Developer Blog from September 29: Improvements in module upgrade system

Mercenary Center Developer Blog
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@Fox: He doesn’t check it. Cin state clear an ‘improvement’ yet all we can see is a nerf. So I’m asking vigorous how this look in facts.

I don’t await an update to ‘see if I can revert nerfs after that’. The 1/2 mono now is nice or? We totally wanted that!!!

Just to give a reason what I wrote to Swifter:

>> Resources nerf? What if they added to loots “bundles” of resources that give you the same amount of materials as mk2 used to give? <<

Either you read something complete different, Mk 2+ Mk4 kits are sololy replaced by module mk1s! So credits crash literally said. NO COMPENSATION.

>>
Iridium nerf? They already stated that you’ll be able to extract higher amount of Iridium from alien stash. <<

? I may overlooked that, but I saw no facts supporting this.
And we already get 10-100? from loot pool itself. Else you need explain this.

Doesn’t change the facts, that
a) You can’t use iridium anymore to upgrade as alternative way.
b) Can’t directly improve a module step.
c) That you don’t get resources anymore(salvaging kits).

>>Voucher nerf?

What if, instead of adding 200 to the pool you can choose between

-200 to the pool (or 240 with premium ship) <<

First fail.

  1. He clearly stated only contracts give voucher to pool if no module is selected. So No 240 with premium ship, as those are flight bonuses, not applying at no-selected-module cases.
  2. Clearly stated daily limited contract for voucher: Meaning you can absoluty only hard grind a specific amount daily. Currently you can grind as many.

>>
OR

-400 to one specific item (480 with premium ship). <<

That’s may right, doesn’t change the feeling of being cheated if not selecting a module wasting ‘bonuses’ and indirectly reducing the jumpstart for new introduced modules if doing so.
So flying ships is a waste of time after you did your daily and have no modules to upgrade/wanted to upgrade. Therefore again no reason to fly after some point.

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![:015_2:](<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/015_2.png “:015_2:”)

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54 minutes ago, Lord_Xenon said:

@Swifter Shut up please.
@Fox: He doesn’t check it. Cin state clear an ‘improvement’ yet all we can see is a nerf. So I’m asking vigorous how this look in facts.

I don’t await an update to ‘see if I can revert nerfs after that’. The 1/2 mono now is nice or? We totally wanted that!!!

Just to give a reason what I wrote to Swifter:

>> Resources nerf? What if they added to loots “bundles” of resources that give you the same amount of materials as mk2 used to give? <<

Either you read something complete different, Mk 2+ Mk4 kits are sololy replaced by module mk1s! So credits crash literally said. NO COMPENSATION.

>>
Iridium nerf? They already stated that you’ll be able to extract higher amount of Iridium from alien stash. <<

? I may overlooked that, but I saw no facts supporting this.
And we already get 10-100? from loot pool itself. Else you need explain this.

Doesn’t change the facts, that
a) You can’t use iridium anymore to upgrade as alternative way.
b) Can’t directly improve a module step.
c) That you don’t get resources anymore(salvaging kits).

>>Voucher nerf?

What if, instead of adding 200 to the pool you can choose between

-200 to the pool (or 240 with premium ship) <<

First fail.

  1. He clearly stated only contracts give voucher to pool if no module is selected. So No 240 with premium ship, as those are flight bonuses, not applying at no-selected-module cases.
  2. Clearly stated daily limited contract for voucher: Meaning you can absoluty only hard grind a specific amount daily. Currently you can grind as many.

>>
OR

-400 to one specific item (480 with premium ship). <<

That’s may right, doesn’t change the feeling of being cheated if not selecting a module wasting ‘bonuses’ and indirectly reducing the jumpstart for new introduced modules if doing so.
So flying ships is a waste of time after you did your daily and have no modules to upgrade/wanted to upgrade. Therefore again no reason to fly after some point.

First of all, you are rude. Please stop. 

I have few minutes to waste, so instead of going and do a few friendly fights, I will do what GM is supposed to do, and patiently answer a rant with reasoning.

