HWS NA Admin | Gameplay Changes Part 1

HWS Announcements
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Congrats @h1myname1sdav1d! Your personality and willingness to help others make you an ideal candidate for this position.

@RexXxuS

This is useful, and I believe most of us know this by now that care to use it. The major problem in my opinion with the chat is that it still switches to the ‘Private’ channel whenever you get a ping in that channel. Since you can’t type in this channel, it deletes the text you are typing in another channel when you receive the ping. Also, this channel switching method has no positive stops. In that, I mean that you can endlessly press ctrl + right arrow and continue switching channels. It would be nice, specifically for HWS server to have a hotkey that directly switched to the server channel for entering server-specific commands.

This in itself is more of a meta problem. Since many people emptied their OCDs to fill them with carbon, there was a much smaller backlog of resources at the beginning of the season.
So, there was extra gold lying around for people to spend. (which in truth many people were using to increase their OCD levels especially with the buff this season) Other people thought correctly, since this would be the case there would be a much greater demand for base resources and sought to (and did) profit from it. This, paired with the resource sink introduced at the traders recently made a certain few commodities prized, while others completely crashed. Since certain commodities are lucrative at the traders, and they have a fixed range at which they will purchase them, this sets the standard for those resources.

I really like the idea of the resource sink and profitability of selling them to traders. It develops a cycle of acquisition and liquidation that has potential to keep veterans interested, profit new players, and reduce the backlog of billions of resources in OCDs. However, I think a broader range of resources should be accepted at traders, and, if possible, current market value should have an effect on their value. Primarily, if meta components were profitable at higher volume, it could broaden the range of materials that players seek out. Also, since you can harvest components from default POIs, it could keep players entertained doing this for profit. At least it might if the Eleon multitool/turret nerf didn’t make this abysmally slow.
In the same regard, HV mining hurts this season due to the same nerf. HV mining is pivotal to new players being productive and successful. If this key element is less fun, then new players aren’t progressing, and eventually adding to the market economy.

Overall, I feel that players should have many paths to become ‘rich’ and there should be more ways for players to spend their riches and dump resources.

RexXxus already introduced a way to do this, with HWS Ingots, and it is indeed an expensive endeavor. If you want to use credits, you have to purchase alien containers for the RP to buy the ingots. Then it takes quite a lot of to get to this point.
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I think the HWS ingot is a great idea, but it’s price point at the moment is slightly unattainable, especially since there are so many things one can do with RP.

Sorry for the long post, and I apologize for my ADD if I went in random directions with it.

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HWS ingots are way too expensive. For example, you get more cash by simply turning the RP into cash at the end of the season, than you can save by turning all the RP into ingots and spending them on a “save $____ extra at the end of the season” package.

Inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. The reason there is inflation on HWS isn’t that there’s too much money, it’s that there are too few goods worth spending it on. Add things for rich players to spend money on after maxing OAM and OCD and voila! the inflation goes away instantly. Trying to address it by making it harder to make money will only punish newer players who haven’t gotten rich yet but are trying very hard to do so.

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I think the following idea could be a hit! And could be a good way to get rid of some of that inflation.

The idea is a Room-renting indestructible planet station or space station that has many rooms inside that acts as a hanger; big enough to fit one sv or hv. Rent could be collected daily, weekly, or monthly. Its up to Rexx. There could also be bigger hangers for cv’s that cost even more credits. This could also be part of a donation package that helps support the server.

To buy the hangers you got to put the commend in. Something like EGS:BuyHanger42 once you buy it the indestructible turrets on the station won’t fire at you.

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First of all, a big congratulation to @h1myname1sdav1d & massive THANK YOU for sacrificing your own play for the good of the community. We as player-base appreciate it massively.

Can’t give much for the performance topic, except

This is 100% true & even though people generally protest limitations, it’s for our own good.

Inflation, the excrement of Demon called Greed… :wink:
Sits heavy on my shoulds as well, whispering about dem gainz.
I believe to control inflation one has to create new resource sinks and limit the income accordingly in order to achieve balance.

Issue: There is no major resource sink apart from maybe garage ships (How many do you realistically need in a season?) between the cheaper upgrades (OAMs and Lower OCD levels) and between the end-game upgrades (OCD 7–>).
While OCD is amazing resource sink, many feel like the higher levels are unattainable and don’t even try. They end up mustering up major income for themselves (High EB levels, Control play on Golden Globe…), but instead of sparing the income & sinking it all into later OCD levels, they settle and decide to no push it at all. This puts them to very late game way before they should be. This is double bad. They have MAJOR income they need to spend in something, but the options for someone not pushing for OCD are … very limited at this point.

