Live Feedback: Issue 13 : Bases -- Rent & Editing

I hate 30 limit on salvage racks. I hate the messed up to-hit on focused accuracy. I hate rent.

heh, everything else i luv. devs werk hard, I see that, Sticking to my guns tho- please give me more than 30 on salvage racks, please give me back my to-hit, please remove rent. Thank you.

Well, I just got my first notice about rent being due. I hate it. Here are the reasons why I hate it so far. I'm sure I'll have more when I actually try to pay it.

1. I designed the base on an 8x8 plot specifically so I wouldn't have to pay rent. Now I have to pay rent.
2. I don't know when to pay the rent. I never needed to know how it worked before, so all I know is that the official message is a lie, and if you fall for the lie then you pay double or triple what you need to.
3. I don't want to travel all the way to Atlas just to click on someone. Why can't I mail them a check?

Note: the actual amount of rent is not on this list. I don't care how much or how little it is. All the things about this change which annoy me are related to paying any amount of rent.

tl;dr:
Objective: My rent used to be zero. Now it is more than zero.
Subjective: I liked zero better. The rent system is vastly more annoying than the rent amount.

You should pay rent within a day or so of when it's due. Yes, there are those who will say pay two weeks after the due date, but I find it easier to get within a day or so of the due date, and that has worked.

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You should pay rent within a day or so of when it's due. Yes, there are those who will say pay two weeks after the due date, but I find it easier to get within a day or so of the due date, and that has worked.

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Now that my sg rent is 2,200 instead of 64,000 I am not tied to paying it 2 weeks past due to conserve prestige.

Objective Feedback:
<ul type="square"> [*]Base Rent was 106,000 and now is 2,900. [*]I was able to expand base to largest secure plot size with refund. [*]I was able to add Fusion Generator (previously crafted) with refund. [/list]
Subjective Feedback:

With a core of just a handful of accounts active, the change to base rent was a godsend. I sympathize with groups that now have to pay rent on an 8X8 plot but as you can see from my numbers, the revised rent on my base (which I still have my maxed out bins from the 16X16 plot) is not that bad.

Firstly, I love the rebalanced prices. Now my SG and I have what we always wanted: A HUGE raidless base we can fill with useless trinkets and the necessary teleporters to our greedy heart's content. Win/Win!

However, the reducing of the Rent costs for most has resulted in the increase for those to not paying any. While I don't object to paying the 1200 Pres every so often this means that if the SG leaders who are able to pay are off-line for too long the lights go out and everyone is angry with us.

IMHO the only change that the system needs (in addition to lots of new editor options) is an Autopay feature. Let me SG leader go into the Settings, click an Autopay button and the Pres gets removed every month without me having to fuss. If my Pres total drops below the Rent needed THEN they cut my power or whatever.

I'm kinda shocked that this wasn't added already but with so much coming out of the last two Issues I can see how they just haven't had time yet.

I'm glad your huge base is only costing you 1200, but my tiny one is costing me 800! That's only a few hundred less.

Our not so "Super" group is just three of my friends from real life who got the game a few monthes ago and want to play together.

We have the smallest lot and no teleporters at all. Just a couple storage racks (and we need more for our salvage already), a vault access, an inspiration storage, and an invention table.

It's really ridiculous how we jumped from paying nothing for our tiny base, to paying only 400 less than you are for your huge super-base.

Worse that 800 is coming from 3 friends, and I'm the only one who really plays fanatically so it's pretty much coming from my level 35. Which crimps into me saving up for other things, such as our first teleporter, or a medical bay.

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Which crimps into me saving up for other things, such as our first teleporter, or a medical bay.

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Yeah, that one paper/radio mission will probably cramp your expansion quite a bit.

/sarcasm off

I remember when it was based on total worth, so it was not unheard of to be paying 50k+ a month for that same "free plot" you got to use. When they finally made it based on plot size, I settled on 200k at a time since that was what my wife and I could afford and still be able to save additional funds. Let's see: 200k for 2 people vs. 800 for 3 people. Really, you have a strong case there.

Seriously, the more people complain about going from free to a pittance of a fee, the less sympathy I have for them. Do a mission and earn your rent. If you wait for the power to go out, you are only paying every 6 weeks anyway.

Mostly subjective feedback:

It takes us (meaning me and Ruan Er) maybe one day of gameplay, especially on The Tiny Groups (*peers at the Twilight*), to pay rent. I could have an emperor battleship base, and still not find rent to be debilitating to my Prestige intake. I find this totally acceptable.

Our major issue at the moment is Salvage storage, and we'll probably fix that later by adding bins to the Control room.

I'd desperately like a separate bin for Event salvage, though, with expanded limits. Our Halloween stockpiles are hard to maintain with the current limit, and having to mix in Candy Canes with it is going to get.. "interesting".

...especially when I fail to notice the second storage bin on the other side of the room.

*sheepish*

But yeah. Still not enough storage! Plenty of prestige for rent, though.

Objective:

1) Rent reduction, new stacking ability, overall base cost reduction:
All 100% awesome. Aside from the glitches involved with placing items I am very pleased and look forward to what the devs have for us in the future.

