Making Trading harder: Take 2

[silverx2]

This thread is JUST for suggestions to the Trading aspect of the game. Attack ratings have no positive or negative relation to this discussion. Also please, no filibustering.

Suggestions that have been made:

Remove the PSF
Slow the PSF(nerf to psf)
Have dropping a mine clear your green sector(buff to hunters)
Remove CPL(nerf everyone, makes scouts much more important)
Make the bargain button move(nerf trade speed)
Make it so you can only make a transaction once every X Seconds(slows the trade speed)
Seperate combat Exp from Trade Exp. hunters with high combat Exp will hit harder since a traders with have low combat EXP.


Some new suggestions:
Make it take X amount of time to load/unload cargo post trade. an IST will unload faster then a PSF. Alskants will as a race have a quicker turn around. possible to couple with separate EXP systems so a high trade EXP means a fast load/unload process. If you are mid trade when fired upon, and you decide to leave you lose whatever % was being unloaded loaded, as well as any money involved.

Hunters dropping mines clears green sector. Can only drop mines once every 5 seconds to prevent stun locking.

[JettJackson]

I am with page on this from the other thread, in that the mine dropping/green loss would be too strong for hunters.

[silverx2]

I am with page on this from the other thread, in that the mine dropping/green loss would be too strong for hunters.

I think so too, the only way it would work is to put a delay so someone can keep someone locked down just by dropping 1 man over and over. the problem with that is it slows down miners.

[JettJackson]

I am with page on this from the other thread, in that the mine dropping/green loss would be too strong for hunters.

I think so too, the only way it would work is to put a delay so someone can keep someone locked down just by dropping 1 man over and over. the problem with that is it slows down miners.

2 hunters hunting together makes the timer pointless. I think its best to just avoid such an overpowering change for hunters.

[Page]

Yea, dropping clearing green sector is out of the question, however only setting green sector when you hit mines can work, it will only affect the first mine that is dropped (because after that you will already have the green set from hitting the first mine)

[N.ator]

dont remove cpl! that is one the only things i actually look at! you dont want to play a game and not see who is playing!! but i say bring back the old arrows!

[Pickles]

Have dropping a mine clear your green sector(buff to hunters)

The way it worked in beta (or should have worked) when trialled was that your safe exit only got set when you hit mines. The safe exit should never have been cleared by someone dropping mines (it was hooked into the force combat code and nowhere near the force dropping code). The idea was that a hunter could drop a mine on someone and they would need to set a safe exit before leaving, not allow hunters to hold someone in a sector with continuous drops. If it didn't work that way then it's because there was a bug that never got fixed.

Seperate combat Exp from Trade Exp. hunters with high combat Exp will hit harder since a traders with have low combat EXP.

Why would anyone ever trade? I understand this is the ultimate goal for the hunters in the game but you folks do need targets and some suckers to buy you ships. Maybe would work if Combat XP was capped to Trade XP and both got dropped after a pod.

[silverx2]

Seperate combat Exp from Trade Exp. hunters with high combat Exp will hit harder since a traders with have low combat EXP.

Why would anyone ever trade? I understand this is the ultimate goal for the hunters in the game but you folks do need targets and some suckers to buy you ships. Maybe would work if Combat XP was capped to Trade XP and both got dropped after a pod.

Traders with High EXP would need some sort of bonus at higher EXP, in order for it to work.

[Pickles]

Traders with High EXP would need some sort of bonus at higher EXP, in order for it to work.

I agree.

I think perhaps it's time for us to understand there are 3 distinct sets of people that actually play (and yes there is crossover).

a) Traders - I personally enjoy trading out and helping out my alliance with cash/xp.
b) Hunters - I see the role, I like that it's there but I don't see it as the be all and end all of the game.
c) Support - These are the folks that pretty much make this game still happen. Burning time building planets, laying minefields, training newbies, leading alliances and they get practically bugger all reward for doing so.

Here's my rant: For entirely too long we've lauded and concentrated on a group of players that provide the game with almost nothing. Hunting is not the core of the game. In fact it is one of the few aspects of the game that could be entirely removed and the game would be almost the same. Yet we, as a community, continue to praise people who's sole objective is to make someone else have a bad day. This entire thread is devoted to making traders easier to hunt, which is fine, but every kill involves destroying weeks if not months of someone else's playing time. Big laughs for the hunter sitting in their 10k ITACC and a damn good reason to quit for anyone that just got podded over 100k without an alliance route. Make trading more interesting; make more of us actually want to do it; make money hard to come by and traders more valuable to an alliance. I'm sick and tired of prima-donna hunters running roughshod over the game and thinking every support or trader player is just there to do harlot's work (thank you thesaurus). If you're going to change the game then change it to make sure everyone is getting a good deal, not just so that the hunters can get extra kills.

[the570z]

You make a lot of sense pickles, but I would disagree that all hunters at least are in it to ruin peoples day, I find that part the worst(good thing for me I dont get very many kills... lol). My desires to hunt is based on the fact that trading is pretty much automated except for hunters. There is zero brains required to do it other then avoiding getting blown up. With the PSF and the prevalence of fed routes, trading has become so safe that anybody who pays attention and isn't on dial up is invincible. Most folks die now due to a connection glitch while running, not because they got jumped at a port. This hurts hunting, but it also hurts trading as its lost the only challenge it had.

I would say we should make traders more vulnerable AND at the same time make hunting ships no longer have to kill a trade ship to get the xp and the cash. The hunter shoots until the ship would be dead, and then gets an option, blow up the ship and lose the cash or take their money and let em go. Turn the hunters into pirates, pirates often would rather let ships go so they can rob them again later as if the traders cant survive and make a profit, there is nobody for the pirates to steal from. Giving them the option still lets you blow up members of opposing alliances to cost them in xp and money. Being raided also should cost some xp, but perhaps only a 10% of what a death would.