Solution: I bet someone of you think I’m suggesting OCD price reduction, but definitely not. Massive prices for OCD should remain the main resource sink for very late players. Instead, there has to be a new medium-expensive resource sink that costs several hundred millions to maximize. It should be expensive enough to force players saving for it, but cheap enough to make upgrading each level possible (for average mid-game player) within one season.

This should be permanent upgrade to make sure it’s a “must-have” for mid to late game players. While reseting with season does provide permanent resource-sink to some people, it also drives the same exact people away who we are targeting with the update. You want to push the very late game further & introduce a mind-set of big upgrades to “new-moneys”.

Maybe consider to also add something that resets, but can not be donated for or kept by donating, in order to introduce permanent resource sink. This can’t be the only solution, though, as seasonally resetting nature of upgrade drives away certain players → They won’t sink their credits in this. → Back to square one.

This is where the community has to step in. Please suggest lucrative but not directly profitable (or too overpowered) features that could be added in between the regular upgrades & high OCD levels.

Directly profitable = return of investment gained purely on the upgrade. EB would be example of something that can not be added!

OCD is good example of a good suggestion, as it does not give direct profit even though you can benefit from it financially. This would not only push the very end game further, but also show the players that it’s actually very viable to push for high OCDs. These two together will limit the inflation as players seek to spare the credits & sink them in features instead of buying every garage ship & being able to pay any price for items.

Now at this point, it’s important to also limit the income. The balance, however is very very tricky. It should be based on the goals. You want to give players realistic goal for each season to sink their credits to, but you don’t want them to have massive overflow which they have to sink in anything to spare it. I can’t pretend to know how to balance it so I’ll leave that to someone else :slight_smile: Cheers for the effort.

tl:dr introduce a new mid-level resource sink which can be either side-project for the already filthy rich or a way for “new moneys” to wrap their head around big spending projects. Don’t delete or change already attained property in a major way (Except maybe the massive income from EB, again this is balancing issue).

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Congratulations David! I am sure you are gonna make a fine admin:) A big thank you for your sacrifice!

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Bunkers. Similar to what Israel said, a kind of bunker esque station in a certain area or PVP hotspot to make it worthwhile.

The most success we’ve ever had at creating a massive money sink was with the Bunker system. Sure there was drama, but that could all be solved with a strict set of rules when it comes to using/attacking/defending bunkers so that people aren’t doing any of the goofy stuff they did before. The penalty for this would be the loss of their bunker, no refunds and no buybacks.

For those wondering just how successful the bunker sales were, check this out:

(Also make it clear that those bidding can only bid for version 1 and version 2 and can’t swap from version 1 to version 2 when version 1 is too expensive like RED/OPG did which seemed a little bit sneaky :slight_smile: ! Otherwise they can inflate the price of Bunker A and then switch over to Bunker B which is somewhat cheesing an auction.)

But all cheekyness aside, the total amount taken from the bunker sales was around 1 billion credits!

So it’s probably one of the most powerful money sinks ever created!

Just don’t let people edit or modify their bids halfway through or it causes chaos but you picked up on that in the last one and forced the other parties to play fair! It was good fun!

Best regards,
Wise.

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To be honest, 1b total per season for a feature is nothing these days.
Several members of U-T (And I’m sure not only U-T) could buy every single bunker out for 2-3 seasons in row alone. This would not help inflation as only the very late game players who are anyways going to spend their billions in upgrading OCDs could buy them.

It really has to be individual money sink aimed towards every mid to late game player. Eating away 1b simply makes no difference anymore. However, if 100 players all spend 250m … :slight_smile: You get the point

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I see where you’re coming from but by locking the big factions to only bidding for one bunker on one planet it opens up the floor to smaller less powerful factions that have significantly less financial capital but are still able to compete for the bunkers on the less central planets.

Furthermore, the beauty of bidding is that it’s relative to the inflation of the time. So back then 1bil was a lot of money. If what you’re saying today is true then another bunker sale would likely see us beat that previous record, which to me is a good thing.

More money>More Bidding>More money sink.

