The Hacker Project - a free online game

There have been a couple of balance issues that made it necessary to introduce Action Points.

The action points are time units, you get 1 AP each minute that you can use to complete tasks or kill processes. Everyone will start with 3000 AP.

Below is a list of the tasks that take AP. AP is only used when you complete a task or kill a process. You gain AP while offline and can use it when you come back online.

Maximum AP at one time:

Gold members: 5000
Other players: 3000

- install virus: 15 AP + (depending on size & version)
- disinfect: 20 AP
- hide / unhide: 10 AP
- capture virus: 120 AP
- encrypt / decrypt: 20 AP
- complete upload / download: 10 AP
- change IP: 300 AP
- change pass: 30 AP
- format HDD: 300 AP
- complete research: 30 AP
- crack password: 15 AP
- kill process: 5 AP (only when killing non-gateway process)


I realize some of you may not agree with the change, but it was necessary due to the following:

- Abuse of newbie players by higher players (capturing lower end viruses, disinfecting lower end virs, making fun of others by hacking them and camping and killing their processes)

- some have been online all the time doing the above or just stealing others missions... now they have a limited missions number they can do each day so they will have to choose the missions more carefully and leave the lower ones to the newer players.

- limiting exponential growth and taking over all available servers while not letting others have space due to the unlimited number of viruses that could have been installed.

- limiting power researching by starting several research processes on same file.

- the Virus Breaker got more balanced with the addition of AP and 120 AP for a virus capture completion.

- note that it does not matter what version the virus is that you want to activate / capture / disinfect so if you are a higher up player it may be better for you to hunt higher version files in order to keep the AP cost lower.


Other notes:

- an info board on the left will show the current connected IP, server time, available finances and AP at all times. Whenever you gain HPD or AP or use them, some -/+ will indicate that.

- you regenerate 1 AP every 1 minute. Action points are a resource that does not lose value as you progress in the game

Thank you.

Tough break, but probably needed. It's definitely a bigger handicap on larger players as their computers would allow them to do MUCH more than the the new AP system will. Oh well.

Also, it'd seem more valuable for gold members to have AP regenerate slightly faster than to have a bigger limit. Since you get 1440 per day, it's unlikely that you'd wait three days before performing any actions, and so the higher cap really doesn't benefit active gold members at all. Regenerating AP at even 6 or 7 per 5 minutes would make a difference though.

The Golds already have enough bonuses from the 20% discounts, there's no need to boost them further, hence they get a cap increase on AP.

request:  Could you please make killing processes on your own gateway free?...  I can think of at least 3 ways it screws up the game if you don't.

Yes, I agree. Please remove the killing of owned processes free. How about those who have limited hardware and they need to kill processes once in a while so they will have enough CPU or Memory for missions.  :2:

Ah yes my mistake sorry. It takes 5 AP to kill a non-gateway process. That will make it balanced.

Thank you.

You forgot to add on a AP cost for overloading.   Right now Overloading is what makes researching protects useless.

Just replied to that, sorry overload was not designed for high players, they already have plenty of power and can protect against it...

http://www.hacker-project.com/forum/index.php?topic=440.msg4886#msg4886

Ok looking over this AP idea.  I want to try to address the good and the bad as I see it at this point.  Mind you the over all idea of a AP system is cool.  Heck it brings it closer inline with the route a lot of RPG's have gone which I am all down for.

But here is the big negative.  To use AP to try and balance broken features is the wrong way to go about it.

Right now as has already been stated we gain a total of 1440 AP per day.
With 1440 AP per day this allows the top players a WHOLE lot more latitude than the lower players in doing things.

Lower players do the majority of their cashing via Missions.  Right now the best paying missions are the disinfecting ones.
So lets use the common tactic for disinfecting missions.
The tools that the disinfector will use are.
Change IP
Change Pass
Disinfect
So with the top 2 taken out that leaves us with 1110 AP's.
55 disinfects.   Sadly most of the players except for the Top 10 maybe Top 20 can't do 55 disinfects in 1 day.  But lets say that 1000 people can do that.  That is 55,000 Virii gone each day.  Totally untraceable as this attempt at balancing does not remove the "God Mode Button" that IP Change is.

