Official Thread for Empowerment stations
By
Agent_117,
Posted on: 2006-05-01 13:22 in Developers' Corner
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Granted, that means only one buff every 5-10 levels or so, but isn't that the point of these things? They're designed to soak up the excess salvage in the market, not to actually give the players something useful.
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I just died a little inside.
The reality does seem to be cynically different from what we were promised.
@Mindshadow
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In my SG we're going to only install the arcane version of the enhancement station (we're a Tech SG) and tell players that they can use up all of their arcane salvage on all of the buffs they want, but the Tech salvage is for the SG.
Granted, that means only one buff every 5-10 levels or so, but isn't that the point of these things? They're designed to soak up the excess salvage in the market, not to actually give the players something useful. IMHO, they'd be more effective at soaking up salvage if they were a lot cheaper (one or two tech powers/materials for most things, maybe a hardware/software for the big buffs) since people would actually use them if they didn't cost an arm and a leg.
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Our VG (tech, also... in terms of base set-up... our mages have their own dec room 
... ) will be doing the same... Luckily, it doesn't take power/control to make the station...
-and-
I agree.
Was hoping it'd be ALOT more small SG/VG friendly... as with the storage... which, also doesn't appear to be so...
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Granted, that means only one buff every 5-10 levels or so, but isn't that the point of these things? They're designed to soak up the excess salvage in the market, not to actually give the players something useful.
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I just died a little inside.
The reality does seem to be cynically different from what we were promised.
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Yup,
so for small SGs... now you must choose... go for the buff, or save up to expand the base...
At least it doesn't cost prestige each time you create a buff! (or am I wrong... )
Member: Mutant Force Five, Chaos Legion & Team Awesome
So, uh...
Whoops!
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A simple inspiration: 50 influence. A "Smashing Resistance" buff: 11 Material, 11 Power. Being the leader of a small supergroup with thoughts of throwing himself into traffic: Priceless.
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At best conversion rates, this is 3 salvage per component. so 66 Salvage for 15 minutes.
For 1500 Infamy you can buy 30 Ruggeds at half a minute duration each to give you that buff. (or for the tragically depressed, the opponent in Siren's Call can buy 30 Enrages for the same price to utterly negate your buff and then some.)
how's your 66 Salvage compare to 1500 Infamy?
Heck, as of this moment, my SG is offering a huge trade in your favor... not one, but two, TWO whole Ruggeds for one Tech Power or Tech Material! Come on, get the Ruggeds while they're hot!
I'm the main salvage hound for liberties 8th ranked SG, and even if I used the salvage I pool from all the SG members, I still find these prices exorbitent.
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Can someone confirm the fact you can create HOs?
Villian-side?
-Scott
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With a lot of Salvage you can create level 10 HOs.
The author of this post is speaking in generalities from his personal experience.
Your experience may vary.
My group is comprised of 5 people... we have heroes and villains across three servers, each of us having roughly 26 characters. We have various incarnations of the same supergroup for the 5 of us for each server and allignment - that's 6 very small supergroups.
Granted, our heroes on Triumph get the most play. None of our other SGs have more than 450k prestige, so the Triumph heroes are the ones we were trying for base stuff with (I don't think the others will even be able to get insp and enh storage which is what we were REALLY looking forward to). Our two most active players have 50s on Triumph that we've been playing a lot. A LOT. I run mine out of SG mode to get us Influence and my friend runs in SG mode to get us SG stuff. Lowbies pre-infl cutoff get played in SG mode.
Soooo... we took 3 of our hero characters with the most salvage and stuck them in a SG on test. We were able to make 1 tree of wonder (11 tier1), 1 teleporter (6 tier1) and had enough left over for *ONE* of the smallest buffs (kb/kbresist/etc.) If we hadn't built the tree and the teleporter we might've been able to make two. Dude, that sucks 
Just to tell you how much we've been running in SGmode, we did have enough prestige to build a small base with a basic and an advanced worktable.
