Constructing Items, Bases, and their costs
By
Amidar,
Posted on: 2005-10-31 13:56 in Base Construction
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DJJest wrote to Maldini:
Your cocky I'm better than you attitude can just take a hike. These folks are describing THEIR EXPERIENCES and discussing them. Just b/c you (In City of Villains from what I gather) have found a way to make 100k in a couple of hours doesn't mean that every SG can accomplish that. "Shared Mission Complete Bonuses" well guess what.. those arn't IN CoH yet.
Your automatically assuming that these folks who are only earning 50k per week arn't teaming together, generally the point of a supergroup IS TO TEAM TOGETHER. More than likely they always are.
Beyond that, I can state for a fact that the Villan Group I run on Protector averages 15-20 people online (having over 60 members) playing during afternoons and into the early morning and all of them working their missions together are making under 100k in a day not a couple of hours. Several of them are already in their high 30's, many are in their mid 20's. These arn't casual gamers, these are folks who know what they're doing and that's all their making. A smaller SG who can just barely form a team of 8 for more than an hour, isn't going to be able to make anything close to that. Its been stated over and over again by numerous people as fact that they arn't earning that.
Just because YOU don't think they're working hard enough or doing things right doesn't make you right. It makes you a jackass.
You obviously can't see the bigger picture and look beyond your own experiences b/c over and over you've stated that if they can't do what your doing their not working hard enough or doing it right. Thats the beauty of MMO's there's never one way to do anything.
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I'm sorry but 20 weeks is nothing close to reasonable. It shouldn't take nealry six months to build a raidable base for a small SG.
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I generally avoid quoting huge portions of text, but DJJester was totally spot on.
Maldini, you really need to take a moment to learn what it means to NOT be a hardcore gamer.
Perahps you cannot understand this, but there are a lot of people who do not think it is fun to login to the game and spend every second of time engaging in optimal grind behavior. If they login to play for an hour or two, some of that is going to be spent socializing.
A major game feature that is basically the most significant feature of the entire CoV expansion should not be something that requires enormous amounts of hard core play to enjoy.
Now, personally, I am a hard core player, and so is my wife. When we login, we grind like mad. We call it "borging." But we are not typical gamers.
The majority of CoH/CoV's customers are casual players. Cryptic ignores this fact at their own peril.
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Your 1.5 - 2 Million Raidable base is a myth...
A Raidable base requires:
6 Dimensional Anchors
Vault
Raid Teleporter
Mission Computer
A Raid Teleporter does NOT fit in the 2x2 room, which means in order to fit a 4x4 room for teleporting you have to sacrifice 2 rooms in your base.
On the basic Plot you can fit 9 2x2 rooms To fit a 4x4 room you have to give up 3 rooms. Now if you can manage to lay things out just right you can use the 150k long control room to use some of the lost space.. However using a 4x4 room leaves you with a max of:
1 4x4
1 1x4
4 2x2 rooms (*MAYBE a 5th 2x2 room)
Out of those 6 or 7 rooms 2 of them can NOT hold a dimensional anchor (The entrance and the Vault)
In order to have enough rooms for dimensional anchors and enough space for a Raid Teleporter YOU MUST Upgrade your plot to the 3.3 million prestige plot.
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Looks like your estimates are off as well, Maldini.
Yeah. Do you know how many casual players have their alts spread out across several SG's? Maybe you're out of touch with the game.
I play only a few nights a week. I'm the leader of an SG, but the other leaders and captains do a good job running it.
Like I said in another post, posting a lot has nothing to do with how hardcore of a gamer you are. For many people, it's an escape from the mundaneness of work.
Post deleted by Alexa
i can see yall have as much work as i do today.
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i can see yall have as much work as i do today.
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Lol. so true, so true
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There's no way that in less than one year any SG should be able to MAX OUT their base.
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Of course it should.
Is this a game or a slave galley?
Most SGs don't even last that long. They break up when too many members quit, graduate from college, get married, have kids, get a promotion at work, and all sorts of other RL reasons.
If a huge SG could not max out their base in a year, that's a huge problem as well.
You also have to keep in mind that once people start raiding, things are going to get destroyed and need to be replaced.
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Yeah. Do you know how many casual players have their alts spread out across several SG's? Maybe you're out of touch with the game.
