number of players who can effectively use them. So there is a reduction in demand. Why is this a good thing? It's not Ark Dev's place to explain the thinking of MA and I don't see MA stepping up to fill the information gap.

But given the edict has come down from MA, Ark devs have no choice but to respond, and given the available alternatives, I support the way the have decided to proceed. Any other approach would have seriously screwed over crafters such as myself. I'll discuss that in more detail later.


Lets get the relative impacts in perspective. As a mid level hunter (lvl 58 laser, 54 blp) I bought an Ark-40 D or A (I forget which) on the weekend, as part of my preparation for Mayhem. I had spent a considerable time in Wikipedia reviewing my options and decided that the Ark-40 series + Dante was going to be around the best DPS I could manage with reasonably ok dpp at the MU I would paying. They were all maxed for me so there were no issues with efficiency. Today I dont have SIB in BLP Ranged damage so it's no longer useable. I think I paid around 400 Ped. I am just glad I didn't buy more at the time. I'm quite annoyed at this situation but at the end of the day it's 40 dollars tied up.

I believe that most people who are caught out will have 1 or perhaps 2 weapons they can't use. The obvious exception is people stocking up for Mayhem. So the impact is annoying given that it could have been avoided but it isnt likely to seriously screw people up financially.

This problem could have been avoided if they had simply announced the changes as soon as the release content had been finalised: "In next week's release, SIB ranges on all hermans will change and here's why..." Simple, isn't it? Now MA are famously reluctant to prewarn on things that impact the economy and I submit that is a poor strategy. Perhaps it would have affected demand and MU on the gear ahead of the release but at least you don't get pissed off players holding gear they can't use.

Last night I looted an Ark-40 D from a Bokol, TT around 180. That would have been awesome last week. This week I am faced with a dilemma. Hold the weapon for serveral months, tying up ped till I can use it? Try to sell on Auction (but at what MU)? When it happened I was suprised to be thinking "I wish it were oils". Which is a little crazy because I am sure I will be able to sell for better MU than oils but it's an indicator of how the change has skewed my perceptions.

I don't think there is a solution to this. It's one of the unfortunate consequences of the change. Live and learn. Adapt. Yada yada.

Some posters on PCF have declared they won't buy Hermans again because they can't trust that they will usable from one VU to the next. THis makes no sense. If anything, the stats on Hermans are more reliable than any other weapon in the universe, having already gone through this change. Instead be careful about those weapons that are yet to change. And think about how many weapons you stockpile, especially as VU day approaches.

Hunters now need to review what weapons they can efficiently use and how this may impact the mobs they hunt. This is epecially important now given the change to mob stats. I know for me this involves revisiting my choices around mobs on the edge of my comfort zone, eg korwil. I will say to anyone who finds their hunting completely screwed:
- there's always a mob you can hunt that is within your skills/gear
- evader is without a doubt the most important profession for efficient hunting. With good evade, you can afford to drop to lower dps without significant impact on defensive cost. I chipped in a reasonable amount of evade and spent some time focusing on missions that give evade rewards and it has really paid off. I have evader lvl 36 which is fairly high considering my best combat lvl is 58 and many mobs just dont hit me much at all.

So in summary, many will be suffering financially to the tune of a a few hundred peds. A few with weapons stocked up may have significantly more tied up. This could have been avoided with better communication. We hunters are all going to have to adapt, reviewing the weapons we use and the mobs we hunt. This happens from time to time.

As a crafter and shopkeeper, my exposure is far greater. I have Herman stock valued (by cost to craft) at over 30k ped. I have also invested vast tracts of peds into acquiring unlimited bps for almost all of the weapons I craft. I have no plans to sell them so I am not worried about resale value but I would have been extremely upset if those bps were to become useless through lack of ingredients or were simply taken from me. This is why I support the SIB change. Given changes were required by MA, any other implementation would have been personally devestating to me. With Hermans making up the vast majority of items crafted by me, my business would have effectively been destroyed.

As it is, it's difficult to predict exactly what will happen. I fully expect demand for these weapons to decrease in the short term and thats going to affect my turnover, the amount of ingrediants I consume (sorry miners). I don't expect any weapon to become unsellable. Eco has not changed. But there will obviously be pressure on prices and I can't afford to drop prices given my current cost to craft. I already take a loss on many of the guns, and the ones I profit on subsidise the rest. I was already planning an end of year review of my business to see where I can reduce costs and this most recent change makes that process more critical.

Looking outside my own shop I am guessing we will see less people grinding the weapons given the likely reduced demand. It's going to be harder to offload the weapons and so risk levels will increase. Again I see miners suffering the consequences. This may mean less active miners, making it more difficult for me to source the ingrediants I want. I suspect I am going to have bite the bullet and forge some dedicated trading arrangements with some miners rather than relying on the open market and auction house.

