XP allocation

[grävling]

Feb 26, 2013 15:22:40 GMT -5 fallen said:

jclarksprint - thanks for sharing the opinion.

If we work together, we can hold them off

I think it works precisely the opposite way.

In the end XP are really more important than creds. AP and athletics are so significant if you fail to invest in them, creds or no creds, the game will cause you some suffering.

Exactly. My problem isn't that the extra credits makes the game too easy for the newbies, but that it masks the real problems that they are having.

I think that it would be better if many newbies -- the ones sending me mail about their problems, at any rate -- spent more time in the Tunnels than they spend now. The shock of the difference in difficulty between the two places is still large. One of the greatest shocks is -- well, now that there are things that are finally worth buying available, the ganger jobs pay very little compared to the tunnels, and are harder. I am getting complaints that this is not fair.

I'm fine with the tunnel jobs paying extra, but what I think they are currently doing is paying an order of magnitude more cash than they are worth -- and that comparable jobs are worth in the NBZ. Belly-aching MnB complains that the Connectors barely pay him when he is earning 200 Y for a message delivery in the same zone. He's never going to get things this good ever again!

Handing newbies a bunch of cash encourages the idea that, if your performance is poor, there is something you can do about it by spending money. If all you have is a hammer, the whole world begins to look like a nail. I would dearly love to get a hold of the newbies and say: Don't buy any implants at Black Row. They are all garbage, and very much not worth losing XP over. I would like it if the store in the Black Row stopped selling the Hunter Sight. It is a great gun, and because things are easier in the Tunnels, you can use it to kill Los V tunnel rats to great effect. But in the NBZ, an accuracy 2 gun is not going to perform for you until your firearms skill is significantly higher. You want to buy the Twitch Carbine for its greater accuracy instead.

If you want to buy that hard armour in Black Row, well, there are good things to say about doing this, but it doesn't turn you into a tank. And until your dex gets fairly decent, you may get hit a whole lot more often, so end up being more damaged than if you stuck with the Armor Jacket.

One of the wonderful things about this game is that 'more expensive' does not equal 'better'. 'Better stats' does not necessarily equal 'better' either -- what counts is how the gear works with your own personal statistics and abilities. We are only going to have more of this as weight and encumberance come on line.

So what people need to do is evaluate their own abilities and figure out what is the best gear for them to be using at this stage in their development. Only rarely is this 'the most expensive that I can afford'. Or perhaps what they need to be doing is planning their XP investments with the equipment they would like to purchase in mind. 'I want that Hades Hardsuit, so I need to start investing in DEX now'.


But by handing newbies extra money you are promoting the attitude that their problems can be fixed with money, when so often the only thing that will fix their problems is 'more practice with playing' and 'understanding what the skills and attributes are good for'. The message 'this is an excellent gun, but you are too unskilled to use it well' is not common in videogames -- which is one of the reasons I love this game! Usually, the unexamined assumption is that all equipment is more or less the same in 'ease of use' -- so if gun a does more damage than gun b, then gun a is a better gun. Or even -- if gun a costs more than gun b, then gun a is a better gun even if you, as a player, cannot figure out why. Trust the pricing scheme of the game -- if the game wants you to spend more game-cash, then the game is right and you should.

Of course, in a fascist corp-run dystopia, this is indeed one of the attitudes that should be challenged. Maybe people can take a little bit of this home to their real life consumer habits, as well, if we are lucky.

Since we are supposed to be able to vary the economy for the game, why not allow the order-of-magnitude-more-than-they-are-worth cash payments for Simple and Easy mode, but drastically reduce the payments for the harder difficulties?

[fallen]

grävling - thanks for the great arguments. I will reduce the job pay. Joshua will grovel for pennies!

jclarksprint - I couldn't hold. The badger queen is too powerful

Cory and I are working on some tooling which will allow me to restructure the stream of dialogs and information in a more fluid way, so that will help us inject some of your wisdom into more of the in-game chats.

[Swami]

fallen Reading complex information a line at a time is (for me, at least) difficult. Could this be made into a file that you can load onto your computer? True's insight into how to be a better Knight could be contained in a file which you could KEEP and refer to again and again!

On a different note, please let us adjust the size of text - you can put in a warning that it might look funky on your tiny phone screens.{I'm using a tablet}
(I've already adjusted my dpi to 160 to make text a bit bigger[just to read CKE better])

[xdesperado]

fallen sorry I have to agree with Grävling that the tunnel pay has been a bit excessive. Very easy for more experienced players to rack up a nice tidy nest egg by the time their characters stats are are at a point they feel comfortable leaving the tunnels with.
Might not be as big a deal if you were forced out of the tunnels after a certain point in time whether you were ready or not but as it stands currently I can endlessly cherry pick my jobs with little consequence, make big ¥ and have a much more competent character stat and skill wise before entering the NBZ.
The last couple of characters I ran through the tunnels had around 160-170XP and 30K in hand on exit. That was more than enough to buy a 3 job computer, preffered mid level cyber, armor and weapons of choice and a couple safe houses in key areas.

