Woah Repair Costs Go Up?
- Thread starter Cryptex
- Start date
My own feelings about repair costs are a little conflicted.
I'm not saying anyone else is wrong - this is just how I feel about it, and might make clear to others why this isn't a cut and dried thing to all pilots.
I really like the idea of a risk-reward mechanic, and systems in game that incentivise us to play in a way that makes us feel more like we're freelance pilots flying around in the galaxy. This isn't the same as realism! Talking about realism in a sci-fi game is a short road to nowhere. This is about the general atmosphere, the feel and the sense of threat and danger you get from doing certain things.
Take exploration. The mechanism is as follows. You set off from a starport. As you start scanning things, the exploration data is stored on your ship. The more you scan, the more valuable it gets. But until you safely dock and sell the data, you will not get the value of it. So there's the hard choice for you. The further you go out, the longer you spend out in the black, the more you have to lose. You can keep pushing outwards, risking more and more, always knowing that one accident, one bad binary, one complacent moment coming into a system with a white dwarf, could make you lose it all. It's up to you when you decide enough is enough, and turn back for home. And that final dock when you come back to a station is nerve-wracking as hell - especally if it's been weeks since you last docked. The sense of relief when you hear 'Docking successful' is almost a physical thing.
I love this, because it incentivises the kind of behaviour you would actually have for 'real' exploration, without actually threatening any of us with real-life permanent death. There is a real cost and risk with pushing further and further out into unexplored space. So many people explore by not going 'too far from shore', going out a short distance from inhabited space, then coming back to sell before they incur too much risk. And those of us who go out for weeks, to the galaxy's centre or the fringes of the spiral arms - we know the risks and it's there, looking over your shoulder the whole time.
It's a push-your-luck mechanic, and it's similar with hunting bounties. How long will you stay before cashing in your bounty vouchers? How much will you risk? All it takes is one misjudged boost in a planet's rings, one complacent moment where you think 'A wing of three, no problem, I've done hundreds before'. I start getting very nervous when my bounty claims climb above two million, and start thinking about coming home.
But at all times, this leaves the choice up to you, the pilot. You decide when to turn and come for home. You decide how much risk to incur and manage. The same is true of managing your finances on a subtler level (the most simple and basic choice in that area is whether to fly without insurance). Managing risk is part of the game. I love the way this adds atmosphere and threat.
How does this relate to repair costs?
Okay, let me lay out my ideal. I want Firefly and her broken compressor. I want the Millenium Falcon, bucket of bolts, hyperdrive malfunctioning. I want it to be a challenge to keep my ship flying. I don't want it to be a trivial thing.
I wish there was wear-and-tear to modules, so the more they are used (or even just left without maintenance), the more their health drops. I like the idea of malfunctions because I failed to maintain them.
For ship integrity, I like the idea that it shouldn't be normal to keep it at 100%. This isn't about realism, but we're all familiar with this in real life - even the military don't keep their airframes and vehicles at 100%, because that would be hugely cost-prohibitive. The only people who do this are billionaires with some beloved restored vehicle that they barely drive. Everyone else just lives with a certain amount of wear in their vehicles because it would be ridiculously expensive to send it in every day to rebuild it to 100%. Remember the effect of lost ship integrity is only a reduction in hull hit points. Even at 0% integrity, you've only lost 30%. So yes, your ship's structure is a little rickety. So was Firefly's. So was the Millenium Falcon's.
And most of all, I want to have to make hard choices. This isn't taking away options for me. I see it as giving me a whole other area of gameplay. I want ship repairs and maintenance to be expensive. I want to be looking at several modules and think to myself, "I can only afford to repair two of these really. Which two?" I want to look at a frightening level of lost ship integrity and think, "Damn it. Oh well, it'll hold together a little longer." Not about realism, as I said, but in terms of feel, we're all aware that repairing a vehicle is expensive, often more expensive than buying a new one. Maintaining one isn't cheap either. It feels right that these should be expensive - and I love the idea of it being another push-your-luck mechanic - do you repair that shield generator? It goes on the fritz sometimes, it's so bad. Or the frame shift drive? Don't want that crapping out on you when you're trying desperately to get away. And you only really have the money to do one or the other. To me, that sounds awesome.
Now I know that if there was a change like this, it has huge implications and is a sea-change in how people would be able to play. And it risks losing loads of players who don't find the idea of this attractive at all. I totally understand someone who thinks that that just sounds like it couldn't be made to work in a way that was fun. Perhaps they're right. Perhaps it would just become irritating beyond belief, and wouldn't add anything. I'm not saying it's even a good idea necessarily.
