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[Imrin]

Someone using this exploit spilled the beans. Apparently, the dialogue quest for turning in junk for rewards is only working correctly on v-tec. On every other faction, you can turn junk in an unlimited number of times. This (presumably) consumes the junk but gives rewards hugely disproportional to the cost. This means that players can:

1. Obtain junk.
2. Exchange junk for caps or armor/weapons/whatever else the quest rewards are
3. Use the caps to buy more junk and continue this

For clarification, the NPC in question is located here, in v-tec:
http://i.imgur.com/uOvxc45.jpg

I don't know where the (bugged) equivalents are for the other factions.

This bug seems to be responsible for a large amount of the faction gear imbalance we've seen in PvP and zone control so far. You'll have to talk to whoever wrote this quest to find out what all the rewards are to truly understand the depths to which this has caused a faction imbalance. I think just superficially, knowing that this exists should explain a lot for you. A sarcastic "thanks" goes out to everyone who knew about this but did not report it. That is to say, (apparently) every major group in every faction but v-tec. Truly you guys are keeping this game alive.

[wojciech]

Someone bought all stuff from Family mobster on 2.floor

So when wipe ?

[BG Sexpert]

The other factions likely didn't realize that the quest was supposed to have a cool down. How could they, unless they'd played v-tec and noticed the difference.

[John Porno]

dialogue working as intended. Every faction has those in one way or another. Their impact on "faction gear imbalance" is negligible.

[Imrin]

dialogue working as intended. Every faction has those in one way or another. Their impact on "faction gear imbalance" is negligible.

I'm assuming you missed the "unlimited" part. In the relevant v-tec NPC, you can only trade one of each time of junk a single time. In every other faction, you can do it an unlimited number of times. I know this can't be working as intended because this would make the junk vendor redundant and obsolete. Counter-intuitive, even. Because the junk vendor buys junk for less, with a limited number of caps, whereas this NPC will take the junk through dialogue for more without a limited cap pool.

[wojciech]

dialogue working as intended. Every faction has those in one way or another. Their impact on "faction gear imbalance" is negligible.

I'm assuming you missed the "unlimited" part. In the relevant v-tec NPC, you can only trade one of each time of junk a single time. In every other faction, you can do it an unlimited number of times. I know this can't be working as intended because this would make the junk vendor redundant and obsolete. Counter-intuitive, even. Because the junk vendor buys junk for less, with a limited number of caps, whereas this NPC will take the junk through dialogue for more without a limited cap pool.

Well its obviously that game got exploits, look on the  experience list . I knew only about one but it was repaired in same day when i found him (magneto laser pistol=250 exp)

[Aco]

Imrin, You must be really stupid to post exploits on the bug section where at times 80+ people read the tread and abuse it more... Omg xD

[wojciech]

Imrin, You must be really stupid to post exploits on the bug section where at times 80+ people read the tread and abuse it more... Omg xD

I was searching that npc but i cant find it

[Myakot]

I love how you posted it with no proof whatsoever, while also spouting that every faction (OFC not yours, who would've thought) is using a game-breaking exploit :/.

[wojciech]

I love how you posted it with no proof whatsoever, while also spouting that every faction (OFC not yours, who would've thought) is using a game-breaking exploit :/.

Bitch please who will own up to use exploit -.- .

[John Porno]

I'm assuming you missed the "unlimited" part. In the relevant v-tec NPC, you can only trade one of each time of junk a single time. In every other faction, you can do it an unlimited number of times. I know this can't be working as intended because this would make the junk vendor redundant and obsolete. Counter-intuitive, even. Because the junk vendor buys junk for less, with a limited number of caps, whereas this NPC will take the junk through dialogue for more without a limited cap pool.

The repeatable dialogues offer only a caps reward which often is lower in value than what you would get for bartering them, especially as your persuasion skill rises. The onse-time dialogues often offer a choice of mroe caps or gear, which can be a great help for new chars as that gear will be 100% condition.

Also, arguiing that vtec loses zone control cause brahminboys can get 5caps for a scout handbook is a very long shot.

[Imrin]

The repeatable dialogues offer only a caps reward which often is lower in value than what you would get for bartering them, especially as your persuasion skill rises. The onse-time dialogues often offer a choice of mroe caps or gear, which can be a great help for new chars as that gear will be 100% condition.

Also, arguiing that vtec loses zone control cause brahminboys can get 5caps for a scout handbook is a very long shot.

