That weird Donkey Crew logic...

[Zothen]

The reason we went for the schematic system was to allow us to limit the speed at which large clans (or zergs, if you will) manage to get a permanent advantage over later smaller groups. While they will of course always be faster due to numbers, they used to be exponentially faster due to the tablet system.

https://steamcommunity.com/games/903950/announcements/detail/3365896692464992065

So, by Donkey-logic making stuff harder to obtain makes large clans slower.... and the effect does not apply to smaller groups?

Tablet where a problem, because zergs got a huge advantage. Now zergs can simply throw their beatstick-manpower at larger rupu villages and skip large parts of the newbie/solo/small clan progression. Outright skip.

Guys seriously, wth is this going so wrong with development? Im just so shocked and/or awestruck by the sheer lack of understanding by the developers of how game mechanics fundamentally work...?! ... or simple multiplication, in such cases...

How more weird can it get?

[E=d.u²]

They just needed to lock tablets to the character... what they will probably ending up doing with the schematics...

[Zothen]

Yes, ok - "just"! But thats the point, isnt it?
They DONT do any "just do this" to engooden the game. They stumble and fail over and over again. The past 2years could make up for a good slapstick show with lots of "told you so"? Its like a kid that touches the hot plate after being burnt again and again..
I just cant wrangle my head around how that development team actually works.

[E=d.u²]

Originally posted by Zothen:

Yes, ok - "just"! But thats the point, isnt it?
They DONT do any "just do this" to engooden the game. They stumble and fail over and over again. The past 2years could make up for a good slapstick show with lots of "told you so"? Its like a kid that touches the hot plate after being burnt again and again..
I just cant wrangle my head around how that development team actually works.

I don't understand either how they managed to kill a game which had thousands of people willing to play. And even today we are here mourning what it could have been with just a few adjustments.

Damn, even this new PvE activities would bring a lot of players back to the original game. You are right, it's one bad decision after another. They went from "we want to renew the survival niche" to "let's do everything everyone else is doing".

[chadzTheDonkey]

let's assume for the sake of argument that a specific walker costs 10000 fragments to unlock in the old system, and 5 schematics (for body and upgrades) in the new system.

- a group of 5 people and a group of 100 people consider it necessary to get that walker as fast as possible
- this particular walker is ideally manned with 5 people
- therefore the group of 5 needs one walker, the group of 100 needs 20 walkers
- there's a 50% drop chance for 1 fragment/1 schematic in a specific camp

old system (one time unlock):
5 players * 4000 camps * 50% = 10k fragments for 1 walkers
100 players * 200 camps * 50% = 10k fragments for 20 walkers

so a zerg can have 1 walker per 5 people 20 times faster than the small group.
or, to phrase it differently, every player of the small group has to farm 4000 camps to achieve the required walkers, every player of the zerg has to farm 200 camps.

now let's check the new system:
5 players * 2 camps * 50% = 5 schematics for 1 walker
100 players * 2 camps * 50% = 100 schematics for 20 walkers

the player in the zerg and the player in the small group have to do the same effor to achieve a "1 walker to 5 player" ratio.

I know both of you won't trust my opinion, but feel free to verify the math

[Unit]

dear developer!
No one ever asked for more difficult crafting for the Zerg. You've been asked to offset the Zerg's advantage in PvP. You were asked to introduce strict restrictions on the number of clan players on the maps. ALL!
You just cut out half the content and forced the players to farm rupa! For what?
I played in all seasons, 1800 hours.
But now I just don't understand what to play for.
Schemes are ♥♥♥♥. The new quality system is epic ♥♥♥♥.

[E=d.u²]

Originally posted by chadzTheDonkey:

I know both of you won't trust my opinion, but feel free to verify the math

Chadz, you didn't needed any of it to stop zergs. If you look at it with attention, it doesn't tbh: they still have 20 walkers against 1. They still have 100 people vs 5. If they aren't PvP players, they will still cry rivers because they lost to a bigger group. You know they will cry even if they lose it for a Poring!

If stopping zergs was the reason for killing all hopes for your game; if stopping "griefing" was the reason to try to gather a completely new fanbase, you just needed to make it doesn't worth hunt low-level players. Make it costly to run a big clan to the point if they wasted time hunting low rewards, they would condemn the clan itself. I see you tried this approach making it costly to build and maintain a walker, but as your own math shows, it's clostly for everybody.