But I'm just putting it out, because some people might not realise that the question of repair costs isn't a simple one-sided one. What if everyone got used to the idea of not being at 100% integrity all the time, and to have their modules at various levels of repair... only repairing ones that look like they're going to completely break. There are some who like the idea of repair costs being high. I'm certainly a little disappointed right now with how trivial they are - it's almost as if they're not a factor in gameplay at all. And I totally understand the counter-argument that it's all very well saying that, but in reality if it was implemented, it might not create that feeling at all and just become a waste of time. I'm not a game developer - there may be lots of knock-on effects of this that would ruin other elements of the game, and I can't see the big picture.
But there is always a little part of me that wishes I could have an experience like Mal Reynolds when he's been too poor to keep Firefly in good repair and her compressor blows out. I would love that.
Like Araviel, I'm from an Eve background, so maybe it's partly an attitude thing - the thought of risk adding to gameplay enjoyment is accepted and ship losses were permanent and you had to understand that without blinking. It's a very different attitude to gameplay and Elite is actually very forgiving by comparison. But of course, it's not for everyone, which is absolutely fair enough.
I just thought it was worth trying to make the case for those who actually like them being high.
I'm not saying anyone else is wrong - this is just how I feel about it, and might make clear to others why this isn't a cut and dried thing to all pilots.
I really like the idea of a risk-reward mechanic, and systems in game that incentivise us to play in a way that makes us feel more like we're freelance pilots flying around in the galaxy. This isn't the same as realism! Talking about realism in a sci-fi game is a short road to nowhere. This is about the general atmosphere, the feel and the sense of threat and danger you get from doing certain things.
Take exploration. The mechanism is as follows. You set off from a starport. As you start scanning things, the exploration data is stored on your ship. The more you scan, the more valuable it gets. But until you safely dock and sell the data, you will not get the value of it. So there's the hard choice for you. The further you go out, the longer you spend out in the black, the more you have to lose. You can keep pushing outwards, risking more and more, always knowing that one accident, one bad binary, one complacent moment coming into a system with a white dwarf, could make you lose it all. It's up to you when you decide enough is enough, and turn back for home. And that final dock when you come back to a station is nerve-wracking as hell - especally if it's been weeks since you last docked. The sense of relief when you hear 'Docking successful' is almost a physical thing.
I love this, because it incentivises the kind of behaviour you would actually have for 'real' exploration, without actually threatening any of us with real-life permanent death. There is a real cost and risk with pushing further and further out into unexplored space. So many people explore by not going 'too far from shore', going out a short distance from inhabited space, then coming back to sell before they incur too much risk. And those of us who go out for weeks, to the galaxy's centre or the fringes of the spiral arms - we know the risks and it's there, looking over your shoulder the whole time.
It's a push-your-luck mechanic, and it's similar with hunting bounties. How long will you stay before cashing in your bounty vouchers? How much will you risk? All it takes is one misjudged boost in a planet's rings, one complacent moment where you think 'A wing of three, no problem, I've done hundreds before'. I start getting very nervous when my bounty claims climb above two million, and start thinking about coming home.
But at all times, this leaves the choice up to you, the pilot. You decide when to turn and come for home. You decide how much risk to incur and manage. The same is true of managing your finances on a subtler level (the most simple and basic choice in that area is whether to fly without insurance). Managing risk is part of the game. I love the way this adds atmosphere and threat.
How does this relate to repair costs?
Okay, let me lay out my ideal. I want Firefly and her broken compressor. I want the Millenium Falcon, bucket of bolts, hyperdrive malfunctioning. I want it to be a challenge to keep my ship flying. I don't want it to be a trivial thing.
I wish there was wear-and-tear to modules, so the more they are used (or even just left without maintenance), the more their health drops. I like the idea of malfunctions because I failed to maintain them.
For ship integrity, I like the idea that it shouldn't be normal to keep it at 100%. This isn't about realism, but we're all familiar with this in real life - even the military don't keep their airframes and vehicles at 100%, because that would be hugely cost-prohibitive. The only people who do this are billionaires with some beloved restored vehicle that they barely drive. Everyone else just lives with a certain amount of wear in their vehicles because it would be ridiculously expensive to send it in every day to rebuild it to 100%. Remember the effect of lost ship integrity is only a reduction in hull hit points. Even at 0% integrity, you've only lost 30%. So yes, your ship's structure is a little rickety. So was Firefly's. So was the Millenium Falcon's.
And most of all, I want to have to make hard choices. This isn't taking away options for me. I see it as giving me a whole other area of gameplay. I want ship repairs and maintenance to be expensive. I want to be looking at several modules and think to myself, "I can only afford to repair two of these really. Which two?" I want to look at a frightening level of lost ship integrity and think, "Damn it. Oh well, it'll hold together a little longer." Not about realism, as I said, but in terms of feel, we're all aware that repairing a vehicle is expensive, often more expensive than buying a new one. Maintaining one isn't cheap either. It feels right that these should be expensive - and I love the idea of it being another push-your-luck mechanic - do you repair that shield generator? It goes on the fritz sometimes, it's so bad. Or the frame shift drive? Don't want that crapping out on you when you're trying desperately to get away. And you only really have the money to do one or the other. To me, that sounds awesome.