This is not exactly a future I am looking forward to but the alternatives were worse.

But I have to finish with this lament.
Why MA? Why did you need to force this change? Did you really have to? Did you really?

 

It seems MA is finally doing something about the lack of anything good L from 30 or 40 and onward.

However, instead of doing the logical thing like adding new bigger better L weapons for those 40+, they chose to just move the skill requirements up. Why did they do this you ask? Because adding bigger better weapons would encroach on the sacred ubers. Can't have MM lose its top dps spot or imk2 lose its top dmg/pec spot. Can't upset the almighty ubers so they fuck the mid-level players yet again.

Frankly I would love the high level mod and imp items to take a big nerf. MA seems to be afraid that the ubers will cash out all at once. Do it right and they can't since nobody would buy their items to give them the peds to cash out. High end unL ubers provide almost nothing to the game. Just depress MU and suck out massive amounts of peds though withdraws.

At least Caly Ls are getting nerfed too. Try and click apis or x1 now, no materials for them. Same situation with all the other old school geotrek weapons and the others like them.

I just wonder if MA though this through. The new bps have not been dropping yet. The old bps can be clicked anymore. And oh look MM is right around the corner

 

I'd also like to re-iterate my request from the release notes thread. Please issue a list quantifying the new SIB ranges so we can get Entropedia (and other wikis) up to date as soon as possible.

 

As requested A list have been put up @ http://arkadiaforum.com/showthread.php?5675-New-Herman-skill-requirements

 

Thanks Chris. Much a appreciated.

 

SIB ranges on entropedia now have all the new values

 

I stick to my UL gear mainly so I cant really speak on the SIB thing except that I probably am no longer maxed in the 40 series pistols again.

I will add to this one more important point that needs to be discussed and touch's on what Kikki said. The isolation of the ubers at the cost of us in lesser financial circumstances having to yet again sacrifice to protect their interests. I am also now EXTREMLY leary about doing or buying anything at all since the sacred rule has now been broken. The rule that stats would never change thus being the ONLY constant in the reason to buy anything at all. If we cant trust that not to be broken any longer is there even a reason to invest or spend money in here anymore?

Im thinking this ties in with the again jump in uber items on auction recently having myself and many others discussing why it could be so many want to sell all the sudden.. Kinda gives fuel to the conspiracy of still more insider information. How many ubers knew about the stat changes and got the jump on the pulling of the rip cord because future of this gear is now unknown.

 

My feedback you know it
All is good only in australia


I have like 40-50k peds of changed stats guns
Add i have a hell of no idea what i can sell now or what i cant, adding to the mix the change f my stats to all of the new range coming, i would have to relearn what sells what not and where and where not, so i could appear in a Lost movie if they ever make it
But not enough with that
I bought XT bp 17k peds which it seems i cant craft now
I bought al29 felix bp + over 10k peds in skills which have no use now as i cant craft it
I bought the geke which i cant craft,x1,apis
actually all bps higher than 9 were render unusable basically
....


My requiments to use L guns have increase while actually as days goes crafting requerements are lowered
Looks like higher new Bp is lvl 11 and cant craft 12s now
on other hand you are maxed in lvl 15 crafting for a gun to use in lvl 40 hunting, how long does it take to reach in space repairing?
Skills crafting for what?
My sales looks like dropped like 90% which would make my stock selling in a week now require like two months to sell ....................
So any alcohol recomndetations are appreciatted

 

I recommend a calming sparking Sake with infused pear mmmmmmmm

 

I think it's interesting to contrast the Caly changes with those here in Arkadia. A whole range of looted weapons have apparently stopped dropping in Caly. Eg, see http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?235899-What-doesn-t-loot-any-more .
Additionally, the ability to craft certain weapon bps has been severely restricted by cutting back or removing required components from loot. Eg see http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?235911-Crafting-NERF . There are new weapons, new bps, new components.

So Caly developers have clearly taken the alternative route to Arkadia. On the one hand, hunters have not been left holding weapons they can't use, but on the other, crafters such as Chilix have been screwed over, with significant bp investments effectively made worthless. I have a high QR Apis bp that I paid good money for and it appears to be junk. This is what Arkadian devs have avoided by modifying the Herman range so I am glad the damage to me and other crafters has been limited.

We can also see by the threads in PCF that it has taken players a little while to realise what is going on because, as usual, nothing was announced. So no immediate rush of outrage as we had here but instead a slowly growing sense of indignation and uncertainty (we still don't know the extent of the changes).

I have no idea what changes, if any have been made at Cyrene or RT.

