Empowerment Station buffs really this pathetic?
By
Alodarn,
Posted on: 2006-06-09 05:41 in Base Construction
Agreed.
The magnitudes need to be a lot higher.
And combine the buffs. They have the "same" ones too spread out.
Energy/negative energy, smashing/lethal, all the mez resistance powers, etc.
From the higher level buff stations, add combined buffs:
Knockback + energy
Physical damage + immob resistance
etc
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Did they ever buff up the damage resistance from 5%? (i.e. half of a small orange insp?)
Also, are you sure you made disorient protection and not disorient resistance ?
They also need to give some hard numbers on the power desciptions, so people know if it's worth spending their hard-earned salvage. or, from a cynical point of view, they won't /bug that the power has no effect because 5% isn't very noticable.
We get actual numbers on inspirations because you get one use and can't really spend them testing out. We get numbers on Patrons because you only get one. We even get numbers on enhancement drops now so we can decide to slot them or sell them. Salvage is also a finite resource, we should get numbers.
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We get actual numbers on inspirations...
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...which are incorrect.
I agree though, the empowerment stations should definitely list the numbers for the buffs.
/agree with all of the above
I tested a few of these firsthand to confirm the failing grade they were getting on the boards and they were worse than I could have imagined.
In what Bizarro world are 20 Salvage worth as much as a 50 Influence Inspiration? 
These buffs are crazy bad and need a major... not minor... improvement. At the current levels I could see them affecting the entire SG, but not one person only!
I crafted up a flight speed boost the other day just to see what kind of increased speed I could get. The toon in question was my 32 troller. I think he has two SOs in flight speed. I keyed up the empowerment station and got zapped.....only to find no noticeable upgrade in speed.
I was a little shocked to find that the stations still use refined components for the buffs. I thought that this was changed to allow for the use of actual salvage, but I suppose I was incorrect on that score. So now we use up components which are somewhat more difficult to obtain than just salvage. And for the cost of two of these components I get what? No noticeable boost? For two components, I should get max or close to max flight speed for the 15 minutes I get. Just my opinion, but it seems fair to me.
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On Test, the buffs seemed underwhelming. I just had a chance to test them on Live in exactly the kind of circumstances for which they were meant.
Up against Nemesis, EB version. I brew up a couple of buffs: Knockback Protection (only a single tech material, good and cheap) and Disorient Protection (costly, but I don't want to be stunned).
KB protection seems to work, but halfway through the fight I'm suddenly reeling around, stunned. Couldn't pop the health insp that would have saved me. Hmm. Didn't I just invest some fairly rare salvage in some stun protection?
These stations have the potential to be really cool, but as it stands (whether by bug or by design) they just aren't worth the salvage it takes to make them.
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Multiple empowerment stations will stack the buffs that are offered (by design). If we made the buffs as good as players "expect" right out the gate, they'd be WAY too good when stacked.
Positron
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Multiple empowerment stations will stack the buffs that are offered (by design). If we made the buffs as good as players "expect" right out the gate, they'd be WAY too good when stacked.
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But... why make them stackable in the first place? These devices are for small SGs, right? A small SG is much more likely to have a limited amount of salvage, which it can invest in very few buffs before stores run out. As things stand, the buffs NEED to be stacked multiple times in order to be worthwhile at all.
What small SGs need is a non-stackable, worthwhile buff for a simple, low Salvage cost. They won't abuse that, because they don't have the resources to.
The resources necessary for even ONE application of (say) the Hold protection buff are extremely rare. In our SG of a full seventy-five members, we could probably afford to apply four of those buffs before we exhausted the rare Salvage needed for them. That's our entire repository of rare salvage burned up. Compare that to what a tray full of Break Frees would offer.
What is gained for small SGs by making the buffs small and stackable, as opposed to substantial and non-stackable?
A thought: how about several alternative recipes for the high-end buffs, which use larger amounts of the common salvage instead of small amounts of the rare stuff? That would allow small SGs to stack buffs until they reach a decent level, without having to expend salvage that's very hard to get.
Ohhh, so the buffs stack. Makes sense I guess since they're more like insps than anything else. I thought you could only use one at a time, like a person putting a shield on you can only do this once and it doesn't stack onless another person puts that same shield on you.
Thanks, Posi.
Ok, that's clarified - now can we pleae have an answer as to why the insiration numbers display wrong? 
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Effectively this means that the buffs are just considerably more epensive than what you'd expect because you need to stack several of them to make them worthwhile. Since it already takes quite a long time to get enough salvage for even a single buff, this has put empowerment stations back in the useless category.
Worse, they can _still_ be overpowering. It just takes longer to build up the salvage to do it. All it means is that they're useless for normal play.
I'm part of a small SG (hell, I'm the one in charge of base building), and we generally don't use salvage for anything (teleporter, that's it thus far). So getting salvage isn't too much of an issue. On top of that (and I could be wrong on this), the empowerment station is meant more for special occassions (AV fights and such) rather than "Oh, got a 'Kill 10 CoT'" type missions.
It doesn't seem *too* unreasonable for me. We're not saving salvage for base raid items and such, after all. I would like a little longer than 15 minutes for the buff (is that how long? that's hat I've been told), simply because you have to *get* to the AV first...
