Why is ship pricing such an issue?

[Vhaegrant]

I'm having trouble getting my head around why it is seemingly so difficult to come up with a price for a ship.
If price is meant to reflect balance surely each component should have a weighted value associated with it. If these values were applied it would give the 'balanced' cost of a ship.

You can add a premium on for 'stylish design' if you like to increase rarity but at the end of the day the most important point is balance, whether it is in trade or combat.

The fact that a ships value can go from 19million to 5 million feels as if the devs are making things up as they go along rather than reflecting an internal consistent balance.

 

[Alpha087]

Looking at it more closely, it seems to me like they are now meaning for the Vulture to be the sort of second "tier" for combat ships. Think about it for a moment, we have the Viper as the first tier combat ship, with the Cobra as its multi-purpose counterpart, with the Viper costing slightly less than the Cobra.

With the Vulture we have a second "Tier" combat ship, with the Asp as its multi-purpose counterpart. Again, the Vulture now costs slightly less than the Asp.

At least that's what I'm figuring to be the logic behind it. Don't know about the FDL, and am not really interested in that ship anyways. Fed Dropship price drop was much needed though.

 

[hippie403]

I'm having trouble getting my head around why it is seemingly so difficult to come up with a price for a ship.
If price is meant to reflect balance surely each component should have a weighted value associated with it. If these values were applied it would give the 'balanced' cost of a ship.

You can add a premium on for 'stylish design' if you like to increase rarity but at the end of the day the most important point is balance, whether it is in trade or combat.

The fact that a ships value can go from 19million to 5 million feels as if the devs are making things up as they go along rather than reflecting an internal consistent balance.

I think FD just caved in to a vocal minority who wanted new shiny toys now without getting their hands dirty trading.

 

[Norwyn]

I think FD just caved in to a vocal minority who wanted new shiny toys now without getting their hands dirty trading.

Do we now have to get our "hands dirty" in games doing something specific you might not like? especially in sandbox games with multiple professions? That doesn't sound really... fun...

 

[Tarman]

I think FD just caved in to a vocal minority who wanted new shiny toys now without getting their hands dirty trading.

I'd say for piracy and bounty hunting that's exactly the point.

Even your phrasing used to snipe at this change makes trading sound like something horrible you do because there's no other choice. Well, now there is. Trade pilots were never forced into pewing by combat pilots, there are ten ways to avoid it. Now combat pilots aren't forced into a game role that they don't enjoy, to finance the one they do enjoy.

 

[Loskene]

Because of people with larger mouths than brains. That's the answer every time something is an issue that shouldn't be.

I should specify the issue of the ships being too expensive was produced from rational discussion about how useless they were at their original prices. Now the idiots are making a new issue because something changed that they didn't expect, regardless of how much better we are all off for it. If we'd collectively know when to complain and when to shut up we'd all have a better game.

 

[CornishCracker]

Because of people with larger mouths than brains. That's the answer every time something is an issue that shouldn't be.

So you're insulting people just because they can't dedicate 100 hours to grinding for a decent ship?

 

[Loskene]

So you're insulting people just because they can't dedicate 100 hours to grinding for a decent ship?

No I read the OP wrong and threw in for the wrong side, cleared it up now.

 

[Vhaegrant]

I don't really want this thread to devolve into various camps of players taking cheap shots at the others
.
My initial point is that the price of a ship should reflect its potential power levels.
The prices/ weighting you apply to the various aspects and components should be fixed and so there is no argument to the final price.
It's not open to 'meaning' it's a reflection of what the basic chassis can accomplish.

 

[Loskene]

I don't really want this thread to devolve into various camps of players taking cheap shots at the others
.
My initial point is that the price of a ship should reflect its potential power levels.
The prices/ weighting you apply to the various aspects and components should be fixed and so there is no argument to the final price.
It's not open to 'meaning' it's a reflection of what the basic chassis can accomplish.

That system works better in theory than in practice, because it doesn't factor in what the ship will be used for primarily and whether or not it'll be able to support its own running costs. Hence why the 20mil vulture became the 5mil vulture, it was too expensive to run even if the raw components were worth an arbitrarily higher figure.

 

[Quineloe]

I think FD just caved in to a vocal minority who wanted new shiny toys now without getting their hands dirty trading.

That vocal "minority" however expected a ship for the massive gap that is the few million bracket, and not what was at first delivered.

 

[Vhaegrant]

That system works better in theory than in practice, because it doesn't factor in what the ship will be used for primarily and whether or not it'll be able to support its own running costs. Hence why the 20mil vulture became the 5mil vulture, it was too expensive to run even if the raw components were worth an arbitrarily higher figure.

System has worked fine in just about every Sci-Fi RPG I've played that has ship construction rules in it. A simple association between component and potential power.
Are we to think the Vulture was ever considered a viable trading ship?