Now lets look at the Higher End players.
The lazy ones are just infecting servers.
Since the nerf to Hide was done (which was a worthless nerf due to the "I Win" that Virus Breaker is) we won't worry about Hiding.  Heck I don't and since to disinfect you only have to SEE the virus file and NOT Unhide it I did not include to cost of Unhiding up above.
So 1440 points = 19 Virii uploaded and installed per day per player.   Mind you Virii is what YOU intended to be the main money making / PvP feature of this game.

So 1 person can install 19 Virii and be touchable while 1 person can disinfect 55 Virii and be untouchable.

Where is the balance?

You see the idea behind Action Points in RPG's is generally to limit the abuse of stats in a RPG.  Take AD&D for instance.  It is totally built around stats.  You have a character with all 20's and they will most of the time beat someone of equal level with all 15's.  With AP's that is balanced out by limiting the variety and/or number of actions of the 20's vs the 15's.

The way this was done just doesn't cut it.

Now lets take it even further.

Currently there are around 180 Secret servers in the game right now.  Someone NEW coming into the game that is given a helping hand now has to pay 5,400 AP's to gain access to them all meanwhile because HPD transfers is not going to be implemented by your own words, said player can't do jack for 3.75 days.

But wait it gets even better.  You see unknown to all, but you Sir Emi, I have started a 2nd account to see how easy it is to advance in this game.  So lets just look at the beginner servers IE Public servers.  There are what a total of 20?  20 * 30 = 600 AP's gone right from the start not to mention the time cracking especially since the level of the Password Break means NOTHING for the time it takes to crack admin.  So now that new player for the first day is left with a whole 840 points to do missions.  But wait....  To do disinfects they have to download an AV right?  Well there goes another 15 points leaving them with 825 points.

You see Sir Emi the problem with the balance can not be solved with AP's.  The problem with the Balance of the game are the many MANY things that I along with many MANY others have brought up to you already.  But instead of taking our discussions seriously you spend time on an AP system that is already broken as far as Balance goes.

Because you see the High end players won't have to keep uploading Virii.  They will just have to keep going after the lower players.  And that is really not how I want this game to be.  It is not fair period.

I mean come on you put 20 AP for encrypt/decrypt...  We have shown you how useless those softwares are based on several factors.  Hide/Unhide is 10 times more powerful than encrypt/decrypt.  And costs half the AP??????

I don't mean to come down on you Sir Emi.   You have done an overall fantastic job.  You have made some bad decisions that you refuse to acknowledge.   But overall the game is a great game.

I am all for trying to get things balanced out.   But this AP system.   It is going to help SGP out a lot.  The only thing it hurts in the slightest is our research will be slowed down a bit.  But not much.  Most of us do nothing but research really anymore.  So we can spend 1,200+ points on research without blinking an eye.   This AP system hurts those who are up and coming.  Because now they are screwed on trying to catch up to us.

Just to add my two cents - as virus man pointed out, the fact that someone can safely disinfect ~3 times more viruses than someone can place every day means that inevitably every server will eventually be virus-free, with only short bursts of infection until the masses can scramble to disinfect it. If virii are indeed the main money-maker of this game, then either the AP system needs readjustment or some other major change is in order. On a related note, the high cost of virus breaker now completely removes any threat it posed; the virus would only be disinfected the moment it's captured (or even before. You don't lose AP that way, only use of your system until someone beats you to the punch). In any case, I estimate that within a week, virii will be disinfected faster than AP allows them to be installed. Within 2-3 weeks, the vast majority of servers will be empty.

Great feedback in this topic, here is something I noticed:


I would like to point out a new player starts with 3000 AP, so the calcs quoted are plain wrong, sorry. A new player has 3000 + 1440 AP available in the first day, that's about 300 missions if he cracks all the servers, that's plenty of AP and more then most newbie players can use.

I've read the other stuff but will respond later because I'm too tired now, sorry.



This estimation is not entirely accurate Crlaozwyn, of course you couldn't know that the change of spawning a disinfect mission is not 100%, it's actually set to 80%. So 1 in 5 viruses do not spawn a disinfect mission. That means 1 in 5 virs won't be disinfected because there is no gain for it so waste of resources. There may be capture involved, but eventually if there are enough players all servers will be very full of viruses because of the 20% escape chance... and there's one or two people disinfecting and about 10 spawning viruses at this time, too early to estimate anything...