I am also starting to get a better picture of what MA are trying to achieve though I still don't know why. It's clear that high dps will no longer be available to mid level hunters. Eco hunting through good dpp continues to be available at all levels of play. I fail to see the benefit to the game or to players or even to MA. Surely this will reduce peds cycled by impacted players as they are no longer able to go through as much ammo and decay in a given time. I know the cynics amongst us will see it as a way for MA to suck more money from us. I would like to think there is more to it than that and in any case I believe MA income goes down as a result of this change. But I struggle to find a sensible reason for the change.

I think that Ark Devs should have a chat with MA and try to convince them to publicly outline the reasons for these changes.

 

i am starting to like it
and has some thought abaut it
new bps has sweat for guns, so sweaters will be happy
bps are more complicated and require many more things which is good (hunting,mining,components,sweat), i before could do just in a few hours the total supply of guns required in a week, now i am starting to look for components suppliers as no way i am staying so many hours to craft modulators , also requiring higher level components than weapon bp may require in especialized people to look for more high level components, so while i will look for low level supplier other may require a lvl 10 one
also i didnt like selling gun to hunters and dealing with them and not having almost nothing to buy from them which looks better now

 

Thanks Chilix. It's great to see some positve aspects to this change.

 

I can no longer (economically) hunt a lot of the mobs I used to, since my guns of choice were nerfed. I think you're right, I only see MA and A-team getting less peds from these changes. Maybe in the long run the changes are good but I don't see it yet. I haven't been hunting at all since the VU, just sold my guns and probably won't buy more for a while. If I do start up hunting again, instead of using Ark guns I'll probably just use UL melee weapons--since I can't use higher dps guns anymore it's better just to go with high dpp even if it's a bit boring.

 

Yep, my unl weapons became more attractive since I have them to cover everything except good dps rifles. Last weekend I used my philospher swords to kill 1200 Ferans. Very cheap compared to my normal weekend.

After that I flew to Caly to start getting weapons together for Mayhem. I have around 15 hrs worth so far and I can see it is going to be very expensive. Geotrek AL26 is just very bad value compared to the Hermans I was planning to use. So I guess MA will see a short term gain from me but longer term my peds cycling will no doubt decrease.

 

Hi.

After last update i was surprised how many slow was my CAP-404(L). At first time i think MA change shots by minute, but after several days i look gun info and see i not have enough skill for use well this pistol. I see LAW-404 family is equal. I can use 404 family i have for emergency, but when in future i need a gun shooting quick i will need to change to 303 family.

Greetings.

 

Hi,

interesting thread!

[Mode="Evil remark"]

Now you gunners know how we melee maniacs are feeling since years - there never was a clear "ladder" of available swords (etc.) at reasonable prices and sufficient availability. "Not craftable due to the lack of BPs dropping", "not craftable due to lack of components dropping", "not craftable for a MU that would make sense", that's what we are accustomed to hear from our crafters - the crafters among you will know what I mean.

Well, there's the SIB UL swords. Guess it's 33 of them in the whole universe. Some of them don't shine up in the auctions anymore at all, most are ways too low dps to do anything but eco hunting cute furry little animals with 'em, some have such low TT that you'll need 3 of 'em even for a small hunt, and what's left is expensive in a way that it only can be regarded as a put-on. Several K PEDs blocked in the unusable 50%, plus a MU of several more K PEDs, yes ...

Don't get me wrong, I'm feeling with you and I agree that it's a situation that's all but fun. But I can't help, as hard as I try, to have to giggle a bit about - now you're smelling what we swords ppl are suffering since ages ...

At least you know that it will be temporary for you - so take it like a gurl!
​

[/Mode]

My assumption is that they have realized that the road they're on is leading straight into the "Big Ol' Nowhere [tm]". Game numbers aren't rising since years, EU became more and more a niche game aiming for for wealthy gamblers, retention rate is zilch or close to, maybe even the hamsters at MA's basement threatened to go on strike should MA not rise the numbers of carrot globals for them, and finally replace the old, rusted medieval treadwhells? "Us wanz iWheelz, squeek!!"

From what I see MA has started to change the direction. Different loots, changes in mobs and weapons - and, we know them, they haven't missed any possible opportunity to get the participants into an uproar doing so. As usual.
And, as usual too, they didn't communicate their plan in a sufficient way.
Well, in fact they are communicating more these days compared to the times of Marco, but it has become even harder to find the quotes all over the forums - and we need to wade through quite unpleasant ones to find them ...
But that was the impression I had after reading some gigazil
lions of communication snippets.

For me it's obvious that something is changing. If this is good or bad, if it's the rescue of EU or its doom, I cannot tell. I'm watching, stunned. The fact alone that something is changing is stunning - we're talking about MA, don't forget!
So my plan is to stand by and watch, what else could I do? After all, my only choice as a poor SwordsMaiden is to mine, or to hunt ways below my possibilities since years, I'm accustomed to it. And my recent results wasn't this bad ...