But I agree that there needs to be a way for individuals to compete. Maybe have like a single PVE planet in a PVP spot say Homeworld like Tattoine with mini-bunkers or pre-made bases that can be sold to players (or preferably bid for, say about 20 of these bases that would be perfect to store things such as raider SVs and just a general convenience).

Best regards
Wise.

EDIT: Another thing I’d do is to have bidding take place at the beginning of a NEW season instead of at the end of an old one where everyone has all of their interest overflowing.

With a new season that money is more likely to be actual capital and will have to be earnt back through both interest and mining, encouraging the bunker owners to remain active.

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Good point. I overlooked the fact that prices of those bunkers would also inflate accordingly.
We need several different money sinks including but not exclusively to individual upgrades. Why wouldn’t one of them be bunker :+1:

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Yeah Bunkers are great, it’s just the drama that’s an issue. People always whine against those either attacking a bunker or at those who own the bunker.

This is why locking the alliances to only bidding for ONE bunker type is really important.

For example U-T and RED both bet on GG Bunker V1 then they CAN’T vote for any of the other bunkers (including GG Bunker V2) this way it allows other alliances/factions to bet for GG Bunker V2.

OR they could avoid bidding against eachother in the hope of spending less:

U-T Bids for GG Bunker V1
RED Bids for GG Bunker V2

So now they’re both ‘locked’ in to that bunker version, and if they get outbid then tough luck. But most alliances I know wouldn’t want to do it that way as they’d be allowing their direct competitor an invincible base.

They would instead to prefer to outbid them in a ‘cold war’ using their superior finances like so:

RED and U-T Bidding for GG Bunker V1 to ensure the other one doesn’t get it! Now THAT could use up a lot of money :slight_smile:

Please let me know if this is confusing, it’s a little bit of a ramble but I hope you folks get my general point.

Best regards
Wise.

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Clear & well worded :+1:
I can see all the drama & rage-quits though after a smaller faction spends a major amount of their credits & just ends up getting camped by the controlling faction.

This would for sure eat quite a ton of credits from the big ones :grimacing:

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Ahh thank goodness ahha! I was worried I was rambling! :smiley:

Yes that is indeed a risk, although in my experience it was primarily the big factions issuing complaints as things were exploding inside the bunkers. With people shooting through and so on. Perhaps a bunker could truly be made invincible through the use of a shield now?

Mwahaha that’s the plan! And to have the bidding at the beginning of a NEW season it’ll be proper money and not just interest saved up from the last season! :slight_smile:

Best regards
Wise.

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This would massively limit the amount of credits removed though. The game already limits the start-of-season funds very effectively with the wiping system & limited credit transfer. However, these credits are not really lost.
It’s rare that credits are directly lost in wipes, instead they are stored in other forms such as gold where they don’t really lose value.

I’d personally prefer seeing the bidding made before the credits are stored away for safe-keeping where they’ll just re-surface in the middle of next season. More credits overall would be spent this way in the bunkers I believe :thinking:

Edit: The end goal is to delete as many credits as possible overall, anyways. Not just limit the funds available beginning of season further.

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This is an interesting point, but as you say they store it in other forms. If we want to fight true inflation then we need to be able to effectively target the stored wealth, not just the easily gained and easily spent interest wealth.

You’re right that this means there may be ‘less’ spent overall on the bunkers but it would actually be real wealth and this would be more meaningful than wiping out interest which is more of a symptom than a cause.

But either way you do make a valid point here and it’s certainly worth consideration! It’d certainly make the big factions think twice about bidding such ludicrous amounts of money! Especially problematic is the stored interest wealth through gold ingots that can be re-activated.

Another interesting point, but I’d argue that it’d at least be a good kind of disruption having an early season bunker auction as it encourages people to ‘activate’ this stored wealth, and spend it earlier than they necessarily would.

Nonetheless you’ve given me lots to think about, especially the really important consideration of how many people transmute their interest into gold at the end of a season…interesting to consider! I’ll have to think on it some more!

Best regards and good discussion and points! This is how great ideas come into being, with a good discussion of different views! :slight_smile:
Wise.

EDIT: One good thing about targeting this interest turned gold is that normally there’s a HUUUGE inflation in gold prices at the end of the season. So in reality most people are bringing only between 50% and 75% of their interest wealth across due to higher gold ingot prices (300cr per ingot or more when it’s near the end of a season). Therefore with a bunker sale AFTER a new season you’re targeting this already diminished wealth, instead of people simply keeping ALL (100%) of their wealth for bunker auctions.