You did not post that in the OP so based on the information initially give the calcs are right ;)  But that is good that the new player will get an extra 3000 however how do you figure 4440 total when they will only be able to hold 3000?   Will they have a temporary 1 week of 5000 max?

[There are far more than one or two people disinfecting.  True Light AV Group has multiple servers disinfecting however we are slowly wiping them out. Plus I am disinfecting all Virii not mine on my claimed servers and I know at least 3 others in my group are disinfecting as well.

There goes any point in doing smaller paying HPD Missions. I'll just take all the higher paying ones, and wait and let my AP regenerate while everyone else is forced to take the smaller ones.

I think the system wasn't made to bring the points down to the max if they go over, I think it just won't add more if you're at 3000 (Or above in this case)

Anyway the reason I dislike this idea is that up to now, this was one of the few games that allowed playing for a whole day. Hence it has kept people busy for 48 hours (afaik) but it also allows playing for just 10-15 min. which means you have a very big player base.
By the feature just implemented (the so called AP system) you have just drasticly limited this play time.
The reason I play this game is because I can log in stay however long I want, then go offline.
I have forgotten about a whole lot of other games because I log in, do some stuff and am forced to logout because I have nothing more to do or have to wait 2 hours to do something. I just don't like to be on for that short a period. Now you are probably going to say, hey 3k AP is not a short period of time. But guess what, once I've used those 3k of AP I'll be sitting here waiting untill I can do something again, and if you get 1440 ap in 24 hours. that means that with 10 hours of sleep and 14 hours of playing I'll get about 600 ap. and that's alot less then I can use.

I'll see what you do with so many people complaining. I know you're trying to deliver us a great balanced game. But all I say is that although your doing a great job already try to listen to what people say about new functions and don't just debunk them because you know it's better. Sometimes the playerbase you have is just dumb but you'll have to statisfy us nonetheless. That's the point of this anyway isn't it?

Just tell me if I'm dead wrong and my apologies if I've been harsh I've tried to stay friendly

 :17:

At least you're getting up there in the rankings, KingDutch. You can take some higher paying missions, and if you're lucky, you won't get hacked and have them removed. Something I haven't done up until now.

I mean, why not? It's much easier on my AP to take a higher paying mission and just fend off anyone trying to finish it before I do. Then when everyone else is blowing their AP on lower paying missions while there aren't any higher ones they can take, I'll let my AP regenerate. Then, when they've got none left and are forced to log out, I'll log back in and take my fresh batch of higher missions with AP to kill any missions anyone else has.

That's balance. Enjoy trying to make HPD now, new players. It's not time to play nice anymore.

And I love how this feature gets implemented after a decent amount of players have already shipped money over, not expecting that their play time would be limited.

I was getting ready financially to donate $100 just in time for a large batch of research to be completed, but why do that now? I wouldn't pay for a ****ing game that tells you that you can only play so much during the course of a day.

Likewise, I thought that HP was unique because it didn't have "action points" meaning it didn't limit you to how much you could play. I though that that is what made it fun for me and seeing as though it will limit my game time I might as well quit. And that's what I might do. I don't think AP is that good of an idea and HP's population may drop cause of this, but some people may like it.. I've quit many games because of this "limit" and it makes it boring and usually when you need it the most this "limit" will turn on you the last very second.

/signed, I'm also on the "may quit" list. We'll see how much it affects the game.

Ugh man you don't know how mad I am. I loved this game, and i was on it 24/7 ( literally, exept for when i pass out ). But this "action point" bleh forget it. Either i move on to EVE ( I was planning to quit that and spend the money on HP instead but nooo not anymore ) orr i go to this weird game i just tried out today lol

Oh well. It seems I am the first one who really likes the basic idea, even though I understand that the current implementation will probably create new balancing issues.

If these issues are addressed and fixed, I think that the AP system will be effective for protecting the interests of less active players.

 :10: I liked the game so much... Was active as long as i was awake..
And now these monstrous AP's come.

I may be nameless, but i liked the game alot untill this.
AP's may mean that less active players have a bit of an advantage with it.