I play only a few nights a week. I'm the leader of an SG, but the other leaders and captains do a good job running it.
Like I said in another post, posting a lot has nothing to do with how hardcore of a gamer you are. For many people, it's an escape from the mundaneness of work.
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A LOT. why? B/c they've joined larger SG's to get a good source of teaming. Those larger SG's then require them to have one character in one sg and their alts in subsequent associated SG's.
I know this for a fact b/c 75% of my SG falls into the Casual Gamer category. As do most of the people I know in game.
Small SG's don't last long.. b/c the members loose interest or can't get teams. The ones that last are the hardcore or the teams of primarily real life friends.
Over the past year and a half my SG has absorbed SEVERAL casual gamer SG remnants.. and its a good environment for those casual gamers to be in.. b/c when they do log in there's almost always 10 or 15 people for them to possibly team with or more.
As far as you being a leader of an SG.. you can't be a very good one if your moonlighting in Other SG's and not putting your efforts into improving your SG.
Says a lot about an SG when its leader can't even be loyal to the SG.
w00t Radio
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Not everyone is reporting the same thing. In fact more than a few are reporting numbers that are 2 to 4 times than this average that your quoting. But you're only looking at the data that supports your cause.
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Yeah, hardcore farmers are the ones reporting higher numbers.
Maldini, are you middle school child or are you really just totally ignorant of what a casual player really is?
A casual gamer is someone who logs on, hangs out with his/her friends, throws a group together here and there (usually not a perfect group, and often with a couple of people sidekicked or exemplared), does a few missions (perhaps part of a story arc which often means the missions are not super fast), and during the time they are playing they will chit chat, goof off, etc.
A hardcore gamer mix/maxes their build, puts groups together with a top notch combination of classes and levels, does the most efficient missions fighting the ideal enemy types (avoiding annoying as heck and time consuming enemies like Circle of Thorns, cramped cave missions, etc.), and blitzes through missions like crazy at top speed.
You seem to be totally unable to understand the difference.
You should also understand that the OVERWHELMING majority of customers (and that means Cryptic's income) are casual players.
Bases and Base Raiding are the two most dramatically hyped features of the CoV expansion. Just look at the box. You cannot use "hardcore gamer logic" to explain how casual gamers should have to play in order to enjoy the most significant features of the expansion.
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Maldini thought he was amusing when he tried to mock DJJester who has repeatedly slaughtered Maldini's points:
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Wow.. waah waaah waaaah waaah wa waaah wa waaaah wa waaaaah waaah wah waah wa waaaah wa waaah wah? Wah waah waah waaaaaah waah waaaaaah waaaaah. Wa wah waaah waah wa waah waaah.
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Well since there's obviously no reasoning with you even after someone offers a valid counterpoint, I no longer respect your opinion and this is all I hear from you from this point forward.
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Maldini, your ENTIRE countpoint is:
START PLAYING LIKE A HARDCORE UBER GAMER! NO OTHER PLAYSTYLE IS ACCEPTABLE.
Why is it so hard for you to see how ridiculous and stupid your suggestion is?
Harccore gamers like you, me, and tons of other people here will have no trouble earning lots of prestige. That's because we are mix/maxer hardcore players who always find the best way to do things.
But here's a little clue: most people don't do that, most people don't like that, and these "most people" are important to the overall financial health of the game.
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Maldini wrote:
Like I said in another post, posting a lot has nothing to do with how hardcore of a gamer you are. For many people, it's an escape from the mundaneness of work.
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Sure it does.
Anyone who averages close to 500 posts a month is hardcore to the extreme.
You also happen to lead a large SG and are a member of (in your words) several other SGs.
You also espouse pure min/max grind behavior for earning prestige.
News Flash: You are a hard core gamer. If you think the above does not describe hard core, then you are even more out of touch with what makes for a casual gamer than I expected.
It is not something to be ashamed of. I'm a hardcore gamer as well. I'll probably have my first lvl 40 villain pretty soon and it will be in less than 100 hours of playing time (possibly a lot less, I haven't checked it in a while).
But you have to be honest with yourself and admit that you are indeed a hardcore min/maxer, and all of your advice has been for casual players to engage in hardcore gameplay behavior. That is bad advice.