We will not, however, be able to generate enough Control to have a single inspiration bin, a single enhancement bin and an advanced table, even without a basic table. Though I guess that's why they think we'll spend all our hard earned salvage on the buffs. Doubtful, though, they're worth more to us in trade with larger supergroups and we're more prone to stockpiling in hopes of one day accomplishing the CoH dream :P
Right now we're trying to decide what the point is for us, though, other than to have a little clubhouse we can decorate and redecorate at will. We like to collect salvage just because, but the storage for salvage would be greatly improved with tabs - like in our own storage trays - that will sort the types for you. I've been having a really really hard time deciding what to pull out of storage and take to the Empowerment Station with me, having no prior experience with combining salvage. I end up going back and forth and back and forth.
Anyway, that's me and mine.
<-- chick, not dude
@perfectkismet | Arc ID: 191776 When Worlds Collide
47 50s: 6Bl . 3Br . 7Con . 3 Corr . 4Def . 1Dom . 2HET . 1MM . 1PB . 6Sc . 2St . 8Ta . 4VET
I recently cancelled my billing since I found the game to be more frustrating than fun, only to find I wasn't able to log on in time to tell some friends which game I would now be playing and where they could find me if they played. So I paid another $15 so I could log in and tell them. It was worth it so I could be kind enough to tell them and not have them wonder where I was.
I am so glad I did that. I was able to download the new patch and found out the empowerment stations were just what I expected them to be. A joke. 54 pieces of Rikti salvage to have a 15 minute 'Increase attack speed' buff? Help for the little SGs? Not hardly.
It was bad enough the devs turned SGs into slave labor camps to pay the ridiculous prices and even more ridiculous rent, now they've added something else that's equally as ridiculous. It was worth $15 bucks to come back and see how much more they could screw up a perfectly good game.
I think given the costs the empowerment stations would make much more sense if instead of granting a 15 minute buff, they created a special 5 minute inspiration. That way, you wouldn't waste what they made, and you could save the buff for the right time to use - which is often at the end, not the beginning, of missions.
Costs are still way too high in any case, though.
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So if you teamed with a kinetisits who had the stealth line...youd get the same buffs right? or if you were one.
I'm disapointed with these stations. I post here to get the everyone elses point across to the devs by agreeing with what's been said. I'm thinking of scrapping my base somehow as there's really no was to have a functioning base for small groups. And by functioning I mean a single teleporter and single medical rez.
This makes me a sad hero/villain. I've been holding off on building up our SG base until the I7 small group help.
We have no interest in PvP. All we want is a place to rez, maybe a telepad, and a big room to meet in. (read >750k prestige)
Why isn't there a new power/control room? Or non-pvp option discounted base prices? THAT would have helped us out. This is a slap in the face (that makes 2). The first came after the talks of bases and how we'd be able to buy stuff with lvl 50s. Then they removed inf gain after 35, gave us an obscene exchange rate....and personally my higher level (50, 34, 31, 30 toons) have been through all those levels and weren't compensated with ANY prestige.
Please give us smaller casual SGs a way to get some function out of our bases.
I remember that this game drew me in because there were no stupid time sinks (like bases are) I was advertised content without being told it's true nature and that pisses me off.
*edit*
Forgot to provide thoughts on empowerment stations.
These are extortion level prices for subpar benefits. I agree with above posters stating it should be a click buff, or last longer,and cost less. Being able to sell our salvage for a decent prestige price would be nice. I've seen good work from cryptic this issue, and this isn't even close. Realize this for the mistake it is and come up with something useful please.
Once again...these empowerment stations do NOTHING to help the small SG, and that's what they were supposed to do.
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Once again...these empowerment stations do NOTHING to help the small SG, and that's what they were supposed to do.
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QFT. In fact, I can't imagine even the largest SGs getting a lot of use out of these things, given the salvage costs.
My SG is about as small and casual as you get, but we've managed to build a decent PvP base including workshop and a couple of telepads. We'll make good use out of the storage units, but I doubt we'll even put in an empowerment station if costs stay what they are.
Buffs:
The costs for the buffs are just nuts/whacked/crazy - see Roget's for more synonyms - yeesh!