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It doesn't seem *too* unreasonable for me.
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With respect, have you seen the recipes? Do you know just how much Salvage needs to be burned to make a buff worthwhile?
Positron, i think its a question of either:
Is the buff too low for the investment
or
Is the investment too high for the buff?
You clearely state that the buff is working as intended, then the obvious question is, dont you think its a bit too expensive to make such a worthless (unless stacked) buff?
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Multiple empowerment stations will stack the buffs that are offered (by design). If we made the buffs as good as players "expect" right out the gate, they'd be WAY too good when stacked.
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So make them better, but un-stackable. End of problem.
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Multiple empowerment stations will stack the buffs that are offered (by design). If we made the buffs as good as players "expect" right out the gate, they'd be WAY too good when stacked.
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But... why make them stackable in the first place?
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Well, while they could no doubt code them to not stack - it would go against the game's basic structure of "It (almost, see FF or Sonic bubbles for the main exceptions) always stacks".
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What small SGs need is a non-stackable, worthwhile buff for a simple, low Salvage cost. They won't abuse that, because they don't have the resources to.
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Exactly.
If these are indeed designed for small SGs, the buffs should be designed to be non-stackable, but powerful and expensive in terms of salvage. Otherwise, it's just something else to waste money and salvage on, and there's already plenty of that, from the perspective of a group struggling to have enough prestige to keep a base with a single workroom open.
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Effectively this means that the buffs are just considerably more epensive than what you'd expect...
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and the stations themselves are more expensive since you need to keep 3 or 4 around at 60k each.
the stations and the buffs may balance out on paper, but I don't think this design is accounting for the actual salvage economy that exists.
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Well, while they could no doubt code them to not stack - it would go against the game's basic structure of "It (almost, see FF or Sonic bubbles for the main exceptions) always stacks".
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But that basic structure is itself dependent upon a limitation of resources by time (power recharge) or carrying capacity (inspirations).
Empowerment Station buffs are limited in a totally new way: by the finite resources that are consumed to make them. Even something as trivial as a Run buff consumes two Tech material. That's SIX Salvage drops. Let's say you need four to be worthwhile - that's 24 bosses' worth of salvage, just to up your run speed for 15 minutes!
Empowerment Station buffs already break the pattern. Rather than make them stackable and weaken them to the point where they need to be stacked, it makes far more sense (to me at least) to have them strong enough to be useful but not stackable.
My whole attitude towards this is, eh, I'm disappointed by the advantages of SGs, and move on.
Maybe in a year or two they will give us worthwile incentives, until then I'll just play the game as I always have.
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Is the buff too low for the investment
or
Is the investment too high for the buff?
You clearely state that the buff is working as intended, then the obvious question is, dont you think its a bit too expensive to make such a worthless (unless stacked) buff?
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Don't you players get that fun=work? (that was sarcasm)
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Multiple empowerment stations will stack the buffs that are offered (by design). If we made the buffs as good as players "expect" right out the gate, they'd be WAY too good when stacked.
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But... why make them stackable in the first place?
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Well, while they could no doubt code them to not stack - it would go against the game's basic structure of "It (almost, see FF or Sonic bubbles for the main exceptions) always stacks".
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No, it wouldn't.
The Empowerment Station buffs are passive temp powers. This is the ONLY time in the entire game where you can "stack" multiples of the same temp power. You can't buy multiple jet packs from the arena, or multiple IR goggles at one time from Siren's Call, can you?
Are you really going to spend 50 Tech Material, 15 Tech Hardware, 15 Tech Prototype, 5 Tech Software, plus the salvage cost of FIVE of the 3rd tier empowerment stations just to get 25% psionic resistance for 15 minutes?
Just change the design so you can't stack the buffs, then make the buffs worthwhile. It's maddening that the stations were watered down to such impotence to encourage stacking.
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plus the salvage cost of FIVE of the 3rd tier empowerment stations
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WHOA. I just reread what Positron said. Multiple stations will stack? So to stack the buffs, you have to have more than one STATION?
... I don't know what to say.
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Multiple empowerment stations will stack the buffs that are offered (by design). If we made the buffs as good as players "expect" right out the gate, they'd be WAY too good when stacked.
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I just tested this on the test server. I have a base with 6 empowerment stations (one of each tier for tech and arcane) and I created an Increase Run Speed buff. I got the buff the first time, but every successive time I tried to create the same buff at another station I got a message saying there was no room in inventory.
I noticed this same thing months ago, but I thought it was by design. It was never mentioned anywhere that we were expected to stack these buffs for them to be useful. I'm irritated that we weren't TOLD how we were supposed to properly use these stations.
On Test, the buffs seemed underwhelming. I just had a chance to test them on Live in exactly the kind of circumstances for which they were meant.
Up against Nemesis, EB version. I brew up a couple of buffs: Knockback Protection (only a single tech material, good and cheap) and Disorient Protection (costly, but I don't want to be stunned).
KB protection seems to work, but halfway through the fight I'm suddenly reeling around, stunned. Couldn't pop the health insp that would have saved me. Hmm. Didn't I just invest some fairly rare salvage in some stun protection?
These stations have the potential to be really cool, but as it stands (whether by bug or by design) they just aren't worth the salvage it takes to make them.