I think you're missing the point entirely. You're saying that it's intentional that v-tec is the only faction that has a cooldown on that quest?

The reality is that no one uses persuasion. It's a waste of skill points and, at best, people will just make alts which is unnecessary because of the abundance of junk. People on v-tec have mounds of junk everywhere because the junk vendor is always empty and they can't do the quest that everyone else does to get caps because it has a cooldown. No matter how you look at it, this puts v-tec at a disadvantage and other factions at an advantage. Even if you think it's small, it's a problem and that's why I made this thread.

Also, since you're here, v-tec (apparently) doesn't get caps as a reward for participating in ZC. Is that intentional?

EDIT: I think I understand now. I guess I'm the one that missed the point. V-tec has higher rewards than other factions for that, but it's a one-time thing for them. That's much, much worse than it being repeatable. The NPC doesn't have a limited number of caps for that so how much you get is decided by how much junk you have. So the amount you loot the core is directly proportional to the amount of caps you get from it, whereas on v-tec the amount of caps you get is determined by assignments and how long you camp the junk vendor. That leads to an enormous economic bottleneck on v-tec. One that doesn't exist for other factions.

[Stem Sunders]

dialogue working as intended. Every faction has those in one way or another. Their impact on "faction gear imbalance" is negligible.

I'm assuming you missed the "unlimited" part. In the relevant v-tec NPC, you can only trade one of each time of junk a single time. In every other faction, you can do it an unlimited number of times. I know this can't be working as intended because this would make the junk vendor redundant and obsolete. Counter-intuitive, even. Because the junk vendor buys junk for less, with a limited number of caps, whereas this NPC will take the junk through dialogue for more without a limited cap pool.

Well its obviously that game got exploits, look on the  experience list . I knew only about one but it was repaired in same day when i found him (magneto laser pistol=250 exp)

I didn't even realise that was a bug! I thought it would just be awesome pistol

[John Porno]

I think you're missing the point entirely. You're saying that it's intentional that v-tec is the only faction that has a cooldown on that quest?

The reality is that no one uses persuasion. It's a waste of skill points and, at best, people will just make alts which is unnecessary because of the abundance of junk. People on v-tec have mounds of junk everywhere because the junk vendor is always empty and they can't do the quest that everyone else does to get caps because it has a cooldown.

The only cooldown in thsi quest is the joke with the rubber doll. There is no other cooldown or timeout attached. Also, it is impossible to invest skillpoints into persuasion in the first place, but it will slowly and steadily rise for every character. Just pointing out that there's already two fallacies in your statement here.

No matter how you look at it, this puts v-tec at a disadvantage and other factions at an advantage. Even if you think it's small, it's a problem and that's why I made this thread.

We wanted to avoid that every faction seems like just a copypaste of the other factions. There are differences between the factions in certain "quests" but they simply don't matter for experienced players in late game, which, by the way, is part of the design.

What that means is that once youre past the first stage of the game, have a decent character and a good supply of gear, it doesn't matter at all what kind of dialogues there are or how often you can complete them. Something being different doesn't automatically mean it is "imbalanced". Also, from my own personal experience palying vtec, I never had problems converting my junk into something meaningful and I din't use the dialogues once, even though being able to do them once is a big advantage over the other factions.

[Imrin]

The only cooldown in thsi quest is the joke with the rubber doll. There is no other cooldown or timeout attached. Also, it is impossible to invest skillpoints into persuasion in the first place, but it will slowly and steadily rise for every character. Just pointing out that there's already two fallacies in your statement here.

I didn't know that about persuasion. I can see how that would make older players make more money but in practice the bottleneck is vendor caps, not persuasion, because there's an abundance of junk to sell. So instead, as players get older, it will become more difficult for newer players to get caps. So that encourages audience stagnation. Just my observation.

As for the cooldown, I had assumed as much. People were referring to it as a cooldown when I talked to them about it but I guess that doesn't matter. When testing it initially it's impossible to differentiate between it having a cooldown and it being a one-time thing. You'd have to wait a bit and try again to know for sure.

We wanted to avoid that every faction seems like just a copypaste of the other factions. There are differences between the factions in certain "quests" but they simply don't matter for experienced players in late game, which, by the way, is part of the design.

