Petition to implement new rules about vending machines

[Dig Bick Fitch Bucker]

Petition to implement new rules on vending machines:

 

Do you remember wipe day, when opening the map was super smooth?

Even days after wipe day, opening the game map was very nice. 

However, we’re one third the way through wipe, and the map is already laggy. Personally, it takes me roughly 3 seconds to open the map.  Before someone tries to call me out on having a potato for a computer, my specs are i7 7700, 32gb of ram, gtx1070.  I don’t lag when I play the game, just when I open the map.  There are countless others who complain about the same in chat. 

 

I’d like to petition to implement rules to help prevent map lag, and generally improve the server. 

 

On US scourge, in X11, there’s a store with 6 vending machines. 1 of them is empty, 5 have 1 jacket each.  Admin SPLIFF investigated to find that they’re skinned jackets.  However, the server has /skin and therefore I think it’s unreasonable for people to have 5 vending machines, each of which has 1 jacket in stock, selling just those skinned jackets.

 

Next, I find it completely unreasonable when people try to re-sell things available at stores such as outpost or bandit camp, at HIGHER prices.  I understand if you want to undercut bandit camp or outpost, but not more.  I doubt anyone would ever buy these things, and therefore these vending machines merely clog up the server.

Examples: 

m13 sells blue cards for 200 scrap (available at outpost for 100)

 

A counterexample is that there’s a store with 13 vending machines in L20, outside of outpost, selling many things. One of these vending machines sells large furnaces and oil refineries for less than outpost.  Ok, I can understand how that’s fine.  

 

However, it’s annoying that they have 13 vending machines, when they could combine the stocks into fewer vending machines. There are countless examples of people using more vending machines than they require, such as the 9 vending machines in M22, the 8 in L25,  10 in W20, and the 14 in Q13.

 

Furthermore, I believe that no one actually needs all that many vending machines.  I believe that people who operate many vending machines, as mentioned previously, are in large part selling junk.  Although there may be a scenario where someone needs a very specific item and they might go to that vending machine to get it, the fact that there are hundreds of vending machines on the map will likely prevent someone from finding that object, causing them to just ask in chat for the object instead.  

 

As a result, I’m petitioning that we implement new rules on vending machines.

 

Basic Suggestions:

 

- Implement limits to how many vending machines a person can own.

- Based on the fact that /skin exists in the game, I don’t think vending machines dedicated to different skinned items should be allowed.

- Require that a person completely fills all for-sale slots in one vending machine before they can place another vending machine.

 

More “radical suggestions”:

- In addition to a personal limit, implement a limit of vending machines per map tile.  While this will lead to a competition based on first come first serve, it will result in less vending machines overall. 

- Prevent vending machines from being researchable, and instead have them sold by admins, such as for 1k scrap, to implement a pseudo-tax on vending machines. 

 

I’d like to hear other people’s opinions on this. 

While I don’t want to restart a discussion on whether those nerfs were needed or not, I want to use that as an example of changes being made, while arguing that changing vending machines should be a bigger priority than pickles.  

Changing vending machines will lead to less lag when opening the world map, which greatly takes away from the game experience.  

[rubiks-q-bert]

I've got kinda mixed feelings on this one.

Regarding vending machines in general. I understand. I've had that problem opening the map as well. I came for a visit a wipe or two ago and opened the map and it was just god awful.  BUT limiting what people can build has been addressed multiple times in the past and leadership is pretty opposed to it.

I do think there should be a light rule about it that if reported, an admin could condense the stores down and take out any extras in the instance of having multiple machines but not fully utilized. But if someone has 13 machines and they are being used to max capacity, that's just part of the game. Some people just enjoy running shops. 

It's a slippery slope though. Just because you think something is useless to sell, does not mean it's useless to someone else.

I'm generally not a fan of limiting what people can do unless it falls under hindering other players, which this is, so I'm all for it. 