 

[Tarman]

I don't really want this thread to devolve into various camps of players taking cheap shots at the others
.
My initial point is that the price of a ship should reflect its potential power levels.
The prices/ weighting you apply to the various aspects and components should be fixed and so there is no argument to the final price.
It's not open to 'meaning' it's a reflection of what the basic chassis can accomplish.

Pricing is open to meaning; it's not purely objective based on the build. That's more of a basic engineering cost analysis. The combat pricing got dropped across the board not because of the way the ships perform, but because they needed to be in line with the realities of the upgraded combat metagame.

Combat has been a seriously expensive hobby so far, with little in the way of staying in the financial black outside of actually giving up combat for a while to trade. That made combat roles unviable as professions on a number of fronts, except to the very best of the best who could make a living at it by being aces. Tough to start in for most, tough to stay in. This new pricing combined with better repair and fueling costs, and better combat payouts, has added a lot more to the combat meta; as now deciding to bug out of a fight isn't first and foremost a financial consideration.

 

[Vhaegrant]

If you want a base line price that is fair and transparent across all ships then it isn't open to meaning, it is a simple reflection of cost against the power, a basic game design analysis.
With that price fixed you can start to work out rewards from activities based on how long you feel an average player should spend doing that activity.
I would err on the side of cheaper basic ship chassis with expensive module improvements.
.
Every MMO I have played has issues trying to cram multiple play-styles under the same roof, usually to the detriment of all the play-styles.
As they say, the sign of a good compromise is that no one is happy

 

[Eagle Eye]

IMO the pricing itself was not an issue. Profession income & scaling was. Problem is instead of upping income & provides better scaling, they up income and lower the combat ship price. Fixing income and scaling instead of mucking with prices would have been better & FD would not have to redo their whole future ship meta because of the current combat ships now have a distorted price & performance (vs. their original plan)

 

[Kraft]

I think FD just caved in to a vocal minority who wanted new shiny toys now without getting their hands dirty trading.

Why am I so sure you used trading to gather wealth and not mining, you should get your hands dirty with hard work..

 

[Tarman]

If you want a base line price that is fair and transparent across all ships then it isn't open to meaning, it is a simple reflection of cost against the power, a basic game design analysis.
With that price fixed you can start to work out rewards from activities based on how long you feel an average player should spend doing that activity.
I would err on the side of cheaper basic ship chassis with expensive module improvements.
.
Every MMO I have played has issues trying to cram multiple play-styles under the same roof, usually to the detriment of all the play-styles.
As they say, the sign of a good compromise is that no one is happy

From a game design angle, controlling the pricing more separately from the chassis parameters allows easier changes to the values at a strategic level to reflect the changing situation on the ground, despite there not being any ground in space. A harder value system tied more closely to the ship mechanics would be less accepting of the latest changes in pricing, which again have much less to do with the "actual" value of the ships and more to do with letting pew-gaming actually have some lovin.

 

[Cmdr Thrudd]

If price is meant to reflect balance

Theres the problem with the proposition.
Price is meaningless, so long as you're not dying all the time everything in game makes a profit. They can't balance around price.
What they're balancing around is preserved role and user expectation.

 

[Vhaegrant]

IMO the pricing itself was not an issue. Profession income & scaling was. Problem is instead of upping income & provides better scaling, they up income and lower the combat ship price. Fixing income and scaling instead of mucking with prices would have been better & FD would not have to redo their whole future ship meta because of the current combat ships now have a distorted price & performance (vs. their original plan)

I have to agree I think the bigger issue was how the income scaled with profession rather than the base cost of the ships.
It's easy to see the time savings when you upgrade a trade ships cargo capacity (or upgrade to a bigger ship) because the profit from x units of cargo to 5x units is a factor of 5
I'm not so sure it scales as well for combat. Do they factor in the value of the vessel you destroy in the bounty or is it based on the pilot?
Exploration and mining seem to rely a lot on pot luck. You have to explore a lot of systems/ mine a lot of asteroids to hit the motherload and offset all the lesser finds. To be honest I find the constant jumps of exploration more mind numbing than trading
.
I guess the biggest balance issue I see in MMOs though is one of time factor. How do you balance a game to appeal to players that can only grab a few hours a week (if they're lucky) against those that can dedicate 10 hours a day to playing?

 

[Vhaegrant]

Theres the problem with the proposition.
Price is meaningless, so long as you're not dying all the time everything in game makes a profit. They can't balance around price.
What they're balancing around is preserved role and user expectation.

No problem with the proposition at all.
The more powerful an item is the more expensive it is the longer it takes to get.
It's core to understanding the profit that should be returned from professions and so the rate at which a player can improve their ship.