Q&A (Jan 07, Q:s)

[Marco|MindArk]

Hello,

A very hectic January is almost over, with me and my associated traveling around the world most of the time. One lesson learned is that Entropiaforum.com is not reached from within Mainland China, probably because the disrupted main cable between Mainland and Taiwan, so I have been out of the loop the last ten days or so.

Anyway, it is time for a new Q&A. This time, oh, I imagine this will be a hot one, as your Q:s are to be addressed to the MindArk Balancing Manager, Magnus. He is also the project coordinator of Entropia and supervises every release. So, as usual, one question per person and please make sure your question revolves about Magnus' responsibilities. Some questions obviously can't be answered ("please give me all loot algorithims") so try to refrain from entering such questions as they are a waste of your time and ours. ,-)

With that said, let those Q's fly. I gather the thread will be open for a couple of weeks then a few more weeks for replies and then publication here. Thank you.

[soundboy]

Are rare items expensive because they are rare or have they become rare drops because of inflation?

soundboy

[Lykke]

I was told by guard04 that there is a reason for the Friendlist to be limited.

Even though the number on the list has been increased, it is still not enough if you want your soc members, friends, pilots and other "business"-connections on your friendlist.

What reason is it you have for keeping the list limited as it is now? Would it not be possible to have 200 or 300 friends instead of 80 (or how much it is now)?

Lykke


Hmm this might not have anything to do with ballancing ... BUT STILL IMPORTANT .. ballancing in the Friend list between friends, soc members and other people ... DOH!

[safara]

Are item drops (number of items ingame) related to the amount of accounts (Avatars) playing the game? EG: 1 Shadow harness per 25000 accounts and 1 Shogun harness per 500 accounts.

And if so, is this related to accounts created, or average active accounts?

Sorry, seems like 2 questions I know

[Pirx Danford]

I love to hear stories about mistakes, so here it goes for balancing:
"What were the biggest/most surprising balancing mistakes ever made?"

Feel free to pick not so important humurous issues and to let stuff be kept under the rug that had bad emotions in the community, no need to stir up troubles ,)

[jdegre]

To the balancing manager:

Do you honestly think that the current drop of ESIs is balanced?... I mean, making the ESIs worth much more than the skills you're supposed to transfer does not seem very "balanced". Does the old statement of MA about "making the skills easily transferable between avatars" still apply?.

Regards,
/jdegre.

[Akoz]

As more and more people reach high skill levels (10k+) you have began nerfing the skillgains at all levels more and more. Are you not afraid that at some point these nerfs will disencourage a large portion of both the new and the already existing players from further skilling as the goals simply gets out of reach?
(Some words around your intentions with the skill system would be good ie if you intend to keep nerfing gains as more ppl gets high skilled)

[Primax]

Is the amount of loot given out dictated by how much MA has taken before hand?

eg. if the system was reset for some reason and I start hunting will I have to wait for the pool to fill up or is it possible to get a 10k ped global straight away?

[Jas]

Is the drop-rate for rare items (modfap etc) influenced by the previous duplication bug ? Do the items not drop anymore because they are too many in-game due to this old duplication bug ?

[FireW0lf]

Originally Posted by jdegre

To the balancing manager:

Do you honestly think that the current drop of ESIs is balanced?... I mean, making the ESIs worth much more than the skills you're supposed to transfer does not seem very "balanced". Does the old statement of MA about "making the skills easily transferable between avatars" still apply?.

Regards,
/jdegre.

I agree. ESI replaced GSI's and all other empty chips, so we should be seeing 10-20x more dropping than we are atm. I understand that they now have a PED value where before they didnt, but let's face it - PEDs are not real. MA can manufacture them as required

My question:

Since you changed loot to more high value HoFs/Aths, rather than constant 60PED globals, loot items have changed dramatically

Why is it that we really dont see many good item drops any more? Yes, I know a noob snagged a set of angel arms from a Molisk recently, but that is a rarity

I'm not saying we should be seeing Angel parts and ML35s dropping daily, or even weekly, but I speak to many hunters who like myself spend several hundred PEDs a day on hunts, yet all we seem to see is TT food in our loots - Oils, residues, FAP-5s etc

One question each... damn - somebody please ask about LG