Hi there. I have spent my shift here at work reading this entire thread. Exhausting as that was! 
All right. My friends and I Just formed a new SG last night. There are five of us to start. I would call us a good mix of hardcore and casual players. I am going to, if'n yall don't mind, post here as to how we are doing, maybe weekly, on base building. Any problems we encounter, hardships we encounter, etc. I will throw up my numbers and everyone can compare that to their own expirences as opposed to tossing around arguements. As far as I can see yall have argued the point of base construction costs till the cows come home. I was getting a headache from all the math! SO, I'll post my SG's real in game base building exploits and everyone can yatter about it to your hearts content!
Thanks in advance and any advice once we get started will be greatly appriciated!
Rilayna Rodello - Level 32 Inv/SS Tanker
Leader - Wrath of Pheonix, Justice Server
Good luck to ya Heckfire!
I am interested to hear your experiences.
Thanks! oh and this is a shared account.. yer talking to the wife, Rila 
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Maldini, your ENTIRE countpoint is:
START PLAYING LIKE A HARDCORE UBER GAMER! NO OTHER PLAYSTYLE IS ACCEPTABLE.
Why is it so hard for you to see how ridiculous and stupid your suggestion is?
Harccore gamers like you, me, and tons of other people here will have no trouble earning lots of prestige. That's because we are mix/maxer hardcore players who always find the best way to do things.
But here's a little clue: most people don't do that, most people don't like that, and these "most people" are important to the overall financial health of the game.
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You're jumping to extremes, here.
I joined a pick-up group tonight and over the course of a couple of hours, managed to earn close to 30K prestige. The group definitely wasn't hardcore - some of us kicked butt, some of us got their butts kicked. There was chit-chatting, goofing off, etc;
A group of decent players going through missions at a regular pace *can* earn a decent amount of prestige.
Now, all that being said, I *do* happen to think that the prestige levels need to be seriously adjusted; Either more prestige per kill or lower the prices of items *substantially*.
While it is *possible* to build a base on your own (what the heck, I'm trying to), the sheer amount of prestige is staggering.
Personally, I would be very surprised if the prestige amounts aren't tweaked over the next couple of weeks (hopefully sooner than later)
(Free hint, too: Using words like "stupid" and "ridiculous" to describe other poster's ideas is hardly conducive to an adult conversation)
Week 1: 149375 prestiege
Just played with the basics today. Bought a chair, a potted plant and a table, just to play with the placement of items. They do let you have a good amount of control over the enviroment. Also played with the textures and lighting options. Getting a feel for the mechanics. Chokes on the prices a bit, but I tried not to look at those right now. I'll make a list of items we want this week, make a few preliminary plans on a base lay out. Eventually we will want to participate in Raid Evets, but right now just getting built is a priority over that, but I do want to keep it in mind seeing as that we have to have a safe place for our IoP. SG is going to stay in SG mode all week, we will see how our prestiege is by then. We are now 7 active members strong. We'll see how it goes!
Rilayna Rodello - Inv/SS Tanker - Justice Server
Leader - Wrath of Pheonix
(not responding to anyone in particular)
Just to add another person's experience for trying to work out the "average": I've been playing since release day for about 2.5 hours a night average with another 15 or so hours across the weekend. Got some extra gametime in this week as I had the week off work. My main character is, on talking to a civilian, 57 hours old. He has gained 114k prestige, running missions with a friend, in SG mode since level 10. I'm starting to get less infamy now though (level 27) so not sure how long I'll be able to afford keeping SG mode on for.
So I'm gaining a hair over 2k prestige per hour (you get what, 10-20k prestige if you're in SG mode for the first 10 levels?).
I don't do farming, just regular running in SG mode without too much downtime between missions etc (and generally won't farm, due to lack of fun and feeling of grinding).
I have a 2nd char who is level 21 and has gained about 70k prestige. The first char is in a two man SG (will be a third if he ever gets his butt over from WoW) that doesn't really expect to get a functional base any time soon. The 2nd char is in a small (I'd guess 10-15 active members) SG and is about the 3rd or 4th highest contributor to prestige in the group. That group hopes to have a working Workshop up in, I'd guess from the prestige earned so far, 3-4 more weeks. Not sure how long the basic telepad and infirmary will take.
