some suggestions

[AliceinWonderland]

this will be a long post with several different points (since i dont have much hope of MA reading this or let alone thinking about it, as they ignored my posts usually anyway, even the one i asked them directly, it wont matter much though - but hey, you gotta try )
usually with introduction and possible effects
i will be blunt but will try to stay polite

suggestion #1
remove clothes decay and lower max clothes tt of any clothes item to 10 ped, rather lower

reason 1:
the update when the clothing decay came, additionally to the update that forced people to repair their clothes to full tt made especially this:
ppl sold their clothes and bought less
essentially this killed the tailoring profession off a good bit
this caused the usual hunting loot like leathers, molisk tooth, etc. which were mostly used in tailoring to go to hell markup wise basically

removing the (ridiculous) clothes decay, which got implemented to reduce lag (yeah, right) and lowering the tt could improve those professions mentioned above
additionally to that the colorer and texturer professions may actually get some more customers too, which wouldnt hurt
ofc the people should get the peds that are stuck on the clothes now (which was the actual reason for this) on their pedcards

edit
while you are at it:
get rid of the annoying "foot guards take shoes off" thing
in the past helmets didnt take shades and even hats off
all of a sudden, coincidentially at the same time the equip fee appears, they do
along with the new foot guards taking your shoes off


reason 2:
lowering the clothes decay would have another intersting sideeffect
if you look towards todays MMORPGs there are usually two main forms, "monthly subscription" and "free to play"
now the free to play ones, which EU is still advertised with i guess, or at least pops up when you search for those, usually make money with micro transactions
let it be a cap, a shirt, or whatever, for a bit of money, say 20 cents, 1 dollar

since clothing in EU is basically a luxury item, this could increase the actual buyers, thus creating more ped turnover of the, lets say, normal MMORPG customers

call it old fashioned, but having like 500 ped or 50$ stuck in virtual clothes may not be useful anymore nowadays
as i said, many people sold their clothes rather than repairing them

suggestion #2
make limited melee weapons repairable for 6 times

reason #1
melee is currently in a hilariously bad shape, actually it has been since limited items appeared and the situation didnt get better
dropping more L swords doesnt adress the actual problems

which is, melee doesnt use ammunition
yes, its indeed a very simple to get reason, just the implications arent thought through

that makes an Apis rifle for example last 6658 shots, a comparable tesla sword L on the other hand just lasts 970 uses
to make it easier, lets say 6000 uses compared to 1000

that means, just to drop a similar amount of usable tt, you would have to drop 6 times (!) the swords compared to guns (i know one is lootable the other is crafted, but i come to the crafted swords part, just stay patient)

guns have this prolonged usage because they use ammo which is bought for tt price at the tt
effectively this means that the limited guns ARE repairable in a way, while the blades dont have this advantage
being able to repair them, or prolong their use, for tt price, like the guns, would be fair

the issue currently is that, because sowrds just have decay
is that a 110% markup for a L item, which isnt that high of you look towards guns, compares to a 200% or so gun
plus you need to buy 6 times more
swords are just eco til around 106%, but for 106% many people wont bother listing them at auction, let alone crafting them with often enough high priced resources isn't happening too often
even funnier is that no craftable sword used (still?) the cheap animal oil residue
which would even allow the crafters to lower the cost minimally
but instead, just the more expensive enmatter residue can be used
(funny enough, for the pretty eco p4a, or was it 5a, animal residue can be used, a gun, on which the markup doesnt matter much)

suggestion #3
create a "low cost" island
maybe just for some months to see how it goes
but basically the idea is this

decay/ammo/cost generally and of course the loots are divided by 10
you get a global with 5 ped for example

that could allow people to stretch their money waaay longer and especially allow newbies to actually do something without sweating 5 hours and then shooting it all in 30 min and quitting right away

and the "then they have to deposit!" answer is nonsense, they just play other games where they dont have to (see micro transactions)

suggestion #4
get rid of the funky free stuff at newbie start zones the way it is
technically thats more a planet topic, but i adress it generally as well

calypso being the example for now
there are TONS of multiple avatars generated
it is nice that you have millions over millions of accounts, but seriously, those are mostly alts
and that free stuff encourages it
calypso example would be the valkyrie, which can be sold for around 4 ped if im not mistaken

now do the maths, would you rather sweat 5 hours for around 4 ped, without the selling time included, or create a new avatar, farm the stuff and get the 4 ped in like 30 min
if you tt the other stuff you could afford the auction fee maybe

no, calypso isnt the only generator of alts, but its one of the more obvious ones, since the stuff is tradable

so making it untradeable would help that already, but its just one option
so the suggestion is, think it through
(oh, i know that its techincally a good thing for MA if people auction the free valks, cause then people deposit for buying them in the end, its basically the same as sweating from the MA point of view, but maybe the actual players think a bit differently there)
and no, i wont go and check for second avas and write support cases, cause they get ignored
been there, done that (with this very topic+proof)

thats it for now
hf

[maddocks2379]

