Senior Game Master
DonatorI will try to stick to the format as best I can, but there's a lot to cover
What does this suggestion change/add/remove:
This suggestion is to bring about the process of reforming how basing/mega basing works, this includes player retention, rewards for basing and the overall dynamic of basing/raiding.
Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
Not so sure?
Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
It'll encourage more people to base which would lead to a higher player retention. It would also encourage people to play more frequently.
Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
Upsets the current dynamic by bringing about reform.
Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:
So currently the basing dynamic is insufficient at best and entirely pointless at worst. The only real way players can realistically make money by basing is by remaining AFK for long periods whilst staring at monitors waiting for a raid to happen. For new players, this is incredibly boring, especially in the case of VCmining which takes around 4 hours to even break even, in which time they will most likely be raided or log off out of boredom.
Reforming Basing-Based Activity Profit
The first step would be to reform how basing can be rewarded for players. I would recommend the following for various activities:
VCMining: A rework of the way VCoin is mined and at the rate of which money is gained. Perhaps introduce a standard lifespan for miners of around 8 hours, with a decreasing efficiency, with money being made back relatively quickly (maybe after an hour or two) but with an efficiency drop-off after 4 or so hours as to ensure the profit gained is not absurd. This is similar to how printers work if not cooled down, with a lessening return on money.
To encourage large 24 hour bases, an entity that allows for more durability could be used, but that is much more expensive (meaning you would begin to make profit after 6 hours or so).
New players: A community-run mega base should be active at least once every couple of weeks for new players to learn the basics of basing and vcmining, this is more of an idea and not a massive reform.
Printers: Currently printers are relatively well balanced, with higher earning printers losing battery more quickly. However, the rewards for new players are far too low unles they get VIP. The Counterfiet contract takes an absurd amount of time for new players to complete (I have attempted this myself with the first four printers and it took almost 2 hours of staring at my base defenses). I'd recommend increasing printer effiency for new players, or allowing 2 of each starter printer (at the very least, Gold).
Weed/Meth: Both are reasonably balanced, although the new weed addon is not as good as the old one. I understand there is performance considerations, but it is definitely a downside. I'd definitely increase the payouts for both, perhaps with the payoff of louder meth noises for PD to hear, or a longer time for weed to grow.
Reforming Base Defenses
I'm not going to pretend to have an answer for this, but I would suggest looking at reforming how bases are defended and the tools given to raid. This mainly falls in to two categories:
Police Raid: The PD raids are less risky as you aren't likely to lose your miners, only your printers and illegal equipment for drug making. It should be easier for the police department to be raiding bases and mega bases at the current time, but they don't have the equipment to do so. This is due to the three fading door limit and the fact that hex shields - the only reasonable form of protection - are fairly expensive. A newer player is not going to be taking part in a successful raid on a base unless the CGSF break in there first, at which point all the equipment in the base is probably already gone and the bad guys killed or arrested.
Criminal Raid: These raids are the devastating ones, where you either pay a kings ransom to protect your items or lose them altogether. These are much more frequent as criminals typically have the resources available to run a proper raid. There will also be more varied jobs and weaponry to protect against. It's much, much harder to defend against a group of criminals with hex shields than it would be against he PD. However, for a new player playing thief looking to steal some stuff, they have no chance to even remotely make an impact or make money this way.
I would suggest looking at the removal of hex shields and the removal of base tunnels to compensate, or somewhere inbetween. Hex sheilds and base tunnels are a result of an arms race that happened before the server closed that shut out new players from an entire branch of gameplay. Removing hex shields gives defenders more of a fair chance to defend the base, whilst the removal of three fading doors and tight corridors allows criminals more of a chance to successfully fight against defenders. Of course this would mean a universal raid timer for both attackers and defenders so that a counter-raid is not easily pulled off.
At the most, one fading door and a tunnel without one-way visible props would be a reasonable balance. Everyone can see each other and there's a slight advantage for defenders. You could even buff or introduce tools to the criminal jobs to further balance things for attackers, or make more use of the shields you can but from the vendor.
For the Police Department - this would also work fine if they had tools to adequately storm the facility. Most police jobs should have a raid kit available from the armoury that provides them with more armour and a riot shield, making police raids more tactical and viable for newer players. Perhaps removal of the raid kits if there's more than 8 PD online would also help balance it out as to make it still equally challenging.
This is a radical and dramatic reform and I accept it may not be popular - however this is for the ultimate benefit of the server in the long run if a correct balance is found as it will encourage more engagement from newer players whilst also making basing more favourable for players.
It's no real secret that the playercount has been a bit unfortuante in the past few weeks. This is obviously down to school and work starting back up which is expected, but many players I'd expect to see on the weekends aren't joining. There's a consensus in the air that the community isn't being listened to. People want to base and engage with other players, but theres no benefit to doing so. You have to be on for at least 4 hours, for a casual player on for 2 hours on a weekend there's no real point in doing so. These reforms could possibly begin to de-escalate the arms race between basing and raiders whilst welcoming newer players back into the fold of this dynamic. Either way, the server has had no meaningful changes to these very important aspects since relaunch, other than rules being made up seemingly on the fly.
Looking forward to hearing feedback, I know many of these changes won't be implemented but opening the discussion is a good way forward!
