This is actually one of my arguments for keeping Accelerators as Event-only. Veteran players know how to turn their IRL cash into ISK, so we don’t need to add something new for them to purchase. Newer players will find that this is how EVE works: “You got something cool? Use it or sell it? Up to you!”
On the other hand, in order to keep Accelerators rare enough that veteran players don’t just farm them, we have to make it a difficult grind that new players will tend to avoid it. However my counter-counter-argument to this counter-argument is that we have to balance difficulty no matter what the reward is.
Slippery slope fallacy. You aren’t wrong, but it isn’t a valid argument for me to use.
To you and to everyone. But of course there are people here who think I’m crazy and/or stupid. They think this might allow people to “steal our jobs” or some other silliness. I say let them. Challenge me to do better. Challenge us to stay ahead of the curve. Find ways to make these tools improve the content in the game by allowing players to show us what they want.
This is correct. We find that most people running sites in Null are doing so in fairly safe territory. It’s not always the case, but it’s more often the case. Because of this, Null sees a much higher completion rate than Low.
Using Rogue Swarm Alert from June as an example, I believe it was the highest Low Sec completion rate we had seen in a while. Low Sec was around 7% and Null Sec was around 25% of the total completions.
We’ve been experimenting with trying to “message” that the rewards are better in Low Sec using in-game methods, rather than telling people through the news and community channels. I think if we can make it evident in-game, it would be better. Giving feedback to player actions is still something that EVE does poorly.
Another one of my arguments in favor of keeping Accelerators event-only.
Even this isn’t really entirely the problem. It’s really a matter of allowing more to spawn in a system where there are already several spawned, when there are tons of other systems that are completely empty.
Weighting systems based on the inverse number of spawned sites might be a decent way to do it. Still, this is in discussion phase, not even in design phase yet.
A single medium wreck was all I could get onto them in the amount of time we had to do it. The nerf was requested, that was what I could get in the time we had. I really hate changing loot drops or event rewards in the middle of an event. I dislike it so much that I was perfectly willing to see this through since the event is only running for a limited time so the “damage” to the economy is not permanent. Sure, it might have taken a very long time for it to recover, but can we learn something from this? In the end I decided to let this one go. Sorry, folks.
However, it does show that things like salvage are a good way to give out additional loot. Maybe not during Crimson Harvest, since it is around the corner, but probably during Yoiul Festival since I’m still working on that now, I’m trying to do something to that effect.
Sometimes it needs to be proven. Sometimes it needs to be proven again. Sometimes it needs to be ingrained. Like good science, it should be peer reviewed.
You’ll notice that I have and will continue to test things that we already know or think we know. Some of it is because we think we know but we really don’t. Some of it will be to prove something to leadership so they quit bugging us. I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make it sound like we are all just part of some little science experiment…
A single event is too short. However, when multiple events start to trend that way, it can change habits. Especially if (going back to an earlier point) we can give players feedback about where the high risk / high rewards are available. Because if the game shows the rewards are better, it becomes more believable than when a player says “Come to Low Sec, we have cookies!”
I just want to put this out there: I am not convinced either way about Accelerators. This thread has not presented any new arguments. I’ve heard all of these arguments against it. I’ve heard a lot of arguments for it. There are a lot of fallacious arguments on both sides because this is a very divisive topic. My personal opinion is that it will take a very powerful tool away from Events. Even though we have other tools we can use to engage people, that doesn’t mean we should weaken our current ability to reward players for playing the game.
The only reason I’m still considering this at all, is because there are a lot of changes coming to Alphas and Omegas. Maybe in a year it will make more sense to sell Accelerators, but I think there still needs to be further discussion before we get there. I have some say in the matter. If that changes and I lose the ability to have a say in this particular argument, I’ll let you know.
Final note: there is a minor client/server sync issue with applying boosters (or accelerators) after you log in to a structure. It’s fairly minor at the moment since we think we’ve found a work around for it. It is also enough for me to say we don’t sell borked items to players. No selling of accelerators until this gets fixed. This is at least one thing that everyone here agrees about.