[GREENG1ANT]

While these are all solid points, there is a 99% chance one of the higher ups is going to respond with, "In no way do we intend to tell players what they can and can't build, everyone expresses themselves in different ways." Ran into pretty similar issues with the massively unnecessary sized bases, the Christmas light epilepsy spam bases, the bases that spam search lights, the bases that spam 600 farms, and so on.  Feels pretty bad, but atleast someone that dosen't have a $5k pc might look at your post and be like, "Yea you know, opening the map is pretty chunky/laggy, I was wondering why my fps tanked every time I pressed that button."

[Darkshira]

I feel your pain with the lagging as my computer isn't the best but I have a large base/compound, 2 pump jacks and two quarries maxed that I circled with walls and I have 11 vending machines around my compound, that is how I make my scrap, my machines are full except for the machines that are specific  to one item such as I sell cars and its has three keys in it.  I have a hotel, each room has a key you buy.  The other nine vending machines are items I craft and sell and they stay full.  I don't build on top of other players so its not a lag issues around my base as far as I know.   I don't take heli's or do cargo are any other money making activity, I build and farm scrap and sell, while I understand the need to limit vending machines that are not used and limit base size, maybe no large bases above a certain size around monuments, things like this might help the lag but doing away with vending all together or make them a item you purchase and limited base sizes severely will would seriously limit how I play and other's like me.  

[Dig Bick Fitch Bucker]

Okay @Darkshira , so it sounds like you have a unique play style where you use vending machines to sell hotel rooms.  

To make money, you sell hotel rooms, instead of doing monuments or farming.  Ok, so that makes sense.

However, I doubt there's more than 1 or 2 people like you on each server.  I doubt there's more than 1 or 2 hotels per server.  What if we could make a work around to allowing hotels, whereas random vending machines don't spam up world map?

 

My goal is to find a solution that we could present to @Death in a way such that we have a well thought out solution, to reduce lag, without reducing anybodys play style.  You have a playstyle of being a hotel owner.  How can we prevent you from being impacted, while 90% of other plays also aren't impacted by map lag from random BS vending macines? 

[ajmerc]

5 day inactive wipe, it takes 10 mins at most to log in and log you if you really enjoy playing and want your stuff to stay. normally you would likely get raided any how, purge more for a month and see how it goes. 

 

[Dig Bick Fitch Bucker]

@ajmerc your comment makes no sense.

 

@Darkshira I think we play on different servers, if you're talking about quarries. I play on US Scourge. I have 30 pumpjacks outside my base (3x tier 10) that don't cause an issue.  However, opening map causes an issue.  Furthermore, as I mentioned, when someone's on US Scourge, and if they were to ask in chat whether "does opening map cause lag", countless people agree.  There has to be a way to better adresss the issue.  Your original post talked about how you make money from a hotel.  I agreed with you that you have a case by case exception, where I understand your goals.  However, on US Scourge, there are way too many vending machines 1/3 the way into wipe, and I cannot imagine what's gonna happen 2/3 or 2.5/3 into wipe.  1/3 into wipe, and map lags more than it did at the end of last wipe.  
 

@GREENG1ANT This is an issue of 1% vs 99%.  Why should one person have 6 vending machines, each selling 1 item each, with 1 item in stock each.  This has remained for days.  This shows no one wants to buy that one item.  This literally contributes to lag for EVERYONE else, with zero benefit to the original person.  That one person is trying to be selfish for NO reason. They're trying to sell skinned items on a server where nearly all skins are available to all people using /skin.   (once again, I'm referring to US Scourge.  IDK what server you play on, and maybe if you're on PURE you don't have /skin, but on SCOURGE we can freely skin any item with nearly any skin for FREE.  

 

I'm not saying that people shouldn't have vending machines.  I'm saying that there should be restrictions to completely BS vending machines.  Why would you make 6 seperate vending machines, each selling 1 jacket with a different skin,  with 1 quantity in stock, on a server that has the /skin command for everyone to get free skins at will.  

Why should there be vending machines selling stuff accessible from outpost, for a higher price?  People can just buy from Outpost for cheaper, while their scrap is removed from the game, reducing inflation.  

Why should there be stores with 10+ vending machines selling 2 items each, rather than that person making 3 vending machines with 8 items each.  