BUT without it everyone can play to their max, some players play no more than 20 minutes a day, others the whole day.
Now the inactive ones can still play by their scheme, how they like it, but the other ones (like me) are limited and can't reach their time of satisfaction!

Same =/

I'd like to add my two cents if I may. I understand the reason for the change, but I have a few remarks concerning how it will affect newer players.

One of the reason I managed to climb the ranks this fast is because I did a lot (and I mean a lot) of small 5 or so HPD missions. Most of these would get ignored by other players, so I had a free hand. I also managed to pull a few bigger ones now and then, but I wouldn't be where I am without them. Now, since the AP cost is the same, the newer players will be even less encouraged to do these, which is bad. The problem is they do not pay much, so the AP cost is really not worth it.

Which brings me to a second point: this will actively encourage newer players to take on the higher paying missions, 1000 and 400 HPD missions (or maybe only 100 or so HPD), which brings them into conflict with older and better equipped players. What one can expect is more PVP (which some might wish), but newbies will get the short end of the stick in this, and get discouraged fast.

In the end, this system could actually work to the older players' advantage. They'll easily kick out the newbies from the important missions, leaving them with little means to upgrade their system and compete. 1440 AP's a day means 144 missions, at 5 HPD a pop, that's little more than 720 HPD a day to upgrade and research. Compare this with an older player who decides to take on a few 1000 HPD missions, because he needs to crack and stop the newbies who are attempting the same. It's easy to see who will manage to grow faster; this means more resources, leading to a deepening divide between the older and newer players).

I can appreciate your attempt to balance the game, but, in my view, this will actually unbalance the game even more.

Apart from that though, I should say I thoroughly enjoy your game, and to keep up the good work.

What i forgot to add is that i have seen that newbies in alot of games (and me too) already doubt a game if they get confronted with AP's.

In an attempt to balance the game it has instead turned into a system to prevent play. I seriously live off the low paying HPD missions which the competition is not great for but now I have to play AP to do a 5 HPD mission.. Why would I want to do that so now I'm forced to try some disinfects to gain $$ which puts me at greater risk of being hacked myself. This change puts players more in conflict with other players then may have been before. I was happy scraping by but not disturbing others work. I would also add that this game was great because I could play all day and then log off when I was ready, it has replaced a lot of other games in my playbook because of that but if I'm going to be limited by AP, I'm not going to advance enough to make this game worth the time to play.

i sign the post about this not being the game that gold members paid for =o

The Real Hacker Project - 10/10

This AP "Hacker Project" - 1/10

While i may be only a few weeks old in the game, but the whole AP's bites. Not only am i a gold member, but an active donater, but this just slowed down the very ideal of spendin money on a game that tells me how long to play (sigh*)

Petition to get rid of AP:

- Hatejacket



add your names if you would like to see it gone. Sadly though it'll probably be ineffective.

Petition to get rid of AP:

- Hatejacket
- Caesar
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Now total: 2 people

Petition to get rid of AP:

- Hatejacket
- Caesar
- Sovietpride
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(p.s i predict two things will come out of this. 1, that those who dont use the forums wil be confused as hell, and b, that people who like the system will poitn and say most of the people here spend too much time on it anyway (aka, top rankers). *sighs*)

Petition to get rid of AP:

- Hatejacket
- Caesar
- Sovietpride
- Noseedam
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i think this whole thing is stupid, and it doesn't balance the breaker, because if you pvp or do missions the virii users will always take the lead............

Petition to get rid of AP:

- Hatejacket
- Caesar
- Sovietpride
- Noseedam
- Magna Carta
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For the reasons I presented above; in short, it will only harm the newer players, and doesn't correct the imbalances.

APs generally level the playing field, switching the balance away from those who spend all day, everyday online.  They make you use your brain to work out the best use of your time rather than reward those that sit in front of their monitors for 12 hours straight and consequently closes the gap between the higher echelon players and those back in the pack (which can only be a good thing for future competitiveness, in my opinion). 

I know of an extremely popular online game where the AP system is what actually makes it and the community that plays it so great and I see no reason why THP can't emulate it and go on to better things.