Mono nerf.  As it was seen as a massive nerf, I did some research. Previously I was getting 9 monos from open space per day. Now, from all sources and excluding Leagues I am averaging 14. 

Resource nerf. As Mk2 and Mk4 kits are going to be phased out of the game, we don’t know what the final drop rate of resources will be. You have no grounds to call it a nerf.

Iridium nerf.  Well, yes - easiest Mk4 salvage method is going to be obsolete. But from 7 games today I got 80 iridium and 1 Mk4 kit. Do the math. You can do it.

Voucher nerf.  The whole idea of this new system is to boost the upgrade rate of the modules. And again - you calling a nef even before we know the actual drop rates. We don’t know what those contracts will look like. And current contracts in voucher system have cooldown, so I don’t get it what the heck you are calling a fail here. 

You can gather stock of vouchers and immediately spend them when new module will arrive and if you have a million of each, just select 6 mk1 modules, rank them up and salvage for additional resources. 

I don’t understand the sentence about being cheated, so please rephrase it. 

Regarding flying ships as a waste of time… Well - different people have different goals, some are flying to be on the top of the leaderboards, to win tournaments, some are just collectors, for others SC is just a way to vent stress. And believe me - there is always a reason to fly more. I have over 1400 purple items (and 0 kits ) in my warehouse and still playing ![:)](<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/001j.png “:)”) .

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12 hours ago, Papitas said:

The new box is offering a great use for iridium not used by vets players; boosting dread construction was definately unrewarding so preventing capping corp iridium at 50k was enough. Spending iridium into these containers will supply the lack of materials obtained by salvaged kits required to craft ship parts. You wont have the basic materials to craft other things like special ammo (what kost says), and im with him in terms of concerns and hopes that new loot will be enough to have a similar income of basic mats and also ship parts (if you did not crafted ship parts then you will have less basic materials obiously, but you will have ship parts now). Im so sorry i donated all my iridium to boost construction by accident T_T

I think you misunderstood that part. I am not directly against that new box, I am against _only_ random chests, which contain stuff, you cannot directly obtain otherwise. I think, without that, the “positive” container, turns into a very negative thing. Sweet-sour sauce without sweetness is not going to sell as it.

leveling up and salvaging is anyway an option, I did that already plentiful ![:p](<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/004.png “:p”) because I needed osmium, I mass produced parts, upgraded them, and salvaged them. In fact, I like such “minigames”. Other sources of income were also mentioned.

To the salvaging, I am also a bit concerned, because, in fact, from all the resource systems, the upgrade kit salvaging was until now the most fair income (maybe because it was not overdesigned with GS sinks), but from the same perspective, it is true, that green and purple salvage kits became a bit pointless for their original purpose, and had even a GS sink in it, which probably never worked in the first place, and rather produced anger if you misclicked and paid GS for iridium. Not going to miss that. Sometimes less is more.

And yeah I thought so about the upgrades and the time, thx for a hint, all in all its okay what is coming from my view, it is just, I really hope to read soon about the “newer” resource systems getting integrated ![;)](<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/002.png “;)”) But I think, this has been mentioned often enough by others.

Dont forget, my viewpoint is a bit from a devs view, who cares about the product he is part of. Not all problems I mention, are directly problems for me. But the 3 year old player isn’t what the overall game should be designed for mainly anyway, especially the progression part. At this time, I do not really need stuff to unlock to keep playing, and from a professional standpoint, this puts me in a category, which is never a large percentage in any game.

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If it is to make module upgrades FASTER then they should leave the credit Mk2 upgrade and just change the last two to less insane numbers. And if there’s yet another grind cap I might just stop contributing to this game altogether. There’s no point in new content if it takes exponentially longer to get it after every update.

 

Until the update actually does come out though and it is confirmed another massive nerf to progress, I’m just going to spend all of my credits on Mk2’s for salvage. Anyone know what gives Tungsten plates and osmium?