Switching over to a sandbox character after that, even using custom settings to make her rich (Female 2, Agent ) really pointed out how much tougher starting normal characters without the tunnels is.

Even if a new player has listened to and followed all Grävling's great advice on playing through MnB, they are liable to be very shocked when trying their first sandbox character.

[grävling]

I am thinking that the tutorial needs somebody to explain what each stat and ability is, and what it is good for.

[grävling]

I am thinking -- we have 2 arms dealers, one on the Los V side and one on the Fennian side. Have them warn the new Knight not to listen to those fools over at < the other place >.

Have one of them recommend Hades Hardsuit armour when you can get it. Bigger ballistic and deflection numbers are better. You will know that you have bought the right stuff when you start reading that 'Armor Save' in combat. Don't worry about the loss of mobility. You don't care that you get hit, when you are wearing this great armour ... +dodge armour? for fools. Anybody can see that it has a lower deflection and ballistic rating, and that is what really matters!

Have the other place recommend +dodge armour when you can get it. Dodge armour is great, especially with characters that don't have a very high dex. You will know that you have bought the right stuff when you start reading that 'Miss!' in combat. Mobility is everuthing. Sure there are fools who will tell you that you should wear heavy armour with a dodge penalty, but they are just getting hit every round. Only high dex characters can use this without getting attacked much more often, and in the end, that is what really matters!

This could get people thinking about that it is not the gear but how it works with your stats that matters.

Then, when it comes to weapons, have one of them sing the joys of big, powerful rifles that have a speed of 1 and good accuracy. One shot, and you are done. The other side could recommend automatic weapons that have poor accuracy, but high speed. You don't need accuracy when you are going to hit your target multiple times.

Again, this can get the idea across that how mch accuracy you want in a weapon is related to your own firearms skill. So the H/S is a great gun, but probably too much accuracy needed for new Knights, which is why we recomment they buy the Twitch carbine instead (says the guy at the black row when you ask him what he recommends)
Similarily, he _has_ the hard armour ... are you sure you have the dex for that, mac?

Just ideas ....

[Cory Trese]

Feb 27, 2013 2:13:16 GMT -5 grävling said:

I am thinking -- we have 2 arms dealers, one on the Los V side and one on the Fennian side. Have them warn the new Knight not to listen to those fools over at < the other place >.

Have one of them recommend Hades Hardsuit armour when you can get it. Bigger ballistic and deflection numbers are better. You will know that you have bought the right stuff when you start reading that 'Armor Save' in combat. Don't worry about the loss of mobility. You don't care that you get hit, when you are wearing this great armour ... +dodge armour? for fools. Anybody can see that it has a lower deflection and ballistic rating, and that is what really matters!

Have the other place recommend +dodge armour when you can get it. Dodge armour is great, especially with characters that don't have a very high dex. You will know that you have bought the right stuff when you start reading that 'Miss!' in combat. Mobility is everuthing. Sure there are fools who will tell you that you should wear heavy armour with a dodge penalty, but they are just getting hit every round. Only high dex characters can use this without getting attacked much more often, and in the end, that is what really matters!

This could get people thinking about that it is not the gear but how it works with your stats that matters.

Then, when it comes to weapons, have one of them sing the joys of big, powerful rifles that have a speed of 1 and good accuracy. One shot, and you are done. The other side could recommend automatic weapons that have poor accuracy, but high speed. You don't need accuracy when you are going to hit your target multiple times.

Again, this can get the idea across that how mch accuracy you want in a weapon is related to your own firearms skill. So the H/S is a great gun, but probably too much accuracy needed for new Knights, which is why we recomment they buy the Twitch carbine instead (says the guy at the black row when you ask him what he recommends)
Similarily, he _has_ the hard armour ... are you sure you have the dex for that, mac?

Just ideas ....

Love the ideas. Logged as CK #802 so we don't loose track of it.

[grävling]

Another idea .... it is never really made clear why Luka and Mercer don't want the CK to go back to the Black Clinic. Let us give them a reason, by having the doctor there give you a lecture on the dangers of Cyberware. Warn you that beginning CKs need to train their experience to regain the abilities that they lost, and that making due with Cyberware robs them of the chance to grow. So use as little as possible, and get rid of the stuff when you no longer need it! The megacorp bastards want their CKs cybered up as much as possible because it makes them less human -- and more tractable. A CK who relies on his own skills and abilities scares them.

and under 'regain abilities you have lost' he can talk about how you need training because having your brain opened up like that changes your whole mind-body relationship. Which is why you will find that you are much weaker and much less dexterous than you were before. Think of it as rehabilitation medicine, something we used to do a lot of in centuries past, but see almost none of these days ...

He'd be a good person to explain what every ability and stat is good for, as well.

[Swami]

What natural stats do you like to have before you cross the wall, badger? Also when do you recommend removing all the cyberware?