People are just selfish.  I'm trying to focus more on the fact that there need to be some limitations.  People are spamming down lag machines with no care in the world, affecting EVERYONE else.  

 

Sure, I'll agree with points made on my discord post about the free market.  I don't want to restrict free-market competition.  But even in the US capitalist market, there are limitations.  There are restrictions and regulations.  

 

[Dig Bick Fitch Bucker]

@rubiks-q-bert

 

Quote

Regarding vending machines in general. I understand. I've had that problem opening the map as well. I came for a visit a wipe or two ago and opened the map and it was just god awful.  BUT limiting what people can build has been addressed multiple times in the past and leadership is pretty opposed to it.

I understand the pain of flying around in a mini, and then having a massive base spawn in front of you causing to crash.  To avoid this, you just need to learn to fly higher and slower.  Most "veteran" people on US scourge do this.  I understand that this is a limitation of PVE, where bases just aren't raided+destroyed.  However, when vending machines cause the map to take an extra 3 seconds to load, that's another issue.  

I'm also not suggesting that we prevent people from building what they want.
 

Quote

I do think there should be a light rule about it that if reported, an admin could condense the stores down and take out any extras in the instance of having multiple machines but not fully utilized. But if someone has 13 machines and they are being used to max capacity, that's just part of the game. Some people just enjoy running shops. 

I understand some people wanting to run shops.  However, there need to be some limitations.  For example, having individual stores for skinned items on a server where you have the /skin command is just stupid.  These vending machines are absolutely not being utilized to their full extent.  

I talked about full utilization being relatively ok.  I'm trying to focus on non-full utilization, see below.  
 

Quote

It's a slippery slope though. Just because you think something is useless to sell, does not mean it's useless to someone else.

I agree with the slippery slope.  That's why I spread my recommendations into categories.  I agree there are downsides, and I pointed many out.  However, overall I believe there need to be limitations, even if they're just soft limitations which give admins the ability to do more about the issue.  
 

Quote

I'm generally not a fan of limiting what people can do unless it falls under hindering other players, which this is, so I'm all for it. 

EXACTLY MY POINT.

Overall, the number of vending machines IS hindering other players.  It just causes massive lag. 

 

 

TLDR:

Why my comments may have some contradictions such as 

"I don't want to prevent people from building what they want"

vs

"I think there need to be limitations"

MY point is: We need to decrease the number of vending machines by implementing restrictions forcing people to ulitize vending machins vs spamming down more,

OR

create a way to hide vending machines from appearing on the map so that players dont lag when they open the map.  

[Dig Bick Fitch Bucker]

Furthermore, @rubiks-q-bert

Referring to discord chats:

I said: "Another recommendation from discussion in game chat: Create admin run stores on commodities such as LGF, where admin-run vending machines for example buy 1000 lgf for 40 scrap, and sell it for 50 scrap. This prevents multiple competing stores"

You responded:

Quote

 

That particular one would create a monopoly, ruin the economy like Lexi said, and defeats the purpose of a free market. So I would disagree with that one vehemently.

Regarding vending machines in general. I understand. I've had that problem opening the map as well but limiting what people can build has been addressed multiple times in the past and leadership is pretty opposed to it. 

I do think there should be a light rule about it that if reported, an admin could condense the stores down in the instance of having multiple machines but not fully utilized. But if someone has 13 machines and they are being used to max capacity, that's just part of the game. Some people just enjoy running shops.

 

Ok so this particular suggestion may be out of the question.  

HOWEVER, I find in necessary to express my POV on this.  For example, there are MANY stores trying to sell LGF around the instanced quarries, which are out of stock. Since they're out of stock, they do nothing more than contribute to lag.

 

Furthermore, this brings me to a point I didn't bring up in the original post: STEALING.
There are people who spend hours working on genetics to create perfect 3y3g or 4y2g clones.  Then they sell them for 100 scrap or 1000 scrap or whatever,  Within a few hours, there are stores popping up selling those identical clones for half the price or a quarter of the price.  Now, on US scourge, there's maybe 10 stores trying to profit off the original person's work.  In a capitalist market, we have patents, trademarks, and copyrights.  I didn't originally bring this up because this would be way too complicated to try to restrict.