As for my opinion, I am ok with the base costs for plots, rooms, and basic equipment. I expect that my small SG (in one case, tiny) will take a month or two to get a basic functioning base up and running, and quite a while to get a raidable one going. What I'm not ok with is the cost of making craftable items. In beta the challenge was getting enough salvage to make much of anything - we were pretty chuffed when I managed to get a mission computer and basic telepad made. In retail however I've got loads of salvage.. and get depressed knowing that most of it will never see use due to the cost of whatever state of the art glue they're using to stick the bits together with (especially when you consider other SG members will want to build their items too). I don't mind smaller SGs doing things on a smaller scale than big sprawling maxed out ones, but I think the minimum realistic scale needs to be a bit higher to ensure enjoyment for all - removing or seriously reducing crafted item costs would go a long way towards that.
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It does make me wonder that considering the DoIDD is probably the single largest and most organized SG in the entire game, if they're having such issues you can figure that even if they get to the point of having Items of Power in their base, who they heck are they going to have to raid against?
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Agreed. OUr Heroes SG, Riders of the Apocalypse on Triumph, has the cash for it, mostly thankx to our 50's been running missions ever since we heard about all of this. The base is basically up and running. It's pretty advanced. Probably more advanced then any other SG on Triumph. I haven't heard what some of the other big name SG's have. As for The Apocalypse, our SVG on triumph. It's a struggle to get anything done. with every oounce of prestige that we've gotten or earned, our total prestige net worth is about 1.5 mil. That's enough to have 2 work tables *2 of each kind*, control room, database, holodisplay, main frame, generator and the rooms they go in. That leaves us with 450k or so. And that's on the freebie plot we have. I don't see any base raids on the villains side for at least 3 or 4, maybe even 6 months down the road. Maybe by then we'll have enough room for a decent vault and some bigger work, control, power, and teleport rooms. I'd have to agree with dropping a couple or 3 zeroes off the prices. A great room for the huge complex map is the same size as our starter base plot, and it's only 150k? So why the over priced plots? It's rather ridiculous if ya ask me. I don't see the Dev's boosting the prestige out put any. Since that would be the simplest solution. So, I'd say dropping the costs of plots and major end items would be the way to go.
I know this is far fetched and we'd never see it, but how about a TF or a series of TF's already in game or up and coming where a SG could get say a discount for completing the TF? You could only run the TF once. As a prize you can choose your prize. Like a 20% off of Major end items like Super computers, Generators, Plots. It's just an idea. I know it sounds dumb but think og it like this. A Super computer that generates 500 Control for you base is 1.5 million prestige. With the 20% off, you get it for about 900K. A plot that costs say 11.5 million, with the percentage off you get it for 9.2 Million. It'll save the SG about 2.3 million prestige to buy more thing, be able to pay their rent based off the current system. The Devs will get what they want, and the Players get what they want, which is cheaper rates. It's not the greatest of ideas, but it's better and somewhat more feesable then what I've been hearing.
I'll add some more views from a smallish group.
We have about 20 members. Five could be considered hardcore, rest are not. Most play in SG mode. At this point, 2 weeks from the headstart, we have a total of almost 7M prestige earned from bonuses and missions. A touch more and we'll have the power installed to run our ressurection circle. Honestly expecting it by the end of this weekend.
The stupid end of mission bonus prestige going missing bug hit us hard. We group all together alot, or with our coalition buddies, and almost never farm the streets unless we get jumped by an ambush, or are given a "Kill X of these" mission by our contacts. I checked 2 days before the patch that fixed it, and we were missing 240k+ prestige. That's 2 rooms, or a room and an important item. Haven't rechecked the totals.
Good news is that with the patch fixed, we're up to 20 - 50k a day depending on everyone's time playing.
More to come!
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I'll add some more views from a smallish group.
We have about 20 members. Five could be considered hardcore, rest are not. Most play in SG mode. At this point, 2 weeks from the headstart, we have a total of almost 7M prestige earned from bonuses and missions. A touch more and we'll have the power installed to run our ressurection circle. Honestly expecting it by the end of this weekend.
The stupid end of mission bonus prestige going missing bug hit us hard. We group all together alot, or with our coalition buddies, and almost never farm the streets unless we get jumped by an ambush, or are given a "Kill X of these" mission by our contacts. I checked 2 days before the patch that fixed it, and we were missing 240k+ prestige. That's 2 rooms, or a room and an important item. Haven't rechecked the totals.