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>> Mono nerf. As it was seen as a massive nerf, I did some research. Previously I was getting 9 monos from open space per day. Now, from all sources and excluding Leagues I am averaging 14. <<
Explain the difference of 8 monos you get.
OS hasn’t changed so not from there.
Daily spot has a low chance and was before existing - so no change here.
I can’t farm with non-full ships, so no change here.
From 10 wins in FS I may get 2, so I lose in total of 1 mono each day at least. So a huge nerf for me as 10 wins are not a normal play day from me.

>>
Resource nerf. As Mk2 and Mk4 kits are going to be phased out of the game, we don’t know what the final drop rate of resources will be. You have no grounds to call it a nerf.<<

READ THE DAMN TEXT OF CIN!
He stated clear: MK2+mk4 are replaced BY MODULE MK1s! No chance redesign of resource drop from loot pool. NERF

>>
Iridium nerf. Well, yes - easiest Mk4 salvage method is going to be obsolete. But from 7 games today I got 80 iridium and 1 Mk4 kit. Do the math. You can do it.<<

Math show: NERF

>>
Voucher nerf. The whole idea of this new system is to boost the upgrade rate of the modules. And again - you calling a nef even before we know the actual drop rates. We don’t know what those contracts will look like. And current contracts in voucher system have cooldown, so I don’t get it what the heck you are calling a fail here. <<

What you say are warm words again. The update doesn’t even hit and you say improvement.
Stay stil until update to argue with such warm words.

1h CD for the minor quests is a short CD.
Even with 8h I could farm twice a day if I want. But having 1 farming quest for the day is nothing. And compared to that if we even switch factions, the difference is way bigger.

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The next person to post something that is either disrespectful towards another player, amplifying hostility within the forum, counterconstructive to the debate or offtopic will be in serious trouble.

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Here is a suggestion: Just close the thread, because anyone who is against this patch and post their concerns is accused of not staying on topic. 

6 minutes ago, Shotan said:

The next person to post something that is either disrespectful towards another player, counterconstructive to the debate or offtopic will be in serious trouble.

 

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Vouchers were a mistake.

 

better?

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Speaking about the game overall is on topic,that’s what most of the forum is about,right?

Oh,I almost forgot,vouchers.

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6 hours ago, Lord_Xenon said:

>> Mono nerf. As it was seen as a massive nerf, I did some research. Previously I was getting 9 monos from open space per day. Now, from all sources and excluding Leagues I am averaging 14. <<
Explain the difference of 8 monos you get.
OS hasn’t changed so not from there.
Daily spot has a low chance and was before existing - so no change here.
I can’t farm with non-full ships, so no change here.
From 10 wins in FS I may get 2, so I lose in total of 1 mono each day at least. So a huge nerf for me as 10 wins are not a normal play day from me.

>>
Resource nerf. As Mk2 and Mk4 kits are going to be phased out of the game, we don’t know what the final drop rate of resources will be. You have no grounds to call it a nerf.<<

READ THE DAMN TEXT OF CIN!
He stated clear: MK2+mk4 are replaced BY MODULE MK1s! No chance redesign of resource drop from loot pool. NERF

>>
Iridium nerf. Well, yes - easiest Mk4 salvage method is going to be obsolete. But from 7 games today I got 80 iridium and 1 Mk4 kit. Do the math. You can do it.<<

Math show: NERF

>>
Voucher nerf. The whole idea of this new system is to boost the upgrade rate of the modules. And again - you calling a nef even before we know the actual drop rates. We don’t know what those contracts will look like. And current contracts in voucher system have cooldown, so I don’t get it what the heck you are calling a fail here. <<

What you say are warm words again. The update doesn’t even hit and you say improvement.
Stay stil until update to argue with such warm words.

1h CD for the minor quests is a short CD.
Even with 8h I could farm twice a day if I want. But having 1 farming quest for the day is nothing. And compared to that if we even switch factions, the difference is way bigger.

Monos: there are methods to farm them. like this:

0b8851df7833da4c8a2c9c2d45710064.png

“No chance redesign of resource drop from loot pool. NERF” - well CF already stated that loot drop tables are going to be redesigned. Please read carefully.