Having said all that, I do have a lot of sympathy for those players who went Gold before this switchover.  Such a dramatic alteration to a game should never just be dropped onto a community when money from paying customers is involved.  It's one of the main reasons why I never pay for and will continue never to pay for my online gaming.

Petition to get rid of AP:

- Hatejacket
- Caesar
- Sovietpride
- Noseedam
- Magna Carta
- DrJones
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@ Penza

That's not for all games, though.

i pay for my games a maximum of once: and thats to get the CD or files that give me the game itself, i do not play games like eve and WoW because of this

and normally i play games like this and am one of the stronger players even with free account

and here i was thinking maybe i'd drop money on this............ nope! the game has gone from great, to a piece of ****ing ****

excuse me for saying so but AP DOESN'T WORK FOR THIS KIND OF GAME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! the entire HP system conflicts with it! and AP system screws with entire realism of game!

we've made a LOT of suggestions concerning balance, and this was NOT one of the ones i've even seen, let alone liked!

sir emi, it seems like the people have spoken; just about every member who I've seen actively post on these forums already has, and of those I think only two agreed with the change.

The ball is in your court.

well spoken, and also true! if you expect us to enjoy the game, we need to be able to DO stuff, and limiting the number of actions we can take is really suckish

if you ever played mechquest, dragon fable, adventure quest, or any of those (i've had the misfortune to have at the recommendation of one of my friends) then you understand what makes the game so addictive in comparison to other games: YOU CAN ALWAYS DO SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!! WITHOUT WAITING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF TIME INBETWEEN!!!!!!!!!!! (aka waiting for AP to fill up again)

AP's work very well for a few games (I play Pardus, it works very well there, and they did a pretty good job in Urban Dead if only they had more stuff to do on the higher end...) but I don't think it really fits this game.

I'm not going to sign the petition but I do think that AP's are not the answer to balance issues...

I'm a VERY hard player to please, so it could actually be a compliment that i loved this game.

I take my compliment back for now.

i like it the way it was better as well  :10: :10: :10:

As a side note, the AP system you have set up is very good for being not very limiting... I have yet to make a dent in my AP because of the length of processes anyway... but that might be just because I am still newer.  I can see that for people whose dedicated gateways look more like the true light public servers (in volume of processes) it could get pretty annoying... especially when all those AP hits go at the same time.

But I agree that the major problem with this update is how much is discourages the newer players (and not-so-newer players) from making a living nickel and dime-ing off the lower paying missions... it just isn't AP effective.

my big complaint was on the task complete on the PvP end, i can barely do anything to people if i'm trying to defend my own server, or trying to hurt someone else's, it's really making me mad! and this is going to probably cause a LOT of bugs.........

Found another bug in the system.  If you do an action that takes points but can not complete you still pay the AP cost.

thats F***ed up man......... i said this system was going to make game buggy, and sure enough! 9and i'm just a script kiddy who knows some tricks!)

One question:

How many APs do you people have. I am doing my best, and I can't possibly run out of APs: my systems aren't good enough with what I'm doing.


Frankly, I'm on the side against APs. While the other game I play, Pardus, uses APs to limit player activities, it doesn't have any other way to do the same. This game uses timed tasks to limit player activity.

And I think there should only be one limit. As things stand, the people who will rise to the top are the people who can best make use of their APs, which, as mentioned, will the the people who are already there. I don't see this slowing them down. I do see this bringing weaker players into competition with them.


I understand the need to get people away from the game: people who are on 24/7 will have an advantage in any system not governed by APs. However, this is not the way to do it for this game.


Everyone else. Perhaps Siremi is right. Perhaps there needs to be a way to limit what the more powerful players can do. I know that you don't like this idea: what do you suggest? Assume you were the one running this game: what would you do to the game so that the more powerful players couldn't dominate everything.


Me? I would set it up so that each server had a "Heat" stat. The more you ran, the more heat went up. Firewalls, Password protects, virii, and tasks ready to complete wouldn't count towards that number. The less you ran, less heat, and if you were running very little, heat goes down.

And the numbers would be set so that it would be practically impossible to overheat a server until you upgraded it a few times. Perhaps:

-10 heat/minute base
1 heat/minute/kbs used
1 heat/minute/6 CPU Mhz

So the starting server, at full power, would increase 0 heat/minute. My server would do 7 heat/minute at full power.