Hi, looking at your suggestions i thought i'd give my personnal opinion on this

1/ i do agree, the prices of clothes are really high (probably down to cost of materials) and have opted to run in my pants when using no armour. but removing decay would mean no need to replace, so maybe make all clothes (L) or only repairable by tailors (like vehicles)

2/ don't use melee, so can't really comment

3/ Ok idea, but it would need all skills reducing to match, all kills/finds not counting towards missions. doubt we'll see it but it could maybe work

4/ i disagree here, i know it can be exploted but giving a newbie a vehicle and a medikit or something lets the new players feel a part of the world lets them experience more sooner, meaning they might be more likely to stay. untradable may work

[KlowN]

Only really want ot comment on point 1 (clothing). Nice idea, I like it...as long as we are refunded in ped the amount they took away. (Make my 200ped TT piece of clothing 10 ped TT, you better give me my 190 ped back)

As for Maddocks idea to make clothes (L)...@$%& NO
I didn't pay a TON of ped for my rare clothes to have them turned (L). If this happens I will take the loss and sell out in a heartbeat. (And come after the people that came up with this idea...)

[maddocks2379]

yea sry i didn't think that through very well lol, maybe have some cheaper (L) ones like the weapons have

[AliceinWonderland]

currently there is no need to replace the clothes already either

the only set of L clothes, which was very likely the reason to implement the decay in the first place, comes from RT, the arctic stuff (which didnt even have a L in the name to make it more sneaky, dunno if there is one now)


considering the current clothes arent L however, i dont see much use in having them at such high tt and decay

the high tt makes ppl buy less clothes the decay change them even less
neither encourages the tailoring+coloring+texturiing industry, nor the follow up resource suppliers, which is basically hunting

and considering that the unlimited versions of L weapons have a bonus, the SIB, i dont see a reason to add a benefit of owning "unlimited" clothes, with them not decaying

so having L clothes with say a pec decay and say 10 ped tt, giving them ~1000 changes and keeping the look regardless of the tt (unlike repairable ones), why not
although i dont see it to be too successful or encouraging either

problem is that people tend to get a couple of outfits, which are partially hard to get
in my case its ambulimax clothes for example
having to replace them all the time would be a bitch

i would consider buying some more clothes (back), if the tt would be way lower
just my ambu master coat has 130 ped tt, fully repaired
i could buy 12 more pieces if the tt for clothes was 10 ped max easily, even 13 ped max tt wouldnt be too bad
but this way? i got one set and am done with it (even considering selling some)


ah besides (gotta add this to first post too)
get rid of the annoying "foot guards take shoes off" thing
in the past helmets didnt take shades and even hats off
all of a sudden, coincidentially at the same time the equip fee appears, they do
along with the new foot guards taking your shoes off

[OZtwo]

Originally Posted by maddocks2379

4/ i disagree here, i know it can be exploted but giving a newbie a vehicle and a medikit or something lets the new players feel a part of the world lets them experience more sooner, meaning they might be more likely to stay. untradable may work

True we need something to get the new user started in hopes to stay. The question is also is there a bug in these items in that they are salable and should be marked as unsalable?

[AliceinWonderland]

Originally Posted by OZtwo

True we need something to get the new user started in hopes to stay. The question is also is there a bug in these items in that they are salable and should be marked as unsalable?

if you look at the whole newbie situation anything free will he exploited to a certain extent

when there was a sweat cap, people created multiple avas to keep sweating (prolly the main reason why it was lifted, cause the cap didnt work really well)

the mentoring was abused by, lets call it newbie farmers who were after gifts
to a certain extent that helped, if the farmers actually helped the ppl, but many of those didnt, the main goal was to get the stuff

now giving newbies free stuff isnt bad generally, arkadia for example has the stuff untradeable and i think everything is limited
so you can use it, shortly (or pretty damn long in terms of the pod), but you wont sell it

if you are after multiple avas its usually about getting the peds from your alt to the main avatar
now a plain item trade wont work, selling the item and trading the peds wont work either
leaving mostly the "use the guns/ammo up and trade the loots"
that makes it at least harder and more complicated
in the end, even untradeable items wont solve the problems, as there is a way around it

hence the suggestion about the island with the 1/10 decay, loot, etc.

a ped from sweating which took you hours to get maybe, would last a whole lot longer there
without altering too much and generate problems
with the puny mobs the attempt is there, although it doesnt go far enough imo

having very low tt items with low damage in the tt would help a lot, like the kiwio
making things affordable tends to increase the people who buy it

it is definitely a hot topic, but if you want actual figures
during the adviser program we did a little test for 2-3 hours
we found 12 obvious alts (certain run pattern, same log off places; like 4 logged off at the same(!) rock after grabbing the free stuff)

it won't hurt the game too much properly, but i dont think its the way it should be
pretty hard to handle topic tho