DISCLAIMER: I can’t speak for the entire game, all planets, and all professions; I can only speak for the areas of the game economy in which I actually participate. But here’s my feedback and comments on what I am seeing lately:
I get that things change over time, new items are created and released and that demand for the older items can drop significantly or even disappear, that’s totally normal. However I think it’s important to consider how this will impact the game’s economy for items over the long term and adjust things accordingly.
ARMORS:
For armors, MindArk has released so many new armors over the last few years that my head is literally spinning at this point. It’s fine, I can adjust and live with it, but have they really fully considered what will happen if they don’t make some adjustments to existing drop rates? Right now we are getting to the point where some people are beginning to recycle once great and very useful armors like Martial, Hermes, Spartacus, … Even some uber female armor parts like Supremacy and Sentinel have become unsellable at low markups like 102-103%… Have we considered how this will affect all armor markets?
MA has released how many new UL armors lately? Lets see if I can name them all:
- Gorgon upgrade chain (6 total)
- DSEC (6 total)
- Imperium upgrade chain (7 total)
- Spina
- Chronos
- Hyperion (6 total)
- New chain on Arkadia I think?
- Chain on Toulan?
did I miss any?
All these chains require that hunters turnover tons of ped to acquire and upgrade the parts. The turnover has an inherent loss typically in the 2-7% range. Most hunters are not dumb and can do the math on these things. I’m just wondering, if people can buy very nice mid-level armors (though limited) like Martial, Hermes, Sparta for basically 101-104%, and now even really good armors like Eon, Angel, Supremacy below 110%, then why spend all that money to do the planet armor chains?
ARMORS PLATES:
Then we have the situation with the AP-66 plates. I get that MindArk wants to have demand for the new Aris limited armors: Venaris, Zaparis and Ignaris, which all offer a high, 75 point of protection in one particular damage type, so they quite obviously nerfed the drop rate of AP-66 blueprints (they actually nerfed all AP plate blueprint drop rates). The result, I and others have now effectively run out of AP-66 Acid, Electric, Impact, Cut and Burn plates and blueprints. I must have put 100k ped through gizmos over the last 12 months and got diddly squat back for it (got umbranite and reaper BPs, but those armors don’t sell, it’s the plates that people want).
So in order to prop up the demand for Zaparis, Venaris and Ignaris armor, MA destroyed the market for AP-60 and AP-66 armor plates? It’s totally broken now; can’t get the prints, can’t make any more plates, done… And now we have Summer Mayhem and Migration coming, which is all about Impact and Impact/Stab, but we won’t be able to supply hunters with plates for this? Even though the Impact and Stab plates don’t compete with the Aris armors? Why?
And if it’s true that the drop rate of AP plate BPs was nerfed to artificially prop up the demand for the new Aris crafted armors, why didn’t MA also nerf the drop rate of Thunderbird (L) armor parts? It still drops the same as before, the parts go for like 101-107% on auction quite routinely, and yet it does compete with Zaparis armor to some extent…
You (MA) shouldn’t have completely wiped out the AP plate market. You could have significantly nerfed T-Bird drop rates to raise it’s value, to make it more sensible to have a Zap that costs around 190%. And in the same line of thinking, you could/should have nerfed Eon and Hermes drop rates to also make an Ignaris armor costing ~200% make more sense too. Now instead of that, we have availability of AP-66 plates destroyed, Aris armors that cost around 200% to make/buy, contrasted with somewhat comparable looted armors (albeit ~50% weaker) that cost almost nothing, like 101 to 110%… Makes no sense…
GUNS:
Again, I get that MindArk released new craftable limited guns also when they launched Aris, and that they want to make sure there’s demand for these new guns. Obviously, they also nerfed the drop rates of ArMatrix blueprints; have you seen the markup on an LR-50 (L) lately? The reason that the markup for LR-45/50/55/60/65 & 70 is so high is because it has become extremely difficult to get the BPs for them at the crafting machine now and for the last 12 months or so.
Yes it’s hard to get players to change their habits. It’s really hard to get people who have been using ArMatrix for years to switch and now buy that orange gun instead; they’re not familiar with it, they don’t know what to expect, most have lagging plasma skills so have to drop down a few notches, it’s painful.
But, here’s what’s been accomplished: in order to artificially generate a demand for an orange colored gun, which requires Aris loot and resources to make instead of Caly loot and resources, we have effectively doubled the markup on all the most in-demand ArMatrix guns. In the end it’s the ArMatrix user who pays the bill, doesn’t really make much difference to me. I just don’t think it’s a sensible way to generate demand for Aris loot because it makes hunting and Mayhems more expensive for everyone and I think hunting is expensive enough already.
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TLDR:
MA destroyed ArMatrix and AP plate markets to prop up Aris loot demand. It was poorly done too, for example they nerfed all AP plate blueprint drop rates but didn’t nerf Eon, Hermes and T-bird armor drop rates, which do somewhat compete with the new Aris armors… And the Impact plates do NOT compete with those Aris armors so why destroy that market? Also, nerfing the drop rates of ArMatrix blueprints has resulted in making these guns a lot more expensive for everyone (example, look at current markup of LR-50). So does that really benefit anyone other than maybe Aris owners?
But anyway, now that we are here, my suggestions would be:
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Now that ArMatrix guns and AP plates are much more expensive, increase rates of mats dropping on Aris to reduce prices for them. This will make crafted Aris items such as guns and armors cheaper and increase the demand for them. Demand is best created by making things cheap at first, and slowly and gradually raising prices in line to where they should be, based on perceived value (extrapolated by comparing with other items available on the market). If prices for Hyperion guns drops low enough, lots of people will make the switch. Right now, both guns are expensive (LR and PR), which is not good for a majority of playerbase.
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If possible, selectively adjust drop rates of AP plate BPs so as to restore the ones that should not have been affected by Aris launch. If not possible, gradually restore AP plate blueprint drop rates over the next 3-6 months, not all at once.
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Gradually restore ArMatrix blueprint drop rates over several months, not all at once.
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Significantly nerf drop rates of competing LOOTED armors such as T-Bird, Eon, Hermes, and any others that could displace Aris crafted armor demand. Don’t drop Infiltrator Reworked armor again this summer as this displaces Ignaris demand.