Iridium: again we don’t know if in place of Mk2 and Mk4 modules we will not get alien artifacts. Oh wait. We will! Will they drop more often than to balance those mk4 drop? WE DONT KNOW. 

“What you say are warm words again. The update doesn’t even hit and you say improvement.” - because that what CF is saying - to boost speed of upgrades. What should I say if the guy from SC dev team in DEVELOPER BLOG says that?! Should I say, “hey, I know you are a dev, and this is first hand info, but I will interpret it as I want” - exactly what you are doing? Calm down. Have some games, have some fun or take a break for few days. You are just speculating and trying to convince all people around that your speculations are true. And that’s actually violation of rule 3.6 of the forum rules. 

So, please, once again, calm down. 

 

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11 hours ago, Lord_Xenon said:

@papitas the discussion of this goes into direction of quantum mechanics.

And I will stay as it is: This change is a huge grind introduction and a nerf.
If you want to argue against this bring facts, not shiny words.

What?!?!? man, take your time to understand the dev blog and what CF sayed. Then get better conclussions and stop speculating so hard. Be self-critical and in the same way (same logic) you are asking us to stop speculating on how this aint a nerf, do it for yourself.

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Quote

CinnamonFake

New players are affraid of several different factions and loyalty from it and why they need it. We’re think this will be a nice step to make things easier in the future

Except that based on what was posted at the start, all six types will remain, so there were no changes/improvements to that at all. It also begs the question of what is the effect of the different types with this new systems as I asked previously.

 

23 hours ago, Phoenix_Shi said:

So we’re keeping all six types of loyalty vouchers by the looks of it. Will each module (a) continue to want only one specific type, will they (b) be able to use any type, but prefer/get more use out of a specific type, (c) they will all be treated equally, or (d) will it work in some other manner? Now if it was c, what would be the point of even keeping six types, wouldn’t it make more sense to combine them all into a single “loyalty” pool?

 

P.S.

The current forum system is really pissing me off. This simple post took far too long to do as it kept farting out an " INVALID_URL" error since it didn’t like it when I copy pasted in the comment bubble you added to someone’s post, which had your name as a link. Then instead of giving the error, and leaving what I tried to post alone, it either wiped it all out, or reverted to another post I was going to make, but abandoned. There’s just no good way of easily responding to those comment bubbles you make, and I wish you’d just make regular post replies instead of using them.

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It’s difficult to argue about changes that didn’t happen yet but so far it seems like a nice change, i thought if you didnt pick any modules to upgrade and play them, you basically dont get anything, so after reading it all one more time i kinda get the idea, now it’s all about wait and see. 

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13 minutes ago, ORCA1911 said:

It’s difficult to argue about changes that didn’t happen yet but so far it seems like a nice change, i thought if you didnt pick any modules to upgrade and play them, you basically dont get anything, so after reading it all one more time i kinda get the idea, now it’s all about wait and see. 

Indeed ![:)](<fileStore.core_Emoticons>/emoticons/001j.png “:)”)

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I believe the following will be useful to the conversation:

Personally, I have upgraded all modules I wanted to purple. I don’t know if this was a good decision long term but I elected to do so for fear that the new system might not suit me. If you have similar concerns - grind this weekened and upgrade what you can. If I play hard I can grab 1 million of each voucher in a week - I believe the developers aim to make this no longer possible. Therefore with unknown loyalty voucher costs I elected to upgrade the LRF/GUARD/ENGINEER modules (ships I play). This leaves me with a low amount of irridium left and I will not be able to afford the new containers on launch. I’ve hedged my bets against myself so that I at least dampen any possible negative effects and am in control of the outcome at least in part.

If you have similar concerns I suggest you make time this week to best situate yourselves for the best future and possibly avoid some grief. Plan ahead guys and risk your time and materials accordingly. Know that things will not always turn out the way we think or have been told due to issues with translation and cherry picking ideas for developers consideration. Not everything gets through and that is just the nature of our relationship.

