Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

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Achilleos
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Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

Post by Achilleos »

Having spent considerable time, effort and a lot of credits - I've finally crafted my own top spec Starbase, so now onto bidding for a licence.
Having seen that many were sold for 1,000,000,000 how come now the starting bid is 2,500,000,000, seriously not impressed
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MadMaxxx
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Re: Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

Post by MadMaxxx »

Achilleos to be honest the raise for licenses was put in place due to some players having close to 1Bil credits and we felt that it would just cause more frustration if someone with 1Bil credits would decide to go after Starbase. Like i mentioned in Alumoi post on forum here, this raise was put in place due to enormous cost, that Starbases will have when they get completed. As Coops mentioned that we are getting over 100 Buildings and weapons to build for Starbase and considering what we currently know in terms of pricing of the buildings (Reactors and Habitats), is that the end cost of each Starbase will be 150 Bil credits if not way way more. In terms of big picture that raise of 1,5Bil isnt that big when you look at bigger picture. Starbase Hubs are costing you way way more than 2.5 Bil credits, are they not?
Congratz on getting your hubs crafted. Hope you know that you need to bake them right? Each Bake & Shake takes approx 14 days to complete.

Its always nice to see new Starbase owners coming into game.

Regards

MadMaxxx
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OtherRick
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Re: Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

Post by OtherRick »

Yeah, the credit cost of the license *does* seem high at first.

As someone who has now deployed (after spending close to 6 or 7 billion on resources for hubs), I can assure you, the spending is *not* over.

I've spent... Two months? More? Collecting resources for just a single starbase building. I've finally collected the hard-to-get resources, and haven't really started on the "easy" ones. I'm planning to save my challenging resources until weapon schematics are available.

I'll eventually need three more sets of these resources to fill all four reactor slots!

Like a turtle on a fence post, I did *not* accomplish this on my own. I've needed a substantial amount of help from guild members.

If 2.5 billion seems too steep, it *is*. You (and I) need help to reach it.

Ask questions, get help as needed, and seriously consider getting some guild support (if you don't already have it)

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Coops
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Re: Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

Post by Coops »

Achilleos wrote: Thu Feb 24, 2022 7:17 pm Having spent considerable time, effort and a lot of credits - I've finally crafted my own top spec Starbase, so now onto bidding for a licence.
Having seen that many were sold for 1,000,000,000 how come now the starting bid is 2,500,000,000, seriously not impressed
I posted clearly back in October the price changes. It sadens me that you are taking this stance.

viewtopic.php?f=32&t=3645

Everything in CE has to come with a balance. Most of the starbases already purchased were done so at way over the odds and the starting price was just a guide so player could gauge just how expensive SBVs are. Its my job to set cost expectations and after the initial rush it seems this was completely ignored. I have no wish to be removing Starbases from early adopters who simply didn't read my warnings about eye watering costs.

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alumoi
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Re: Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

Post by alumoi »

I can understand Achilleos' frustation as I'm building a SB myself, but I agree with Coops. If you plan on playing long term, a couple of (hundred) billion is no problem :D
Think of it as a long term investment and bear in mind it also comes with bragging rights: I HAD the money***

-------------
*** please note the past tense
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Achilleos
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Re: Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

Post by Achilleos »

I'm afraid Coops that your comment makes no sense at all to me.
What has actually happened is that those richest players in the game who could get the starbase much faster have benefitted by being able to purchase the licence at a fraction of the cost to what you have raised it to now.
For those of us who have had to really work (and this is a personal starbase not a guild one so financed alone) have been dealt a massive kick in the teeth.
It has nothing to do with the huge cost of gathering the resources, I've done that plus I even purchased all the modules and schematics myself so as to craft my own hubs, adding millions to the cost. I have had the hubs baked and a massive thanks to that player, plus I still had over 2 billion credits in hand. Having seen the licences already sold at 1 billion I was expecting to be able to finally deploy.
The cost of crafting is the same, the running costs will be the same so the only difference is us slower players finally reaching our goal are being punished and expected to cough up nearly 3 times as much to deploy.
Sorry if it offends but to me its an outrageous change that has no justification
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Re: Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

Post by The Wolf »

The idea behind the bidding process of the licenses was that they would sell for way way more, the fact that so many sold for just 1bn was a massive concern, hence the starting price was raised.

If you have just 2bn in reserve, then you are not anywhere near ready for starbases. At present, the cost is very basic, and even now there is almost a half-million credits cost per day for a starbase.
To put that in perspective, in TT we were working out how many SB's we were going to deploy to start with, we expected the licenses to go well above the 10 bn per license. and we did end up paying a fair bit for some of them (the one I launched ended up costing the guild 2.8 bn, MadMaxxx ended up with a guild bill of 10 bn for his license, so even from day one the licenses were not that cheap), but we did get most of them for much less then we expected.