[grävling]

I never wear any cyberware until I want to go to places that have drones -- unless I want to do some hacking and data carrying. Then I'll get what is needed for that. Afterwards, well it is dermal implants and, for a cyberknight that intends to deal with drones by clawing them to pieces, cyberclaws. So for me, it is more of a matter of 'don't start' rather than 'remove'.

for leaving the tunnels -- athletics of 4 (or even 5) and natural AP of 6 or more. At least 1 point in stealth. This is for leaving the tunnels early. If you are going to stick around in the tunnels even longer to boost more stats and build up a cash reserve -- which is a fine plan -- then make sure you get athletics of 5 and AP 7 before you leave, because if you, for instance, decided you wanted your firearms to be 5 before you left, you don't want to arrive in the NBZ with experience totals that say 'send in the cyan and brown dogs' but an AP/athletics combo that means 'you won't be able to kill them'.

You can leave earlier, of course, but your first order of business when you arrive will be getting your Athletics and your AP to this level, so you might as well do it in the tunnels, where, today at any rate, the pay for jobs is so much better and they are guaranteed to be easier.

[absimiliard]

Hrmm, my world is upside down. I'm disagreeing with both Cory and Gravling, wth?

On the other hand jclarksprint makes a point I find extremely hard to argue with, for largely the same reasons I don't think balancing the game for play at brutal is the right answer.

And I'm on Fallen's side as well. So I'm probably not wholly wrong.

But the points about unrealistic expectations when arriving in the NBZ isn't necessarily a bad one either. So who knows what I think, maybe not even me. But it does seem like a tutorial should be a bit of a "gimme", so to speak.

-abs

[grävling]

I'm not opposed to the tutorial being gentler and more cash rich than the NBZ. I just think that an order of magnitude richer is too much. And, at least from the mail I am getting, newbies seem to have a problem of 'I left the Tunnels too soon, with poor XP allocation, and then promptly got slaugtered by the first cyan dog I met, because I don't have enough AP to handle monsters that can run up beside you and then still have enough AP left over to bite you.' Now the only fix for that is more AP -- as people who thought the fix for it was a Hunter Sight are finding out to their sorrow. So if it took the newbies longer to raise the cash for things they wanted in Black Row, then they would be staying in the Tunnels longer, and possibly their bad XP allocation would fix itself.

Though I am happily building scripts in my head for the doctor to talk to you about your stats and abilities -- and what they are good for. Right now I have a character in mind, old cyberneticist doctor, former Medecins san Frontieres who does these illegal operations in the hopes that he will some day produce a CK that can challenge the corrupt MegaCorps. Because though they are a small threat, they are the only threat there is. So he warns against implants, against the lost of DV, and the loss of your humanity. The corps need cyberknights, but they all want to make sure that should the call to revolution ever happen, the knights will all have lost far too much of their humanity to be interested -- or even notice. The more machine-like you are, the more the Corps will trust you -- but of course you can never gain their trust.

So, yes, I will never sell cyberware. Personal moral choice here. I will be happy to remove any that you manage to acquire from elsewhere ...

He could easily explain what every ability you have is good for.

[absimiliard]

Well, if you get a bunch of mail from new players who are suffering because they aren't able to handle the NBZ that would support you and Cory pretty solidly. Especially if it's the being flush with n-Y feeling that is making them leave the tunnels before they are ready.

I'm not sure anything other than an NPC offering some advice on XP allocation, I would Mallor myself, is going to fix a bad allocation though. You can't condition them moving to the NBZ on rep, XP, or n-Y, and be sure someone won't do a bad XP allocation. So maybe the real issue isn't the amount of n-Y new players get, where I still feel like a gimme tutorial attitude is right, maybe the real issue is a lack of good advice on how to spend your newly won XP.

Occurs to me that maybe Mercer is a better choice for that conversation, since he sends you to the hotel. But Mallor is the one who's more likely to talk with you while you're there and have XP to spend.

-abs

[Swami]

Feb 27, 2013 12:35:47 GMT -5 absimiliard said:

I'm not sure anything other than an NPC offering some advice on XP allocation,
Occurs to me that maybe Mercer is a better choice for that conversation, since he sends you to the hotel. But Mallor is the one who's more likely to talk with you while you're there and have XP to spend.

-abs

I suggest an OLD, highly experienced, very rich, retired cyber knight who is resides in the tunnels(it's less harsh after all.)

Her code name could be Mama Badger and she would be a wise mentor who could advise you as to how to survive as a CK(xp allocation, advice as to stats to have to frequent certain zones and differences in equipment).

She could also have a guy up top in LV land(near where people enter) who hands out her chip to all incoming CKs as part of the game start(for sandboxers).

She would be willing to send you a transcript of her conversations which you can keep in your computer as well.

[xdesperado]

Swami +1 your suggestion.

@cory & Andrew we want Auntie Badger as a contact we can call for advice. ;D