Well, this isn't new. That happened back in the "good old days (tm)" when the axes 1x0 was nerfed, that happened with the paint can changes, that happened when suddenly fancy clothes was gifted for newbies or at holidays, that happened when suddenly new (L) gear had better stats compared to costly old UL gear, etc. etc.
I've lost several K PEDs this way. This isn't the first time. Don't worry, we'll survive even if it's no fun at all at the very moment - been there, seen that.
How said Etopia the Wise once, ages ago (or words to that effect):
"Always have your Garcen Lube at hand, bend over, grit your teeth and adapt - it's EU!"


Disclaimer:
- This isn't meant to make jokes of any participant.
- This doesn't mean that I'm not feeling with you.
- This doesn't mean that I welcome all of those changes.
- This doesn't mean that I couldn't think of much better ways.
- But it means that the situation you're in now isn't unknown to me.
- And that you're not the first one suffering such.
- And that you'll survive it, as others had before.
- And that, even if I quote Kikki, this isn't meant to Kikki only.


Was this full OT now? Hope not. Anyways, my best wishes to you all! May this madness lead EU to become better, even if we'd need to swallow even more toads.

Suggestion to MA:
- Invent cooking.
- Make a receipt using Tripudion parts.
- Make it tasty, as we have to swallow this much of it, plz!!!

Have a good time!

 

Adjusted Embra has been for sale at my Sanctuary Cove shop for some time now. Seems like there just isn't the demand for Melee. But I appreciate your point about how screwed up L melee is. A whole other topic.

Lets try and keep this thread focused on the issues around the current weapon adjustments if we can. I can certainly agree with you that the change communication strategy exacerbates the impact and player dissatisfaction.

Regards,
KikkiJikki

 

Interesting discussion in this caly thread:
http://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/forums/showthread.php?235950-Some-Existential-Questions

 

Hi,

seems this post was not the best of ideas. Well, it has been written, and cannot be made undone.
Would have been wise to stay silent, but who am I to be wise?

I can only emphasize once more that it was not my intention to attack anybody, especially not Kikki whom I value very high. Any "you" in this post was not aimed at him, it should be seen as as "generic you".

I apologize to have been clearly OT, and to have used poor formulations. And I honestly apologize should I have caused any trouble to anybody! This wasn't meant this way!

Spoiler: In case someone wants to read it anyways ...

Have seen it, and thought about. But replacing a good sword (my UL vanilla Embra, that had a MU of several 100 PED when I bought) with a slightly better one (with even more MU that I'll surely lose in medium time, too) isn't a real alternative. For sure it's a great sword, and I praise you for even offering it!

But it doesn't fit my needs at all. Lemme check what stuff would be interesting to me - *updating*

Genesis Sunstorm! Right, just got me one. And wasted about 100 PED of it (w/o MU!) in about 30 minutes hunting Oweko. So a full TT one would hold an hour, or maybe even 1.5? How would I ever recover the costs without an ATH?
And actually I could use 1 or 2 tiers above.

My intention here was to put it into perspective. What the ranged hunters are complaining now is what we melee hunters are suffering since ages. Nerfed weapons, low availability, huge gaps in the ladder, all this is what we are accustomed to since years. Now it has hit you. I feel with you, due to personal experience. But you'll survive, as we do. Cool down. As we have to do, since ages.

My best wishes, I feel with you, hold on! At least you ranged hunters have hope that all will be fine and dandy again, as before, at some time. We melee hunters don't even know this feeling.

I have offered you another view, to break out of the limited "ranged" sight. What you are experiencing now (temporally only!) is not different of what users of other weapons are experiencing since _YEARS_.

We have asked for your help ad nauseam. We have made proposals, in the dozens, about balancing, about melee amps, about whatever.
We never received any help from the "ranged" crowd but cute proposals to get H400 instead.

Now you are the one that has hit the fan. And for sure, now it's an EUgeddon now, right?

With all due respect, with all sympathy, with all empathy, I cannot but laugh. Now you've hit the situation we're suffering since ages, now it's skys falling down, now it's the end of EU as we know it, and whatever. As long as it was only us few melee maniacs, nobody ever cared of us.

But I'm still with you, supporting your claims, standing beside you. Even if I cannot help this special giggle from time to time - what you experience now is not different to what us melees are suffering, since ages.

This may be OT, and I'll not post further comments, but I think this has to be said. All symphaty to your crusade, and you have all support I can give you. But maybe, next time, when it's again about melee, can I count on you?
(This DOESN'T mean Kikki only!)

Have fun!

 

Your posts don't sound like support or sympathy at all. BTW, KikkiJikki is not the one who's in charge of Melee weapon stats, so I don't see the point of trying to give him or any other players a guilt trip. Just FYI.