Games have to be constantly re-balanced on how the players actually use the game vs how it was designed. As the bidding was designed to get expensive licenses 10 bn+ and that didn't happen, the next best step to re-balance that was to raise the base price for the licenses.

I disagree with you completely on a personal level about that the change was outrageous, from day 1 we were told that licenses were going to be expensive (As explained earlier, there were reasons why the base price was raised), just like the rest of the SB. And trust me with what is planned, if you can't afford a mere 2.5 bn for a starbase, you are not ready for a starbase. Not to mention that if you want (and will need once more content is released) a Habitat and Reactor for your starbase, those 2 items together eat up about 2bn worth of resources and will be the cheaper buildings for starbases once more content is released.
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Achilleos
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Re: Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

Post by Achilleos »

More nonsense and complete disrespect.
I play the game quite successfully I feel and have done for many years and I am fully aware of costs and am already close to crafting the helix reactor 2 so don't critize my knowledge and game style.
To say that it was a concearn that starbase licences were selling cheaper than expected so lets increase the price is absurd and the fact that you have no bids on them proves that.
Having a fork out an extra 1.5 billion minimum is a massive disadvantage to those players in the same position as myself and I'm sure will put people off rather than encourage them.
What should have been a real sense of achievment on finally getting to this stage ALONE has been destroyed and to be honest yours and Coops response to my comments just add another kick in the teeth.
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MadMaxxx
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Re: Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

Post by MadMaxxx »

Nobody is saying that you dont know how to play the game. Afterall CE can be played in your own style and each player is unique in that matter.
Like The Wolf pointed out, we in TT expected SB licenses to go into over 30Bil in price and we did prepare ourselves that way. So when licenses went way below that number, we decided to put down all 6 SB from the start(due to our good preparation). Kinbnal cost us over 10 Bil Credits and we were prepared to go even higher, so we dont have a problem. What increase in license price was intended is only to deter those that might have 1Bil credits and are thinking to go after it SOLO. Starbases were intended to be Guild based from start. Yes there are players that are going SOLO way, but some have Guilds behind them also. Teamwork is the way to move forward on SB in good pace, as there is a lot of planning to do and large gathering of all kinds of resources. You need AI resources, planet specifics, SMR resources (produced in manufactories),....
Dont get me wrong, i do understand how you are feeling atm and am not saying that you are wrong, all iam trying to do is, for you to acknowledge that, when looking at bigger picture (End cost of SB that will be over 150Bil if not way way higher) that 1.5Bil increase wont matter. Hell i even paid more for all AI resources that i gathered for Reactor and you dont see me complaining about it.
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Re: Starbase - Massive Annoyance and Frustration

Post by Yokose »

I can see where Achilleos is coming from. I think it is more the principle behind the situation. There were expectations that bidding for SB licenses would be high… those expectations were not met… I can appreciate the disappointment of not having goals met. I say this with utmost kindness… but it is possible that bidding probably should have started out much higher than the initial 1b in the beginning along with each consecutive bid per license if expectations were that the bidding would be high… that didn’t happen though. Because bidding did not meet expectations initial bidding prices were raised to 2.5b… I must say that this does disappoint me also, but I am in no way complaining, just saying that I can see where Achilleos is coming from. Those who got to bid on a license when bidding started got a nice and easy 1b bid, whereas now people get to start out at 2.5b… As I’ve said, I can understand the disappointment. I think this is why Achilleos said that this is a kick in the teeth to him… punishment because of balancing and an assumption. The assumption being that initial bids would be high in the beginning.

I remember working toward getting my mining barge deployed, and I was so happy when I met the requirements to finally deploy it… just to find that I had to pay out close to 300m credits just for the license… I think I only had like 70m at the time. I must say that I stopped playing for a month because I was so disappointed… there was no way I was going to be able to come up with those credits to pay that much for a license. Players work really hard to meet the criteria to reach their goals just to be hit by a massive paywall in terms of credits in some cases. I must say that when you first start out in the game, it takes forever to gain credits… at level 70ish, I only had around 600~700m credits I think. My net worth would not be where it is now if I had not sold several 10s of thousands of QMG Bios in the GBM. Anyway, for me, I had to work for months to bring the price of the license down… and even then it only went down by half… and I still needed help to purchase the license. I did finally get my barge deployed, which I am glad for.

I can also see the other side as well. If SBs are going to require 10s of 100s of billions of credits in the long-term… then an extra 1.5b for the license should not matter in the short-term. I know that I’m not ready for a Starbase myself, but that does not mean that I am not disappointed about this. I think that just because someone has a grievance about this does not necessarily mean that they are not ready for a Starbase. I say this again with kindness… but to assume otherwise might not be very fair.

I hope this reply was not rude in any way… just wanted to add my thoughts, though I am unsure if they were helpful. Please have fun playing, and please have a great day!!

Captain, Yokose
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