In fact you had a great system already, with the idea of clans owning a territory and defending the people in it. You could have expanded it, adjusted, listened to the playerbase about what to do with that amazing feature. The players driven economy was to be the center of it (and it's possible see that was your intention), but at some point you just lost focus...

You could have installed an aggressive decay system for big clans assets or something like that.

In the two days beta I defended the schematics system, because it isn't bad imo, but everything behind it is just... terrible.

[RhatTv]

Originally posted by chadzTheDonkey:

let's assume for the sake of argument that a specific walker costs 10000 fragments to unlock in the old system, and 5 schematics (for body and upgrades) in the new system.

- a group of 5 people and a group of 100 people consider it necessary to get that walker as fast as possible
- this particular walker is ideally manned with 5 people
- therefore the group of 5 needs one walker, the group of 100 needs 20 walkers
- there's a 50% drop chance for 1 fragment/1 schematic in a specific camp

old system (one time unlock):
5 players * 4000 camps * 50% = 10k fragments for 1 walkers
100 players * 200 camps * 50% = 10k fragments for 20 walkers

so a zerg can have 1 walker per 5 people 20 times faster than the small group.
or, to phrase it differently, every player of the small group has to farm 4000 camps to achieve the required walkers, every player of the zerg has to farm 200 camps.

now let's check the new system:
5 players * 2 camps * 50% = 5 schematics for 1 walker
100 players * 2 camps * 50% = 100 schematics for 20 walkers

the player in the zerg and the player in the small group have to do the same effor to achieve a "1 walker to 5 player" ratio.

I know both of you won't trust my opinion, but feel free to verify the math

How about instead of spamm of schematics that is god aweful for solos / small groups and also aweful for large groups why not a basic fragment with all grades needed for crafting say you wanted to craft a legendary weapon you would need the mat + 10 legendary fragments / vice versa and ammo / bandages being no fragments

[Zothen]

Originally posted by chadzTheDonkey:

I know both of you won't trust my opinion, but feel free to verify the math

Sorry Sir, but quite the opposite! For me, I HIGHLY appreciate your input here! Its also a kind of transparency I was (personally) missing during the past 2 years. And yes, a dev team can talk to 100k+ customers - I can understand that.
Its midnight here, so I need a bit of time to think about your statement.

Just one quick drop:

Originally posted by chadzTheDonkey:

the player in the zerg and the player in the small group have to do the same effor to achieve a "1 walker to 5 player" ratio.

Eh, no! The "zerg" can just warm over the camps like locust. A VERY significant difference. Small teams cant compete with that, so your math doesnt work out ingame.
Before: Gathering frags in the desert was a brain-dead no-brainer and time-waster.

[Feynt]

Originally posted by chadzTheDonkey:

now let's check the new system:
5 players * 2 camps * 50% = 5 schematics for 1 walker
100 players * 2 camps * 50% = 100 schematics for 20 walkers

the player in the zerg and the player in the small group have to do the same effor to achieve a "1 walker to 5 player" ratio.

I know both of you won't trust my opinion, but feel free to verify the math

I agree with the math, but not the methodology.

100 players can descend on a camp of 3-20 rupu and come out unscathed. Taking my own solo fighting into consideration, it takes 3-4 attacks to fell a forerunner. That means 5 people need to surround one rupu to kill it quickly. If there are camps of 20 rupu (that don't have walkers and fight on foot) then a group of 100 players will just need to hit a rupu once each to overkill them. Meanwhile, a group of 5 players can swarm one rupu and risks taking hits from the others, or take on 4 each (somehow) at a significant increase in the potential of death in the same scenario.

It's not a bad idea in theory, and I agree it is more fair than the previous system by the raw numbers. But you have to take into account player populations and tactics at those numbers. Raw "x > y" is not enough of a consideration. I cannot though think of a better system at this time, and honestly I'm fine with it as it is right now, except that I can't permanently unlock the schematics to make a firefly (and presumably other walkers as well). IF I was engaging in PvP, having to go hunt down more schematics to replace my walker that I lost would be a serious penalty for loss, especially when PvP can be so one sided in a 5 vs 100 scenario.