I can see burning that much salvage to "program" the device to give that buff (for an influence cost or something besides more salvage).
How are we to test these? If most characters don't even have the salvage to refine to test these buffs, how are we to know if they are useful / if they are over-powered / if they even remain active by the time most people can get to a mission.
Invention (tests):
Nice place to put them - crazy-looney-nutso costs again, however. - both of them cost more tier 2 salvage than I have on most of my characters (and I build the bases for both the SG/VG)!
Overall Value:
As it stands - this base "feature" is staying on the shelf. I won't install it primarily because of the high salvage drain on the SG/VG which we still need for item construction in some cases.
The only potential use I can see is for missions granted via the SG/VG computer (for IOP, etc) and the costs for the buffs are prohibitive compared to gathering together a decent team.
/em grief
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I have to agree.. the costs even for casual SGs would be considered astronomical in salvage.
for the price of a few inspiration buffs in a mission, i can almost achieve the same thing without the OWCH to the sg.
the overall cost to an SG for loosing salvage is astronomical. ITs a nice shiney i give ya that much, and to larger SGs its gonna be nice to have... but overall.. tis not worth the hassle.
either lower the costs for the buffs, increase the time they last OR make them where u can turn them on and off.. either of those 3 would make it most satifsying then.
thank you for listening... we return you to your normal griefing..
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The buffs are way to expensive for what they do. As a leader in my SG who has collected salvage from other SG members (and not used much of it towards the base yet), I could not make many of these. The cost should be 1-2 basic components for most buffs, perhaps 3-4 for the "higher level" ones.
If abuse is a concern, make it so that only 1 enhancement table buff can be active on a character at any given time.
Here is all I know about the Inventions (Hammy-O's).
I placed the first Empowement station in my base, and made an Invention. Could have swore I made two level 14 Dam/Acc HO. Gave one to someone, and we both put them in the Enhancement Bin. I logged on another character and when I went to look at the HOs, they were level 10 now.
I made the 2nd Tier Empowerment station. There is no Invention Tab, so can't make HOs on them yet.
Haven't made the 3rd tier station yet as I ran out of salvage.
Like I said, I could have swore I made a level 14 HO. We tested a few theories. Here is what we found out:
1.) The level of the enhancement is based on how much prestige you have for the base. Not likely, but still need to test some more. When I made the HO, I had 1500 prestige earned. When I logged on another character who had 0 prestige, they were level 10. Same with someone else. but then he logged on someone who had earned 2200 prestige, and it was still showing level 10. Haven't gotten the person with 2200 prestige to make one yet to see if matters who makes the HO.
2.) Different Ranks changes the level Tested, and doesn't work.
I am done fighting the test server for tonight, but I'll get on it when I wake back up.
Yeah I don't know what Positron is smoking lately but there's nothing empowering about these. One of my level 40's over his career and several dozens hours after level capping only had about 20 Material and 30 power components... which is roughly enough to buy 3 to 5 of these buffs.
This is just a bad joke.
I have to agree with most of the posters here. It simply requires too much salvage for the buffs that it gives. In many cases, Inspirations are far cheaper and easier to come by.
I guess an autodoc wins over an empowerment station then...
I'll add that most stuff that has come with bases reminds me of all the crap I hate about other MMOs that have neat items, but you have to spend ungodly amounts of time in-game to use them. That is NOT casual gaming, and I think I remember people saying that CoH was aimed at the casual gamer.... guess its switching momentium.
Member: Mutant Force Five, Chaos Legion & Team Awesome
I checked out the Empowerment Stations briefly this morning. I like the size of them. They are compact and easy to fit in the room. I do not think they should be limited to Workshops though. A starting SG needs to be able to put one in the entry room as they might not have the prestige to afford an additional room at first unless they load the SG up with unneeded Alts for the membership bonus. Requiring an additional room effectively adds that room's cost to the empowerment station for a starting SG.