And, if a server ever hit 1000 Heat, it would fry: the heat would drop 250, you lose a random upgrade, and all tasks contributing heat would end.


This would mean that higher powered players would have to buy multiple servers to keep their activities going, because if they relied on one, it would overheat too fast. By forcing them to buy additional servers, it hits their money hard: it's 20K to buy the server, plus upgrade, and 1K every time they want to change it's IP.

i actually agree with what he' saying, this would give everyone a chance, and it would substitute for AP system, while still limiting it in such a way so as to keep things fair

and also have upgrades! (of course) so that you can cool down faster maybe? or have more heat tolerance? (i like first better!)

<.>

Perhaps a way to boost your ap's periodically like drugs in pardus...

i used to play pardus, and the ap system there works effectively.
However, i do feel that you cant compare the two as they work on different rules. AS stated by zac, ap was the only limiting factor (money to use on drugs not included) whilst in hacker project you are governed by the process times. In a way, this is already implemented with the fact that delete/disinfects/process'es in general take the exact same amount of time for everyone, which in hindsight is a good move.

I just don't think using ap's to limit people's activities is the right choice...

see, were're not crazy! (tho raver might argue that point >.>) and we have proof!

and it would lead to advantages to big players who have the kind of money necessary!

I really like the heat idea, it fits very well into the context of the game and I think it could bring in a whole new set of game mechanics (instead of having to try and put a virus on the other person's computer to get them you could flood their server with useless tasks to try and force it to overheat... an emergency cooling process similar to the password change and HDD format options...)

but what would happen too virii?

From what i've seen so far .... i'm in favor of the AP system.

Now tell me: do you think it's healthy to spend 14 hours on this game every day.
I believe i'm an average player spending a daily 3-4 hours on this game and there's no way in hell that will ever be out of action points. Hasn't even dropped below 2950 during the day.

Sir Emi can do some minor adjustments at will, but in competition terms the AP system will be a good thing.
But he should also compensate those who have paid for this game and will now have less value for their money.

I'm really confused... I have been at 3000 for a while now (can't seem to get rid of these points quick enough) and then when I just completed a mission I look over and I see 3000 (+10)... I don't understand at all what happened but I'm about to finish some more missions and we will see what happens from there...

Edit:  So I completed another mission... 2990 (-10)... refresh the page and it's already 2992 (+2)... strange...

it's our choice, and i don't have anything better to do, and anyways, look at tribalwars, they're doing fine, with enw players sitting right next to the oldest in the game, we just need clan system to be able to be able to get this going.......

There is a counter that is taking place, every time you refresh the page,  a plus sign indicates that you have gained AP since the last time you hit the web page.  A minus sign indicates you did something that took action points.


As far as the AP system is concerned, I am a gold member and rose to the 7th rank before falling back to 17ish.  I don't like the idea of something limiting my actions for a game that I chose to pay money to play, even though I will NEVER drop 24 hours at a setting on this or any game, I feel that if someone wants to do that, then they should have the advantage over me instead of being limited.  Similar to WoW, you spend time and energy into a game, you should get rewarded.

thank you, and please sign petition, we've so far all agreed that heat would be a better limiter than Ap, especially for overactive (and obviously dedicated) newbies

Not to sound like an elitist, but exactly how much have you seen termul?
and do you believe that it's your responsibility to decide how people should spend their time?
Everyone likes to believe that how they play is the norm. Believe me, I could easily spend 5K+ AP per day playing less than 2 hours. What are your system specs? For example, if I wanted to, my computer could handle well over 500 delete missions simultaneously. That's 5K ap right there.
AP is good for you, because you're not one of the more active players and haven't found a way to spend your AP quickly.
Although I'd love a refund of my gold membership money, I'd probably stop playing if I got it. I really like the game I paid for, but in many ways I'm no longer playing that game. On the other hand, there's no way that siremi can really afford to reimburse us - real server aren't free, and his time isn't cheap either.

fact of the matter is that siremi screwed up big on this one................ and i don't care if i get banned for saying it, it's the truth and it needs to be heard, even if no one else is brave enough to say it

You know what I love most about the AP system?

