(11-04-2021, 12:11 PM)St.Denis Wrote: What I seem to get from my observations and the feedback is:
a) Profits not enough, even though a 20 minute round trip on the first leg netted about 82.5 million profit per hour.
b) Some people were using scouts........not sure how that is bad (maybe the Traders should just throw themselves at the Pirates instead).
c) Not enough people played the 'bad guys'. Even the main Molly Leader spent possibly 15-20+ hours doing the Trade runs. I think I saw a total of 3 people playing Mollys. I believe more was done by non-Molly 'bad guys'.
d) An OF of the main Groups involved did a sum total of 2 runs (Leeds-Honshu). No RP was seen between them and Bretonia asking for escorts. Potential was possibly lost here for more activity?
e) Yes, an extra Faction was being asked to be added to the Event (RH) with an extended ZOI and added Bounty. Every time an Event comes out, people want to know why x,y or z can't be added. Why can't people people just play the Factions that the Event is designed for? If you don't want to use those Factions, wait for an Event that your Faction can be involved in.
f) As usual with most Trade Events, it was the Indies that did most of the Activity. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
g) If everyone used a 5ker for the Event, then 189 trips were done on the first leg and 120 trips on the second leg.
Oh I'll explain why - lot of faction diplomacy has slowed down with these unplayed factions. The OP ITSELF offered that with RP there will be Zoi extensions and IDs added. You would generate forum activity, people would fly together and then take it back to their regions after the event and people would get used to logging together. The Forum contacts wouldn't be lost, favours could be repaid in future events.
We were told by admins that this would happen, encouraged to do the RP, did the RP and then were completely ignored sadly, and event was over.
Why I hauled
I explained above. The kill line was actually bad for Mollys, a paradox. On a tagged ship I pirated a couple times when people were with ore as usual, but then we just got avoided or ganked. There was no fence sell point either to just e.g. take 1/3 of cargo .
The event run took under an hour if you went for H-3 => Lot of waiting around, lot to lose when you get shot as trader. You know first hand that I don't enjoy killing traders in the first place, it was just ugh, confusing and not at all surprising other IDs pirated, succesfully.
Suggestions
1) The RP into extension Idea was good, please just get more manpower for events that can carry them out and make fast changes. It was dispiriting to say the least to do what the OP asked us to do and then get completely ignored. Event feedback takes too long and often comes too close to events, and then there is slow reaction during events to things. There are volunteers that want to help, having one contact for events that focuses on them primarily would go a long way.
2) Hauling distances shorter and profits higher will attract more traders and pirates. If you have just the O-3 to Leeds run, bump up the profit to 110/hr . . .more traders, much less waiting time. We will test this with New Paris to Metz this weekend ( I hope, I am waiting for admin contact to confirm specifics), especially with these short term events that are on contested routes I really wouldn't be afraid to bump up profits. The times have changed, 85 mill per hour on an advertised contested route is very low, people lose money hauling in opportunity cost as they get more with ores and don't need to dock and log off as often when they see a Molly login the game. Hell the Permanent mission grapes etc. route has same profit, and Event had no extra rewards after for traders.
3) Kill plugin on piracy vs transports might be a thing of the past. Bombers are too overpowered against transports and rewarding transport kills just makes people avoid you as opposed to a threat of a reasonable piracy amount or a chance to fend off a bomber if you are close enough to a base with any sort of fight. Working with Fence with very high rewards would be an option I suppose.