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7 minutes ago, SteelCent said:

I believe the following will be useful to the conversation:

Personally, I have upgraded all modules I wanted to purple. I don’t know if this was a good decision long term but I elected to do so for fear that the new system might not suit me. If you have similar concerns - grind this weekened and upgrade what you can. If I play hard I can grab 1 million of each voucher in a week - I believe the developers aim to make this no longer possible. Therefore with unknown loyalty voucher costs I elected to upgrade the LRF/GUARD/ENGINEER modules (ships I play). This leaves me with a low amount of irridium left and I will not be able to afford the new containers on launch. I’ve hedged my bets against myself so that I at least dampen any possible negative effects and am in control of the outcome at least in part.

If you have similar concerns I suggest you make time this week to best situate yourselves for the best future and possibly avoid some grief. Plan ahead guys and risk your time and materials accordingly. Know that things will not always turn out the way we think or have been told due to issues with translation and cherry picking ideas for developers consideration. Not everything gets through and that is just the nature of our relationship.

I completely agree.

Ive just dropped about 90mil on salvaging Tungsten plates and osmium. I am also actually trying to save Iridium for those packages. I know they will be overpriced and not even reliable, but it’s a step in the right direction. Now the devs just need to realise that people don’t like randomness and want static prices for parts.

I’m also gonna focus a bit on maxing my vouchers before the patch, as I see no good whatsoever in this change. I can’t wait to see how devastating it is to general progress.

 

*players give up on upgrades altogether, making players with all-white mods extremely common*

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On 9/29/2016 at 7:47 AM, JasanQuinn said:

Unless I’m missing something, this just seems to be designed to screw over pilots who are salvaging Mk II / III / IV kits to get parts for crafting rather than buying overpriced containers.

This, this, a hundred times this. While the simplification of module upgrading has benefits to it, the removal of Mk 2 kits from the game has a significant impact on player progression into Destroyers and Special Project ships. Currently, salvaging Mk 2 kits, or purchasing Mk 1 modules and upgrading them to Mk 2 with credits, provides a stable, precise means of obtaining ship components without resorting to gambling on PvP/PvE drops or open space asteroids. The removal of this ability means that players will need to rely on random chance to obtain those last few elusive materials that just refuse to drop, instead of simply buying, upgrading, and salvaging the appropriate module from the store.

It is my hope that an alternate means to obtain specific materials, guaranteed, will remain in the game after this change is enacted.

 

15 hours ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

If it is to make module upgrades FASTER then they should leave the credit Mk2 upgrade and just change the last two to less insane numbers. And if there’s yet another grind cap I might just stop contributing to this game altogether. There’s no point in new content if it takes exponentially longer to get it after every update.

 

Until the update actually does come out though and it is confirmed another massive nerf to progress, I’m just going to spend all of my credits on Mk2’s for salvage. Anyone know what gives Tungsten plates and osmium?

Fox knows what’s up. According to current store prices, materials can be obtained cheapest from the following modules:

  • Graphite Plates x2, Rank 15 Reactor Overload (Cov Ops module)
  • Osmium Crystals x4, Rank 15 Spy Drones (Recon module)
  • Computer Chips x5, Rank 15 IR Pulsar (Long Range Frigate module)
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2 hours ago, TheDarkRedFox said:

*players give up on upgrades altogether, making players with all-white mods extremely common*

I really don’t know where this conclusion comes from? With the system of “click and it will upgrade itself” I would actually say that people with all-white mods will be actually less common. Even now I see in different tiers people flying stock configured ships not bothering to upgrade or even change modules. In higher tiers at least they have all slots filled, in T3 something like below is pretty common:

 

9adf3336ba1300035d45819309b111f2.png

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6 minutes ago, MightyHoot said:

so niri, you died before newbie like that?

This cracked me up man, lol

The number of “white mod” players is diminishing as ranks go higher but when i see something like this it’s somewhat bad, good for me killing them, but bad when i play with them xd so it all evens up, newbies will always exist regardless how easy or hard something is.