There is now no way a new player can ever reach the top 10.

I mean honestly think about it.  I know I use Virii and Missions to make my HPD.   My Virii are Free HPD without the cost of AP except when I install new ones.  So I get that income and all the income from missions.  How can a newer or younger player hope to even compete with that?

That's a very, very good point.  You had all these in before the AP system so they were free, where new players will now have to spend loads of AP to try and populate their .1 viruses, which will just get removed anyway most of the time or taken over by spyware...

supports the argument, and also

oh, and lets not forget
need i more support? oh yeah, lets not forget the entire petition! that alone says something............

Petition to get rid of AP:

- Hatejacket
- Caesar
- Sovietpride
- Noseedam
- Magna Carta
- DrJones
- OcTAvIAn
-
-

Petition to get rid of AP:

- Hatejacket
- Caesar
- Sovietpride
- Noseedam
- Magna Carta
- DrJones
- OcTAvIAn
- Theraze
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As well, if the heat system goes into affect, it means that installing virii on someone's computer harms them even more... If somehow you manage to get 5 virii on someone's system while they're gone, for example, they're now screwed because they're gaining tons of heat from that bandwidth that's being continually used. On your side? No costs... it's just free cash coming in every bit.

Honestly, the problem with most of these types of 'fixes' is that they screw newbies so much more then they screw the big players. The newbies are struggling to do the 5 and 13 hpd jobs (and if you aren't running out of ap doing those, you aren't doing it right). A good newbie starting would be upgrading their CPU and deleting more and more files to raise their CPU up to where they have an actual income. But with this change, the newbie will now be limited to only deleting a smaller amount... and they'll have no chance to actually get through the jobs for deleting 100+ files, since those are going to be more jealously guarded by the mid-level players.

The big players? It costs soviet the same to upload his fileshare as it does the newbie with their .1 adware. :) Guess who makes more and which is going to be a better way of making cash? Heh.

i don't think i need to restate emi, and i've already gone from 3000 to 1600 and i haven't been overly active today, i haven't even done a single mission..........

@Crlaozwyn:

No need to go into defence m8.
I've seen enough of this game to know what i'm talking about.

So perhaps i am not the average player, but i still don't believe that the majority of the players spends over 10 hours a day on this game. And i couldn't care less if they did, that's their choice.

Besides that i could also spend all my AP if i wanted, but i already do try to spend resources as effeciently as possible, instead of just flooding npc servers with adware.

So you can do 500 delete missions at the same time........... 500 * 100 cpu = 50 ghz processor (!!). In that case it might be a good idea to set a limit to hardware upgrades to be more realistic.

More general speaking: I think top players are evolving way to fast (and that seems to be sir emi's main worry too). And because they've also teamed up (and thus not competing eachother) they are already beyond anybodies reach and there's no stopping them.
So i support sir emi's actions to put a limit somewhere.

Except as I pointed out, it costs soviet the same to put his fileshare virus out there as it does you to put your adware out there... Main difference is that his will likely get onto the server faster. :) The only part of it that's slower is the actual activation. And for that part, he can already move to uploading it to the next server.

Basically, the issue with this (or heat) is that they penalize the newbies more than they do the big players. Heat? Will screw a newbie up hard when their entire system is being used up by virii. Put a single overload bomb on it and all their HW is used up except BW.

The issue is that HP USED TO be a game you could enjoy as much as you wanted to... there was no need to wait around if you were feeling creative... could always just go try to find a new secret server to do missions from. Now? You'll end up using all your AP just getting into the secret servers, much less doing missions. :) The best strategies at the moment with disinfection, virii, and the time limits being the way they are would be:
a) upload major fileshare virii to the public/secret with the knowledge they're going to be wiped out soon
b) put major fileshare virii on your OWN servers, as that doesn't cost you hardly any AP and nobody's going to stop your income
c) just start infecting all the newbies until they quit and you keep making money, since nobody's going to stop your income

Missions aren't any sort of a good choice at the moment, besides disinfection missions, and those ones will die out as people stop caring.

again, the reason i want clans to be formed............ so that they can work along side, or at least defend themselves from the bigger players, same way every other game does it, and the thing is, it WORKS other wise they wouldn't all do it!

i understand Hp is a work in progress,, but there are still boundaries........