What that means is that once youre past the first stage of the game, have a decent character and a good supply of gear, it doesn't matter at all what kind of dialogues there are or how often you can complete them. Something being different doesn't automatically mean it is "imbalanced". Also, from my own personal experience palying vtec, I never had problems converting my junk into something meaningful and I din't use the dialogues once, even though being able to do them once is a big advantage over the other factions.

I understand that meaningful diversity has an appeal in the design. If the factions were totally equivalent to each other, there wouldn't be much gameplay incentive to join one over another. In practice, though, the difference with this quest has proven to just be an arbitrary difference that gives other factions advantages over v-tec, economically. The NPCs are all direct equivalents, but with v-tec being an inferior one.

As a side note, personal experience isn't enough to go off for determining balance. Community input is imperative for that. Some of which I'm giving to you.

[Cloudwolfe]

I started playing the day before yesterday and I choose V-Tec. Only last night I found out that I could trade books in for caps.

Dynar (the V-Tec book buyer) took about 5 before he told me that he wasn't interested in anything I had to offer to him any more, I made 80 caps. Only today I have found out that other factions can do this as many times as they want. Before I found out about Dynar I was trading my common or "junk items" in for ammo for the T1 AK 47 or just science-ing them to try get a stock of crating mats.

Since I found out last night I've been stockpiling on books, I have 100+ stored. I'd like to be able to trade them in for 1500+ caps (assuming the other traders buy them at relatively the same price) like all the other factions can, which is more than I have ever owned so far. If I want T1 gear or ammo I can barter for them with the junk items. I cannot currently indirectly trade those items for caps past the cooldown, which I assume is 24 hours. Barring random caps in stock at the other merchants, which doesn't seem to be at any high frequency.

If I could get caps I could buy some good new armor, weapons and ammo that I can happily risk PvPing. I cannot afford to enter into PvP with that sort of equipment right now where if I played in any other different faction, I could.

Having the ability to barter for T1 AK's and Ammo is not the same as having the ability to buy CA MKII and FN-FAL's, even at different ratios.

Take someone in Lawyers who has put in the same effort as I have, the same time, the same everything, he has the same interests. Only by way of picking a different faction is he able to better equip his character and enjoy the game more.

[Niamak]

These quests are not worth it, you better trade with misc collector in your faction for caps. Also don't buy T1 items.

[Cloudwolfe]

These quests are not worth it, you better trade with misc collector in your faction for caps. Also don't buy T1 items.

I was buying T1 ammo but nonetheless, the advice of "trading for caps" is appreciated but not practical, as I have already said, at no high frequency do they ever have caps. Last 3 days of play time all day I've seen Larry (13 caps a book) once have 150 caps for me to barter for.

So if no one in the V-Tec faction buys T1 items, and the vendors never have caps, what do they use their non-salvaged junk items for? The odd T2 low-value Armor or low-value Weapon? The majority of the time they just have junk items, nothing worth buying. So V-Tec is trading Junk for Junk.

You would prefer that over hard caps that you can use to buy non-junk items?

Anyway, I did some research.

I bartered some of my books away so I'm down to:

Guns = 14.
Novel = 12.
Scout = 1.
Deans =21.
Cats Issue = 0.
Cats Mag = 18.
First aid = 22.

The Lady at the Lawyers who buys infinite books buys them at these prices:

Guns = 5 caps.
Novel = 10 caps.
Scout = 10 caps.
Deans = 5 caps.
Cats Issue = 15 caps.
Cats Mag = 10 caps.
First aid = 10 caps.

If I sold to her I would make 705 caps. I would love to be able to do that.

Right now, Larry, the first junk vendor in V-Tec values books at 13 caps each, regardless of type.
Right now, the "T1 Ammo" vendor values books at 28 caps each, regardless of type.

I can't see any of this being logical and to me, these quests seem very much worth it.

[Cheesey Dean]

Hahahaha, get owned noobs 

Good luck getting caps from your vendor that only rarely spawns caps regardless of controlled territories. I can just spam dialogue options and spawn caps from my priviledge NPC. I deserve this advantage over the other factions because me and my crew are special snowflakes, and John Porno is always right. Hope you scrubs get banned for reporting this bug whining too much!!!

[Aco]

Hahahaha, get owned noobs 

Good luck getting caps from your vendor that only rarely spawns caps regardless of controlled territories. I can just spam dialogue options and spawn caps from my priviledge NPC. I deserve this advantage over the other factions because me and my crew are special snowflakes, and John Porno is always right. Hope you scrubs get banned for reporting this bug whining too much!!!

Dayum son.