2) Base salvage to Invention salvage:
I believe I understand the intent of this change, and I definitely agree with it. Base salvage was highly outdated and needed to be dumped quite some time ago. Moving everything to one system makes much more sense and will allow for more flexibility in the future for whatever is planned. I only think that the invention salvage drop rates should be increased to compensate for the increased usage of those items.

3) More items items items. I've been waiting a long time to do epic stuff to my base (but i know you guys have to get things straight before you can move forward).

Overall I am very pleased with I13 - a clean-up issue was much needed and I am happy to see you got around to it!

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I remember when it was based on total worth, so it was not unheard of to be paying 50k+ a month for that same "free plot" you got to use. When they finally made it based on plot size, I settled on 200k at a time since that was what my wife and I could afford and still be able to save additional funds. Let's see: 200k for 2 people vs. 800 for 3 people. Really, you have a strong case there.

Seriously, the more people complain about going from free to a pittance of a fee, the less sympathy I have for them. Do a mission and earn your rent. If you wait for the power to go out, you are only paying every 6 weeks anyway.

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LOL. I remember playing Scott adams games on the C64 and not having any graphics, and I remember Mud's and Moos where you not only had no graphics, but often the text strings you typed in didn't work quite right. But . . . saying things used to be worse doesn't mean they should be worse again, or that they couldn't be better.

Speaking of better . . . right now I have a huge room in my tiny base that only contains a "Startup" giving me energy and control. One way to make this extra space more useful would be to allow us to move the entrance into it and delete our starter "Secret entrance" room.

salvage racks need to hold more than 30, Focused acc needs its pve tohit values back to normal, other than that im groovy with i13

Hmm ... is this another black hole thread or did I miss a dev comment somewheres?

i13 is finally the issue that brought me back as a steady player. I like most of the content and changes, especially the affordability of the bases (the rent is a bit too cheap, however). The only discouragement I have encountered so far is the salvage storage space. I host regular weekly super group teams and encourage tempory power creation. With the new changes to storage the supplies for creation of those temporary powers runs out after the first 1 to 2 hours. My teams run from 6 to 10 hours. Needless to say after the first two sg groupings many of the temp powers my guildies want to create are unavailable; even with the maximum amount of storage racks I have enough space for only 1 to 4 of each salvage. I wouldn't mind being able to place as many storage racks as I could afford for rent. Decorative rooms that could hold storage would be useful; sg members could actually have their own rooms with some functionality instead of being just some cool base area members visit once and never go into again.

A suggestion ... if any dev is actually reading this thread ... for the salvage rack issue, presuming that a change will be considered.

A base item that must be built, like a teleport pad is, for salvage storage, a "salvage organization system".
Give it a larger base storage capacity (ie more than 30) and have buildable expansion devices to attach to auxilary device ports that expand the device total capacity.
This would give us the storage we need in *one* place, you could count the storage aux units as storage devices for room and rent purposes.

Well done, overall. Making the price changes effective for stored items as well as existing plots was great. I think the intent behind most of this is going in the right direction.

Objective:
1. 5 bases that I'm a leader in.
2. 3 Hero bases and 2 villain bases. They were designed back when there was a smaller limit for characters in SGs.
3. We would put off rent until the last minute or until we realized our base power went off. Sometimes, we'd put off paying on one of the hero or villain bases since the other had teleporter beacons.
4. To avoid paying rent on a couple bases, we restricted the plots to free cost sizes.

Subjective:
1. My base salvage racks were collecting dust, but now that I can store salvage there, I feel they are too small.
2. My enhancement racks are useful, but our SGs weren't storing much in them anyway.
3. I use WW/BM for storing most things rather than the base. The base vault is really an emergency overflow due to bad planning or lack of other storage options.
4. The reduced rent is a boon. Even with the otherwise free bases, which we've since plot upgraded again, the cost is pretty reasonable. I understand the concern for newer players, or newer SGs, but the costs are pretty minor for rent, when taken with the other cost reductions.
5. I've found editing to be more interesting, and experimented with some of the ideas posted in the forums. I even recreated a giant robot like one player did. It was a bit frustrating, but neat.
6. We could really use some new art, tilesets, and objects. I believe that bases have been neglected since their inception, and changes made have alleviated some of the concerns (prestige+inf past 35, reduced costs for items, different and mostly lower rent).
7. I would like a way to consolidate SGs. Maybe make it account-based, supermajority vote-based, limit it to number of times per year or number of times total an SG can have another SG added to it. Permit a one-time name change maybe too. Something that would allow for older dual-SG bases to consolidate if they wanted.

Here's hoping that the Devs are concerned about bases and increasing their usefulness and importance without hurting non-SG players.

Btw, I think the auxiliary attachments are a great idea, that way you don't have to click on several different items.

OBJECTIVE ::
The current timing on playing rent versus being notified of rent due, makes no sense.
As it is now - if you are notified to pay rent and go pay it, then you will get a message that you owe base rent again in two weeks.
As you have forced A LOT of sg/vgs that were not paying base rent before to start paying base rent, there are MANY players that are being duped by this payment scheme.

