Even I as a FORMER IMG| know the guild is somewhat over-powered due to the massive bonuses and their current diplomacy. In the omegas the only real threat they face is the Corsairs, everyone else seems to leave em lone,The Houses, especially Rheinland are somewhat powerless to curb their activities because they are afraid the Devs will go 'You can't be mean to IMG, therefore we're gonna nerf your corporations even more and make things unpleasant for your house!"
I know alot of people who actually hate IMG, like REAL hate and wish they would simply die off, I personally don't hate them since I've actually PLAYED the faction, but I do agree that some measure of balance MUST be restored because I see fewer and fewer people play corporations and more going either IMG| or indy IMG.
We also agree that the IMG are overpowered by now, and steps are going to be made to reduce that. We are losing 5kers, opening up the Annapurna and I think losing the Diamond and Platinum bonus (or at least Jack mentioned we'd be fine with that).
However, Pavel is still preaching to the choir and anyone walking past the church that particular Wednesday afternoon, in several threads pretty frequently. Perhaps look for some interesting places to take DHC instead of just calling for an IMG nerf?
(01-15-2013, 11:48 PM)Tabris Wrote: they are afraid the Devs will go 'You can't be mean to IMG,(...)
Well... it's something everyone been aware of since I've joined.
Is that true? Hard to say. I wouldn't go in the direction of naming conspiracies etc. But on the other hand, it's somewhat like with zoners.
And GMG - yes, I've been really surprised how little effort it takes to earn serious cash on He-3. But GMG is a monopolyst. They do the He-3 and pretty much nothing else. They rule the market.
IMG have always been an OP faction since it's concept doesn't follow the main idea for the rest of the factions.
I'm talking about the comparation of ZOI and Limitations the faction have.
As bigger the Zoi as bigger the limitations. For IMG this don't work. IMG can go anywhere and mine almost everything while having own shipline, good ID, almost no enemies.
This drives the people into the faction - easy cash is very attractive especially if your goal is in getting as much cash as you can with as little risk as possible. So this, plus retarded faction ID's with a load of limitations, baraly few fields to mine at and with military players usually not giving a duck about guarding the mining operations makes the IMG ID very suitable.
But talking about the ways of fixing this I'd like the nerfs over buffs since it's already retardedly easy to get an annormous amount of cash in a short period of time. Trading and mining shouldn't be that much profitable at all to make the process of getting cash for ships longer. Also mercenaring\bounty hunting\pirating are currently nowhere to be compared in profits to trading and mining. It shouldn't be better or in line with trading for sure, but it should be a way to get the cash as well.
Dont be so sure about that. I've made quite a bit with pirating, and just ask the reavers about bounty hunting. Id say it's definitely "a way to get cash".
The problem with nerfs is a psychological one, people get more dispirited when their stuff gets nerfed, than they do when someone elses gets improved, even though relatively, it's the same thing.
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Just count on how much cash you can make by trading alone with 5k transport and then devide it on the average amount of cash you can get from mercenaring in the same period of time. It's a waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more cash with trading.
Mercing\Pirating is a way, but it's much less profitable. Like Muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch. So people are usually doing it for fun, not to actually earn cash.
Psychical problems have nothing to do with balance. The ideal balance can't be achived by default. So if devs will just keep buffing stuff here and there in an attempt to balance what can't be balanced soon they're bound to overbuff things.
From my pov things in cash-earning-industry are already overbuffed so there is no place for more buffs if you're not going to make it retardedly efficient of cause.
Unless you're Kaze or Josia, you won't make any reasonable cash on bounty hunting.
Trading gives you over 35mil/hr if you know where to trade. Combined trading/mining operation can give around 50 and more mil/hr per player. You'd have to pop a snub every three minutes to get that much cash in one hour.
I agree that trading is much too profittable.
Besides... just compare the profit/hr from 4.85 and 4.86. The difference is huge.
The effect is so big that quite often, the time needed to write a post in "selling ships" is worth more than the ship itself.
I gave away many of my ships for free just because it was easier.
Now... with changes to the generic IDs and technerf system, there's no real need to even become a faction IDd indie. Not even mentioning joining official factions. People just use FL ID and haul anything anywhere only to earn cash for their first LABC.
Not only there's no motivation to haul RP cargo (for example Synth Paste for Synth Foods IDd ships) but it's more of anti-motivation. The inRP cargo is usually the least profittable - maybe except the ores for mining factions.
Now there are also PoBs - money sinks, that's for sure. But activity-sinks also. Huge ammount of hours spent on doing what is completely ooRP usually.
Oh, but (of course) someone will surely say that it induces some RP like for example GRN battleships sitting in Orkney and waiting for all those poor bastards trying to smuggle cryocubes to upgrade their bases...