Good news is that with the patch fixed, we're up to 20 - 50k a day depending on everyone's time playing.
More to come!
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7 million perestige since the head start? Must be nice.
Currently part of a VG that's made up of basically eight people and alts. We're online every night for at least three, four hours. We've got 22 names in our VG, most of 'em alts. We've been playing for two weeks time, give or take. Not sure how long the guys have been on before I joined up.
Right now, we have two rooms, the Entry Room and a Energy Room, both 2x2. We've got some decorations, but not a whole lot. Maybe 10k at most. There's 67k prestige in the bank, and we've got a basic generator going.
That's putting us at about 442k prestige at this point. We're all pushing level 20, and we're usually fighting things +2 or worse.
Now that means that in two weeks time, we've earned about 142k prestige playing enough individually to qualify this as a part-time job.
To hit the critical 750k point (enough to get an Energy Room, Control Room, Workshop, Generator, Mainframe, and Basic Worktable) we're going to have to play for another six-plus weeks, which is going to become a big issue when we hit 25 and start suffering infamy loss. At that point we'll start seeing that six-plus weeks lengthen as we have to devote time to earning infamy to keep up with our enhancement needs.
Eight people, eight-plus weeks, 21-plus hours a week, to get a basic functional base. No crafted items, no medical, no transport, just being able to convert salvage to raw material.
I'm thinking just maybe costs need to be dropped some, if bases are to be available to the casual player.
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Yeah. Do you know how many casual players have their alts spread out across several SG's? Maybe you're out of touch with the game.
I play only a few nights a week. I'm the leader of an SG, but the other leaders and captains do a good job running it.
Like I said in another post, posting a lot has nothing to do with how hardcore of a gamer you are. For many people, it's an escape from the mundaneness of work.
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A LOT. why? B/c they've joined larger SG's to get a good source of teaming. Those larger SG's then require them to have one character in one sg and their alts in subsequent associated SG's.
I know this for a fact b/c 75% of my SG falls into the Casual Gamer category. As do most of the people I know in game.
Small SG's don't last long.. b/c the members loose interest or can't get teams. The ones that last are the hardcore or the teams of primarily real life friends.
Over the past year and a half my SG has absorbed SEVERAL casual gamer SG remnants.. and its a good environment for those casual gamers to be in.. b/c when they do log in there's almost always 10 or 15 people for them to possibly team with or more.
As far as you being a leader of an SG.. you can't be a very good one if your moonlighting in Other SG's and not putting your efforts into improving your SG.
Says a lot about an SG when its leader can't even be loyal to the SG.
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Right on man. I agree with you on that one. Just because a person has like 1200 posts, doesn't always mean they are the Guru of the game. I know plenty of people that post less then I do, and know as much about the gasme as the Devs do.
Personal or casual bases will fade away like the platform shoes with goldfish in them. Sounds like a great idea at first, then when it becomes reality, and people realize how ridiculous it is. They'll change their mind.
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Personal or casual bases will fade away like the platform shoes with goldfish in them. Sounds like a great idea at first, then when it becomes reality, and people realize how ridiculous it is. They'll change their mind.
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Beacuase they suffocate the hero? Scary stuff... 
Seriously though folks.. GREAT posts.. I do have to question the 7Million and not having placed a power plant yet.. i'm thinking that's a typo? I'd love to get some confirmation on that.
w00t Radio
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I do have to question the 7Million and not having placed a power plant yet.. i'm thinking that's a typo? I'd love to get some confirmation on that.
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I'm thinking it must be, or something. 7 Million is a MUCH larger plot of land, all room types, with many of each type (and level) of items placed.
And many characters maxed out at 40...
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Maldini:
Not only am I an SG leader of a larger SG, but I also belong to several smaller casual SG's and therefore speak from experience.
Know the man, before you get ballsy and start talking about him.
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Where did I go wrong in labelling you? I labelled you a hardcore player.
You have 1750+ posts in a couple months.
You are the SG leader of a large SG.
You also belong to SEVERAL other SGs.
That's not hardcore?
Are you really and truly this out of touch with what a truly non-hardcore player is?