HOWEVER, my point is,  some things are commodities.  Some things are differentiated.  With the plant clones being differentiated assets, which were originally significantly invested into, there's no doubt there will be knockoffs eventually.  However, with commodities, like LGF, WHICH I WANT TO FOCUS ON, price competition makes sense.  However, I feel like there needs to be a better way to organize it, rather than having 20 different stores, where 10 are out of stock, and the other 10 are priced too high for anyone to buy.  

 

My goal isn't to limit the free market.  My goal is to create a better system.  I suggested the admin owned buy and sell store as a suggestion.   (long shot here, but what if there was a grand exchange plugin for commodities where people could put in offers for buying and selling commodities, such as LGF, similar to the way trading worked. (Obviously this is a completely new discussion from the original topic, but i bring it up to point out the issue with vending machines, and more specifically in the case, empty machines.))

#ShoutOutToRunescapeGEIfYouGotTheReference

[NaCl]

It's a free economy, if people want to sell for more than Outpost/Bandit and people are willing to pay it, so be it. Just like console resellers, you can buy a PS5 at Gamestop for cheaper than you can buy from a random guy reselling one in his personal store right? Putting vending machines for us to vendor to admins instead of players just defeats the purpose of even having an economy. The issue is mostly in the number of vending machines people operate to sell 4 items or they're just empty for "the looks". I think if we can expand the storage of vending machines to allow more slots and list more items from a single machine would be better to reduce the vending machines as opposed to placing more admin machines on top of the machines that will always exist.  If you look a large amount of machines that are up are just empty, if people stopped broadcasting them the lag would decrease substantially.

Edited July 13, 2021 by NaCl

[Darkshira]

9 hours ago, Dig Bick Fitch Bucker said:

Okay @Darkshira , so it sounds like you have a unique play style where you use vending machines to sell hotel rooms.  

To make money, you sell hotel rooms, instead of doing monuments or farming.  Ok, so that makes sense.

However, I doubt there's more than 1 or 2 people like you on each server.  I doubt there's more than 1 or 2 hotels per server.  What if we could make a work around to allowing hotels, whereas random vending machines don't spam up world map?

 

My goal is to find a solution that we could present to @Death in a way such that we have a well thought out solution, to reduce lag, without reducing anybodys play style.  You have a playstyle of being a hotel owner.  How can we prevent you from being impacted, while 90% of other plays also aren't impacted by map lag from random BS vending macines? 

I have one vending machine for my hotel, one vending machine for the cars I make and sell and nine other fully stocked vending machines with items I craft to sell, I also have a large base with quarrys and pump jacks.  I liked the idea of removing vending machines that are empty, there are a lot of empty or near empty vending machine on Survival also.  The point I was trying to make and apparently I didn't do well was that some players like myself use vending machines to generate scrap and build large bases as part of their gaming and limiting vending machines as per your suggestion or making them more expensive to buy would limit my ability and others like me that sell items for scrap.   I don't have issues opening my map so was not aware the vending machines caused this, maybe NaCL suggestion that empty vending machines should not broadcast is a great solution,  could this be automated where they turn off broadcasting when empty?  That along with consolidating near empty machines would be great solutions.

[NaCl]

6 hours ago, Dig Bick Fitch Bucker said:

Furthermore, @rubiks-q-bert

Referring to discord chats:

I said: "Another recommendation from discussion in game chat: Create admin run stores on commodities such as LGF, where admin-run vending machines for example buy 1000 lgf for 40 scrap, and sell it for 50 scrap. This prevents multiple competing stores"

You responded:

Ok so this particular suggestion may be out of the question.  

HOWEVER, I find in necessary to express my POV on this.  For example, there are MANY stores trying to sell LGF around the instanced quarries, which are out of stock. Since they're out of stock, they do nothing more than contribute to lag.