[space witch]

This entire discussion is kind of highlighting why big groups will always break the game. The devs have to make this Rube Goldberg machine of mechanics and completely rearrange the fundamentals of the game to try and balance what can't ever be balanced.

[CHR3S]

Yeah, you should've kept the old stuff and improved that instead of using the precious development time to re-release the game. Maybe temporary switch the person who is making these design choices and see if the other can do it better? Because all of the mechanics you have introduced to help the solo/small groups were more in favor to the bigger groups.

[Hausser]

Originally posted by chadzTheDonkey:

let's assume for the sake of argument that a specific walker costs 10000 fragments to unlock in the old system, and 5 schematics (for body and upgrades) in the new system.

- a group of 5 people and a group of 100 people consider it necessary to get that walker as fast as possible
- this particular walker is ideally manned with 5 people
- therefore the group of 5 needs one walker, the group of 100 needs 20 walkers
- there's a 50% drop chance for 1 fragment/1 schematic in a specific camp

old system (one time unlock):
5 players * 4000 camps * 50% = 10k fragments for 1 walkers
100 players * 200 camps * 50% = 10k fragments for 20 walkers

so a zerg can have 1 walker per 5 people 20 times faster than the small group.
or, to phrase it differently, every player of the small group has to farm 4000 camps to achieve the required walkers, every player of the zerg has to farm 200 camps.

now let's check the new system:
5 players * 2 camps * 50% = 5 schematics for 1 walker
100 players * 2 camps * 50% = 100 schematics for 20 walkers

the player in the zerg and the player in the small group have to do the same effor to achieve a "1 walker to 5 player" ratio.

I know both of you won't trust my opinion, but feel free to verify the math

Theres still a flaw in that logic - the 100 players have found the BPs they needed after 10 minutes and can do something else, while the 5 ppl struggle with RNG and camp weapon towers for hours. Imho, the gap in progression speed just widend massively.

[Roshan Crass]

Any game that allows big groups playing with other non-big-groups will be a failure. It's a cool idea on paper but it has driven many games to the ground trying to cater to that dream, Last Oasis included. It's why I stopped playing at release.

[Zothen]

Originally posted by Crass:

Any game that allows big groups playing with other non-big-groups will be a failure.

So, Planetside 2? You see how simple your logic fails too...

The difference is that small and large groups in Planetside are embedded in one of the 3 factions. Could be a solution here.

[Zalzany]

Originally posted by chadzTheDonkey:

let's assume for the sake of argument that a specific walker costs 10000 fragments to unlock in the old system, and 5 schematics (for body and upgrades) in the new system.

- a group of 5 people and a group of 100 people consider it necessary to get that walker as fast as possible
- this particular walker is ideally manned with 5 people
- therefore the group of 5 needs one walker, the group of 100 needs 20 walkers
- there's a 50% drop chance for 1 fragment/1 schematic in a specific camp

old system (one time unlock):
5 players * 4000 camps * 50% = 10k fragments for 1 walkers
100 players * 200 camps * 50% = 10k fragments for 20 walkers

so a zerg can have 1 walker per 5 people 20 times faster than the small group.
or, to phrase it differently, every player of the small group has to farm 4000 camps to achieve the required walkers, every player of the zerg has to farm 200 camps.

now let's check the new system:
5 players * 2 camps * 50% = 5 schematics for 1 walker
100 players * 2 camps * 50% = 100 schematics for 20 walkers

the player in the zerg and the player in the small group have to do the same effor to achieve a "1 walker to 5 player" ratio.

I know both of you won't trust my opinion, but feel free to verify the math

Yeah, this "helps" but its like going "Well some of you were bad so I will punish everyone!" But like every oen else said we been asking since day one to do limits on clan sizes and enforce it. Instead its always "Well were gonna punish every player isntead." I mean before it was "Were gonna increase water usage, and how had it is to get!" Its like ok that isn't really changing them at all just adds a touch of grind now its "well 100 people can farm 5 zones in split up 5 man groups and get it like one hour slower, but dosn't matter if its 20 hours slower once they got 20 walkers zerging into a zone they kind of own anyways.

This is like "well we got 200 good ones, and 100 bad ones, so every one shall be punished!" Its like can we just break up and punish the worst of the bad kids? "No that is hard, were gonna instead punish every one till the bad ones rage quit, also this forces more people to group up from the annoying were making as it really is faster in groups!"