What does this suggestion change/add/remove:
This suggestion is to bring about the process of reforming how basing/mega basing works, this includes player retention, rewards for basing and the overall dynamic of basing/raiding.
Has something similar been suggested before? If so, why is your suggestion different?:
Not so sure?
Possible Positives of the suggestion (At least 2):
It'll encourage more people to base which would lead to a higher player retention. It would also encourage people to play more frequently.
Possible Negatives of the suggestion:
Upsets the current dynamic by bringing about reform.
Based on the Positives & Negatives, why should this suggestion be accepted:
So currently the basing dynamic is insufficient at best and entirely pointless at worst. The only real way players can realistically make money by basing is by remaining AFK for long periods whilst staring at monitors waiting for a raid to happen. For new players, this is incredibly boring, especially in the case of VCmining which takes around 4 hours to even break even, in which time they will most likely be raided or log off out of boredom.
Reforming Basing-Based Activity Profit
The first step would be to reform how basing can be rewarded for players. I would recommend the following for various activities:
VCMining: A rework of the way VCoin is mined and at the rate of which money is gained. Perhaps introduce a standard lifespan for miners of around 8 hours, with a decreasing efficiency, with money being made back relatively quickly (maybe after an hour or two) but with an efficiency drop-off after 4 or so hours as to ensure the profit gained is not absurd. This is similar to how printers work if not cooled down, with a lessening return on money.
To encourage large 24 hour bases, an entity that allows for more durability could be used, but that is much more expensive (meaning you would begin to make profit after 6 hours or so).
New players: A community-run mega base should be active at least once every couple of weeks for new players to learn the basics of basing and vcmining, this is more of an idea and not a massive reform.
Printers: Currently printers are relatively well balanced, with higher earning printers losing battery more quickly. However, the rewards for new players are far too low unles they get VIP. The Counterfiet contract takes an absurd amount of time for new players to complete (I have attempted this myself with the first four printers and it took almost 2 hours of staring at my base defenses). I'd recommend increasing printer effiency for new players, or allowing 2 of each starter printer (at the very least, Gold).
Weed/Meth: Both are reasonably balanced, although the new weed addon is not as good as the old one. I understand there is performance considerations, but it is definitely a downside. I'd definitely increase the payouts for both, perhaps with the payoff of louder meth noises for PD to hear, or a longer time for weed to grow.
Reforming Base Defenses
I'm not going to pretend to have an answer for this, but I would suggest looking at reforming how bases are defended and the tools given to raid. This mainly falls in to two categories:
Police Raid: The PD raids are less risky as you aren't likely to lose your miners, only your printers and illegal equipment for drug making. It should be easier for the police department to be raiding bases and mega bases at the current time, but they don't have the equipment to do so. This is due to the three fading door limit and the fact that hex shields - the only reasonable form of protection - are fairly expensive. A newer player is not going to be taking part in a successful raid on a base unless the CGSF break in there first, at which point all the equipment in the base is probably already gone and the bad guys killed or arrested.
Criminal Raid: These raids are the devastating ones, where you either pay a kings ransom to protect your items or lose them altogether. These are much more frequent as criminals typically have the resources available to run a proper raid. There will also be more varied jobs and weaponry to protect against. It's much, much harder to defend against a group of criminals with hex shields than it would be against he PD. However, for a new player playing thief looking to steal some stuff, they have no chance to even remotely make an impact or make money this way.
I would suggest looking at the removal of hex shields and the removal of base tunnels to compensate, or somewhere inbetween. Hex sheilds and base tunnels are a result of an arms race that happened before the server closed that shut out new players from an entire branch of gameplay. Removing hex shields gives defenders more of a fair chance to defend the base, whilst the removal of three fading doors and tight corridors allows criminals more of a chance to successfully fight against defenders. Of course this would mean a universal raid timer for both attackers and defenders so that a counter-raid is not easily pulled off.
At the most, one fading door and a tunnel without one-way visible props would be a reasonable balance. Everyone can see each other and there's a slight advantage for defenders. You could even buff or introduce tools to the criminal jobs to further balance things for attackers, or make more use of the shields you can but from the vendor.
For the Police Department - this would also work fine if they had tools to adequately storm the facility. Most police jobs should have a raid kit available from the armoury that provides them with more armour and a riot shield, making police raids more tactical and viable for newer players. Perhaps removal of the raid kits if there's more than 8 PD online would also help balance it out as to make it still equally challenging.
This is a radical and dramatic reform and I accept it may not be popular - however this is for the ultimate benefit of the server in the long run if a correct balance is found as it will encourage more engagement from newer players whilst also making basing more favourable for players.
It's no real secret that the playercount has been a bit unfortuante in the past few weeks. This is obviously down to school and work starting back up which is expected, but many players I'd expect to see on the weekends aren't joining. There's a consensus in the air that the community isn't being listened to. People want to base and engage with other players, but theres no benefit to doing so. You have to be on for at least 4 hours, for a casual player on for 2 hours on a weekend there's no real point in doing so. These reforms could possibly begin to de-escalate the arms race between basing and raiders whilst welcoming newer players back into the fold of this dynamic. Either way, the server has had no meaningful changes to these very important aspects since relaunch, other than rules being made up seemingly on the fly.
Looking forward to hearing feedback, I know many of these changes won't be implemented but opening the discussion is a good way forward!
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