I hope this sort of makes sense. Basically by storing their interested the’ve almost sort of “taxed” themselves due to end of season Gold price inflation. Therefore by having an auction at the beginning of the next season we’re reducing their wealth further.

Whereas if we had a bunker auction before the end of the last season then people wouldn’t turn their interest into gold, they would simply keep it for the bunker auction. :slight_smile:

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But this is also why I believe people would spend way less credits in after-reset bunker sales. They would be very reluctant liquidating gold bought at 400 each at 250 right after season reset.

Maybe I’m wrong & people would do this. In that case it would be perfectly targeted & would also remove gold from the game. However, I’d personally never “eat” gold at 250 I bought at 400, so I’d just end up bidding way less.

I believe this would also limits the inflation based bunker price increase, as credits are at their scarcest in the beginning.

Edit: I do appreciate your reasoning though. You might be right just as well as me :+1:
I’m in no way implying I’d be the one correct about this. As you said

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Yes this is a really good point! I’m not sure either! There’s only one way to find out! May the BUUUNKER AUUUUCTION COMMENCE!

Me at the auction

On top my next point:

On a seperate note how about we make something like skill points purchaseable with in game credits.

Rexxus do you remember our skill point discussion ideas? (Skill-Tree suggestion for 9.0) [I’m shamelessly resurrecting this old thread as I think it could be relevant to our discussion :slight_smile: ].

@Rex You remember the bit where we said that some people wouldn’t have enough skill points because it’d take about 75 days to max out the tree, how about we also made them earnable with money? Sort of a mid level and ultimately temporary cash sink (as the skill tree could reset every season or not, I’m open to ideas on that.)

@Fallen_Angel Also check the above idea, it’s a super old suggestion and could do with some modernisation from those who actually play Empyrion so if you or anyone else wants to take a look at skill tree suggestions fire away! I think that could be a really good way of soaking up funds if done correctly. Whilst also providing financial incentives as my old suggestion does. Let me know what you think, i’d love to hear your opinion on it my friend! :slight_smile:
Best regards
Wise.

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I remember the topic & I loved the idea back then.

However, if you’d spend credits in order to buy skill points, which would go towards earning discounts… :thinking: Sounds like a short-term, temporary solution that moves spending the credits from season end to slightly earlier part of the season. Sure, it’s a benefit in itself already by limiting the available funds throughout season, instead of just cutting out the “easy interests” at the end.

I think the main point should be abundance of skills to be gained. Therefore the more money you sink in the skillpoints, the more skills you get earlier. And ideally you should not be able to earn all the skills without spending big chunk of credits just by waiting.

Also, I think most of the skills should not be “discount” skills as those mainly just shift the credit spending to earlier time as I mentioned in first paragraph (Again, my thoughts only. I don’t pretend to know these things for a fact :stuck_out_tongue:)
Rather they would be cheap “vanity” skills and/or higher valued boosts to all kinds of game-play improvements (I’ve no idea what can actually be boosted with config :grin: Jascha help pls)

Overall another great suggestion :+1: Just needs a lot of thought & discussion, but that’s what this community is for!

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Absolutely! Like I said, feel free to take that idea and roll with it. Perhaps you and some other people and if you want me then me too can come up with a comprehensive skill tree suggestion for Rexxus? :slight_smile:

It’s been great chatting with you Fallen and amazing sharing so many ideas and points! I hope everyone interested in the topic gives our posts a good read!

I’ve got to head off for now but I’ll be back later. Take care and Thanks for the great discussion! :slight_smile:
Best regards
Wise. :smiley:

Cheers!

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Totally agreed :slight_smile: Loved the discussion overall and throwing around ideas. I do sincerely hope as many members of the community as possible will join the discussion & properly read/think about the subject!

I will definitely give more thought to subject & the skill trees. Maybe @Jascha could provide some short list of possible, individual boosts do-able with the config?

Same to you friend! Already waiting to hear everyone’s thoughts about this.

Would also like to point this out to the community. The idea-pool should not be limited only to what has been said so far! Be creative, there is no such thing as a bad idea when we’re just tossing around suggestions. The discussion that follows, technical limitations & admins will surely cut out the non working ones :slight_smile:

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I think this discussion deserves an award. It’s fun to read such a creative contribution and to learn which topics move the community.

Especially if there are thoughts of players who would be directly affected by possible changes.

Thanks for that.

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