 

Furthermore, this brings me to a point I didn't bring up in the original post: STEALING.
There are people who spend hours working on genetics to create perfect 3y3g or 4y2g clones.  Then they sell them for 100 scrap or 1000 scrap or whatever,  Within a few hours, there are stores popping up selling those identical clones for half the price or a quarter of the price.  Now, on US scourge, there's maybe 10 stores trying to profit off the original person's work.  In a capitalist market, we have patents, trademarks, and copyrights.  I didn't originally bring this up because this would be way too complicated to try to restrict.

HOWEVER, my point is,  some things are commodities.  Some things are differentiated.  With the plant clones being differentiated assets, which were originally significantly invested into, there's no doubt there will be knockoffs eventually.  However, with commodities, like LGF, WHICH I WANT TO FOCUS ON, price competition makes sense.  However, I feel like there needs to be a better way to organize it, rather than having 20 different stores, where 10 are out of stock, and the other 10 are priced too high for anyone to buy.  

 

So to touch on. The LGF Stores at Quarries, I own and operate one at every quarry, I constantly log on 5-8 times a day to refill all of them due to them being emptied multiple times per day, it's not due to the fact of a bunch of stores, it's due to the fact people set the norm at 100-70 scrap per 500 for many wipes and the start of this wipe, then someone builds a new shop and now it's set to 50 scrap, someone else creates another shop at 49 scrap and someone else then creates another at 35 scrap per 500 for LGF this wipe thus screwing over everyone else forcing them to drop their prices to compete over and over again. The issue isn't with the amount of stores, the issue is with the people placing stores and entering a market with the goal of running everyone else out of competition instead of joining in unity to set a set price together. The stores at the quarries would be in stock much longer if the prices were higher, but once again... Player made competition to force a wipe out of the competition just ended up hurting every business in the process and those business that came in just to run out competition and hurt the pricing can't even keep up with the demand due to the cracked out wholesale pricing... I have thus reverteted back to my original pricing since the people trying to ruin the pricing can't even keep a simple stock and it appears I am the only person constantly refilling my store.

 

To your opinion on cloning and people reselling it, So should the like 50 Orange Juice companies that came after the first orange juice company stop making orange juice because that 1st company made a method first? Should Clothing Companies stop making clothes because Fruit of the Loom makes all kinds of shirts you want that look similar to the $500 Kanye Shirt minus all the holes? You can't ever stop people from selling something and taking credit for other people's work. Also Cloning and Genetics are so easy I don't see a point to this being a problem in a PVE Enviroment.

Edited July 13, 2021 by NaCl

[TiffDust]

Don't agree on any limit of vending machines, pretty sure if you have issues most admins will look into it and see if it's reasonable, being used etc. i don't see how cutting down 5-10 machines would make much difference.
mistakes get made pricing things higher elsewhere and also a minority of players will buy from a player shop for more than outpost/bandit.

Reselling clones that took an effort of 15minutes is griefing imho, a small minority think it's ok, an even smaller minority don't see the issue with it and they'll ask when the clones will be up as their clone shop is ready (I have no issue with people giving them away.) The solution is to not sell them, in a PVE environment it's easier enough for people to learn to clone and there's no drama involved selling cloth to bandit.

[aNoNiM]

How do you know it's the vending machines causing the lag? I know custom maps (with custom monuments) was an issue in the past. 

It seems to me you just make the conclusion that that is causing your issues.

[rubiks-q-bert]

1 hour ago, aNoNiM said:

How do you know it's the vending machines causing the lag? I know custom maps (with custom monuments) was an issue in the past. 

It seems to me you just make the conclusion that that is causing your issues.

He's not the only one with the issue. It also only happens when opening the map and that map isn't any different than EU or AU. I can open my map just fine on EU. US, not so much. Was happening last wipe to when I came for a visit. 

[NaCl]

9 hours ago, aNoNiM said:

How do you know it's the vending machines causing the lag? I know custom maps (with custom monuments) was an issue in the past. 

It seems to me you just make the conclusion that that is causing your issues.

Actually, during last wipe Admins went around and disabled the broadcasting of all empty or unused vending machines and the lag drastically reduced, that's how we know.

[jamtoa]

I like reduced lag. If this helps me fly around mid wipe I back this.