Secondly, as mentioned by previous posters, the salvage costs of the buffs are too high for the intended users, i.e. small SGs. As they stand currently, the are unduely cost prohibitive to small SGs. Since there are many different buffs listed, it is assumed that the developers intend for people to be able to use multiple buffs at once. Right now, I couldn't even afford one buff. I'm sure part of that is because I've had to build items for my SG base on Live already. However, I find the current costs entirely unreasonable for any kind of use. It will be more cost effective for me and my SG to stock up on inspirations rather than use the Empowerment Stations.
As the Empowerment Stations provide buffs for individual players, I suggest converting the costs to Influence. Salvage is currently a very rare commodity which would be better used for base items besides Empowerment buffs.
The cost is doublely dubious due to the 15 minute time limit. Under the best case scenarioes I can think of, a minimum of 1/3 of the buff's duration will be "wasted" during travel time as it takes 5 minutes to get to anywhere in the game and be ready to fight again. In practice, at least 1/2 of the buff will be so wasted if not 2/3rds of the buff's duration.
If Empowerment Stations are really supposed to provide small SGs useable base items, the salavage costs must be drastically reduced. Right now, buying a stack of Inspirations is both more cost effective and more convenient since you use them when you need them. Empowerment buffs by comparison are expensive and the beginning portions of the duration are wasted in transit. Empowerment Buffs will be luxary items for larger SGs that have completed base constuction.
**post deleted**
it didn't make sense after correcting myself...
Member: Mutant Force Five, Chaos Legion & Team Awesome
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As the Empowerment Stations provide buffs for individual players, I suggest converting the costs to Influence. Salvage is currently a very rare commodity which would be better used for base items besides Empowerment buffs.
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IMHO, that's even more problematic. Our SG would then have people bailing out of SG Mode at 25 to get Infamy to spend on buffs, instead of helping gain prestige.
On benefit I can see from these, as a SG leader, is that it can convince people to stay in SG mode to gain more salvage for buffs. Sure, that's salvage I won't bet getting from them to turn into base details, but they'll be getting Prestige to pay the rent.
Someone remind me please - what's the average drop rates for salvage? If it takes 50-odd salvage for a buff, how many missions on average must you run for one buff?
I did not read each and every post to this thread, I have work to do here.
I am not surprised by the costs involved for these buffs. It has been obvious to this casual player for some time that the devs have no idea what it is to be a casual player.
I do not remember at what level salavge came into being, I know I was lvl 15 when I5 forced me to respec my tanker, and I am now lvl 30. I can guarantee you that I probably do not have enough salvage to create more than 1 or 2 buffs if I have enough for that.
If these "Empowerment Stations" were meant to help small SG's then it was not meant for Small SG's of casual players. Once again we are left out in the cold. We can afford the station but it will be nigh on useless to us...
I think the devs are trying to create an economy with salvage here. Unfortunatly, like all of the other economies in CoH, they didn't put enough thought into it.
Originally, Enhancements were supposed to have an economy as players traded them to get the right origin instead of buying the overpriced ones in the store (of which only half were available half of the time anyway).
Unfortunatly, they didn't work out the numbers and ended up with a situation where everybody was sitting on piles of money by the endgame and could easily twink their low level characters.
So the devs put in the inf reduction while in SG mode with I6. Now enhancements are more rare but people still don't trade them. The window (a couple of levels) in which they need them makes trading difficult, and the complete lack of any sort of in-game support for global trading (like an auction house) makes it far more effort than it's worth to try to find someone who has an SO you need and needs a SO you have. Only Hamidon enhancements have any market at all, and that's only after the raid in a giant spam of traffic on Broadcast and Request.
Now I think the devs are at it again, by making the powerups outragously expensive, they have created a niche for "salvage hunters" who will work in-game to gather salvage for you in return for something (Inf? Not likely since they'll be vetran players, Enhancements? Also not likely for the same reason. Hamidon Enhancements? Perhaps, although few people would trade a Golgi for a 15 minute buff, maybe a Lysome though)
Or maybe the devs just made these things "epic scale" like the rest of the bases and figure that only great big super active SGs deserve this kind of stuff anyway.