SUBJECTIVE ::
It would make more sense to me that base rent be due the 1st of each month for all sg/vgs. Base closure happens on the 15th of the month is the base rent is not paid. Base rent is calculated from the base stats on the first day of the month.
If you want to let the base to close down until the first of the next month and then pay rent, that's fine (you have lost the use of your base for two weeks...that should be "punishment enough" - from my view point.) If your base was closed down, you don't gain access to it until you pay your rent.
Rent for all sg/vg's is always tied to the same monthly cycle regardless of when the sg/vg starts.

With this system if all sg/vgs pay base rent any time during the month, you don't get a message to pay base rent until the 1st of the next month (which says that base rent is due and that your base will be closed down on the 15th if you don't pay for your base rent by that time), and you have a little over two weeks to pay it. Also the system doesn't have to keep track of individual starting groups start dates; it only needs to keep track of - what is the current month's base rent, was base rent paid for this month, and has the base been shut down - the other factors are constants.

Maybe this system is too complicated to implement.

Examples ::
<ul type="square">[*]SG1 starts a base on the 1st of the month. Base rent would be do as soon as the base is created. Base rent at that point is zero as there is nothing in the base.
SG1 will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent.
[*]SG2 starts a base on the 28th. No base rent as due as the base rent isn't generated until the 1st of the month.
SG2 will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent.[*]SG3 starts a base on the 18th. No base rent as due as the base rent isn't generated until the 1st of the month.
SG3 will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent.
SG3 doesn't pay base rent by 15th.
SG3's base is shutdown until base rent is paid.
SG3's base rent does not stack regardless of how long they don't pay base rent. Paying base rent before the 1st of a month pays base rent in full for that month and base reopens.
SG3 will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent.[/list]
Maybe it is too easy and existing debt (previously unpaid rent) should be rolled into the new base rent cost after it is calculated on the 1st of each month.

Examples ::
<ul type="square">[*]SG1 will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent = X; X = new month's rent.
SG1 pays base rent before the 15th of the month.
SG1 a will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent = X.
[*]SG2 will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent = X; X = new month's rent.
SG2 does not pay base rent before 15th of the month.
SG2's base is shut down. Rent X becomes Debt Y in order to signify base closure; (any sg with debt does not have access to their base).
SG2 a will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent = Y+X = (current base debt)+(current base rent). Since Debt is still due base is still closed.
SG2 let's the 15th of the month go by again. Y (current debt) becomes Z (past due debt). New Current Debt Y = X (current rent) + Z (past due debt). This keeps a value in Y to keep base closed while adjusting Y to the new total.
SG2 a will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent = Y+X = (current base debt)+(current base rent). Since Debt is still due base is still closed.
...repeats until base rent and debt are paid....[*]SG3 will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent = X.
SG3 does not pay base rent before 15th of the month.
SG3's base is shut down. Rent X becomes Debt Y in order to signify base closure and keep track of debt (previous rent due).
SG3 pays base debt/rent on 18th; makes Debt Y = 0; base reopens.
SG3 a will get a message on the 1st of the following month to pay rent = X.[/list]
EDIT :: I put a link to this message
Here :: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showthrea...=0#Post12876244
and Here :: http://boards.cityofheroes.com/showf...1#Post12876239

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Maybe it is too easy and existing debt (previously unpaid rent) should be rolled into the new base rent cost after it is calculated on the 1st of each month.

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I'll have to disagree with this section (edit: of your suggestion) as it is theoretically possible to amass more "debt" than the base costs (not anytime soon given current upkeep prices, but who knows what items will get upkeep next &amp; how much they'll be).

Triumph: White Succubus: 50 Ill/Emp/PF Snow Globe: 50 Ice/FF/Ice Strobe: 50 PB Shi Otomi: 50 Ninja/Ninjistu/GW Stalker My other characters

Also what happens in your scheme to groups of friends, or alts, when they suspend their accounts for real world financial reasons? CoX is a luxury not a priority, I'll certainly pay my morgage before I pay my subscription fee. If I'm a supergroup of one, with major alt-itis, and I cancel my account for six months . . . well then I'm going to come back owing close to 6000 credits in base upkeep.

Until I pay it I'm not going to have access to the base, at which point I might want to disolve my group and just join another larger organization.

How about this as an easier fix...

* If you pay early your due date is advanced 4 weeks.

* If you pay late your due date is assigned 4 weeks from when you paid.

I.e. leave it as it is but fix (patch) the way paying early works and leave everything else alone.

Looks towards dev door

*cricket chirps*

My base will not allowing me to move my pre-I13 telepad rooms to other rooms , no stacking or anything blocking it

Already said it but I gotta say it again ... salvage rack system needs work ... lots of work ... by the time you add the cost of a workshop and 9 racks @15k ea for a whopping total 270 pieces of salvage its cheaper to buy what you need at wentworths when you need it ......

..... or is that the idea?