Termul. I'm not sure how much you play, but I want you to look at it from the point of view of those who do have time. I am on summer break, and around spending time with family (friends, unfortunately, are a problem since I'm changing schools next year. In addition, I prefer for a variety of reasons to use the computer to socialize. If you want a full explanation, ask for it via PM). As such, I have more than enough time (12+ hours a day). When I go to college, nothing will change: the campus I will be on has wireless everywhere, and knowing me, I'll be playing a little during class.

Suffice to say, time is not an issue, nor a health risk.


I do agree that with the most powerful players teamed up, it's hard, if not impossible for the rest of us to advance. I do agree that there needs to be a limit. I don't think AP is the way to go. I have already suggested Heat for servers, a mechanic that will disproportionally affect powerful people, as a better way to limit people

and active people still retain their advantage, and AP is also a problem, it prevents you from defending your server if the other person is a gold member especially! and defense at least needs to be fair.............. even if their other benefits add

Zac, the problem with that is that the big players have so much HW and SW that even if their servers get negatives at times, they'll recover VERY easily. As well, if it's possible to raise your heat tolerance (as you would have to, to make the system not be completely broken for those with high stats already) then they'll be able to raise their systems to where heat doesn't affect them in any sort of major way... while the smaller people struggling will have heat as a major issue as they won't have the credits to raise their tolerance... they'll be raising the CPU and so on instead, which makes their heat worse, etc, etc...

Basically, besides having done the system so that costs get progressively more expensive, there's not much you can do to slow down the upper people and not screw the newbies. The issue is that, whether AP or heat, they screw over newbies so much more than people who make cash easily. I make something around 1100 HPD an hour for idling. Maybe slightly higher, I'm not sure. My income is much lower than the top players. Regardless, that's income untouched by heat, AP, or anything else.

Now how is a new player going to try to come anywhere near that?

maybe 0.2's (and unders)don't generate heat? it'll give newbies a chance to get set up before they start needing to upgrade heat

Ha... that just makes it so you load up servers with .2 virii and end up with no cost. Especially on your own server(s)...

VERY easily exploited.

better than ap, and your firewalls and protects would generate heat, and also all of your cracking software, log un/deleters AV etc.

How often do you have to run those though? The protects yes... but the log deleters/undeleters don't ever need to run for more than 10 seconds. :) Cracking software runs for 5-lots of minutes, but the breaker only needs to run for 10 seconds as well. You don't NEED to run the firewalls/protects when you're cracking, as you can't be traced then.

Again, changes that will screw over newbies more than old players, and/or make the game impossible to continue at a certain level.

i leave my deleter running  :10: and also the hiders/ encrypters can be running for 10+ minutes when hiding big file........ while there's area to exploit, you also are confined by bandwidth, so it does balance out (somewhat, but nothings perfect, and i'm for just about anything besides AP)

Theraze: I challenged people to come up with their own alternatives, and suggested my own.


Clearly, you don't like the AP system. Fine.

You suggest some way to reign in the people in the front.


And until then, critique my idea, don't throw it out.

There have been some changes in the AP costs:

http://www.hacker-project.com/forum/index.php?topic=478.0

I've read all this topic and would like thank everyone, great feedback.

I'm sorry but this is what I currently have (and I am/is confuseding):
29.150.245.46
07-Oct-2012 19:51
Finances: 7,949,165,135.69 HPD
Time: 5893 AP (+5)

every time I see it as Time: 5893 AP (+5) I think this is a buG, maybe you can change so it's like Energy: 5893 AP (+5) (bc that's what it really is, isn't it? ...but I could be wrong!)

so what I'm saying is it should looks like this:
IP: 29.150.245.46
Time: 07-Oct-2012 19:51
Finances: 7,949,165,135.69 HPD
Energy: 5893 AP (+5)

mmmmm, maybe not...just make it:
29.150.245.46
07-Oct-2012 19:51
Finances: 7,949,165,135.69 HPD
Energy: 5893 AP (+5)






...I get a 404 when I try to and go to that link :21: (I like the animations on that it actually moves! ...okay so now I can see in the edity window they are movesing anyways...)