Now I know that if there was a change like this, it has huge implications and is a sea-change in how people would be able to play. And it risks losing loads of players who don't find the idea of this attractive at all. I totally understand someone who thinks that that just sounds like it couldn't be made to work in a way that was fun. Perhaps they're right. Perhaps it would just become irritating beyond belief, and wouldn't add anything. I'm not saying it's even a good idea necessarily.
But I'm just putting it out, because some people might not realise that the question of repair costs isn't a simple one-sided one. What if everyone got used to the idea of not being at 100% integrity all the time, and to have their modules at various levels of repair... only repairing ones that look like they're going to completely break. There are some who like the idea of repair costs being high. I'm certainly a little disappointed right now with how trivial they are - it's almost as if they're not a factor in gameplay at all. And I totally understand the counter-argument that it's all very well saying that, but in reality if it was implemented, it might not create that feeling at all and just become a waste of time. I'm not a game developer - there may be lots of knock-on effects of this that would ruin other elements of the game, and I can't see the big picture.
But there is always a little part of me that wishes I could have an experience like Mal Reynolds when he's been too poor to keep Firefly in good repair and her compressor blows out. I would love that.
Like Araviel, I'm from an Eve background, so maybe it's partly an attitude thing - the thought of risk adding to gameplay enjoyment is accepted and ship losses were permanent and you had to understand that without blinking. It's a very different attitude to gameplay and Elite is actually very forgiving by comparison. But of course, it's not for everyone, which is absolutely fair enough.
I just thought it was worth trying to make the case for those who actually like them being high.
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It's usually the default form of defense when a game design or bug is indefensible.
The new repair costs are fine as they are. Last night, I decided to try out the new AI in a CZ. I had a new loadout on my Vulture, (gimballed beam, gimballed cannon). I started off picking on a few small fry, Vipers and Cobras, then saw a Python, so went in for the kill. However, about 30 seconds in, I was jumped from behind by a 2 'conda wing and in one of the fights of my life, killed the Python and one of the 'condas, and got the other down to 10% sheilds before I had to run. Got back to base, and repair costs were 130K, combat vouchers cashed in 120K. Do I feel I lost out? No, I had some of the best times I had in the game. It was fun!
I went back, and flew much smarter, scanned the opposition and waited for big ships to become isolated, picking of escorts first, etc, etc, Still great fun, but I came out with 800K profit and no damage.
TL;DR Fly smarter, don't expect old tactics to work against the new AI, enjoy yourself.
I went back, and flew much smarter, scanned the opposition and waited for big ships to become isolated, picking of escorts first, etc, etc, Still great fun, but I came out with 800K profit and no damage.
TL;DR Fly smarter, don't expect old tactics to work against the new AI, enjoy yourself.
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Well written post there and it was a joy reading it .. here is the other side's problem with it..
- You play PVP you get pulled by pirates every single hour maybe even twice an hour. even a sidewinder can damage 10% of your hull . if i ended up having to pay 10 Mil a day for repairs and barely making 2 mil in trading or fighting. how long can i keep my ship ? everyone wil be in a sidewinder in a week.
- You play PP and you have to pay sometimes to push the power toward certain points add that to repair cost and no one will play PP ..
- In every game there should be balance. yes you can play Elite dangerous and make Billion and not care about repair cost (IF) and a big if .. you play at least 4 - 5 hours a day. ofcourse im gona be jumped off here and say if you cant play then dont which is like.. whatever but i do have a job and a life and friends to hang out with. i do play 1 or 2 hours a day and 10 at weekends but that will never be enough to balance all these costs.
- Yes it will be very good for RP and hearing Escape velocity and audio books about elite while playing endless hours. and imagine how real it is. but how long can you keep at it before it get tiresome ? wasnt that the fall of EVE ?
- i played probably 400+ hours since i bought this game 3 months ago. i never had any complain i always managed .. extra grinding and so on wasnt a problem. PP no problem. bugs, slow servers, cheaters, griefers and what not .. no problem..
but you reach a level of .. come on already you cant push ppl that hard. even slaves in the empire dont have to work that hard.. there is a limit..
But in the end im always gona get the "well maybe this isnt the game for u after all" response. I will leave u with this.. when Elite was released most ppl here stopped playing EVE (according to me and my friends at least) .. now i think when SC or no mans sky come out.. ppl may stop playing ED.. and it actually breaks my heart coz i love this game..
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Reps for that.
Their patch notes are full of misnomers...
Avoiding to say what they're really doing. Annoying. Dishonest. Stealth changes.
Just the attempt at a stealth change is disgusting.
New repair costs are not fine and FD have already stated they are not intended. Yet people here are still defending them.
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...=1#post2413427
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...=1#post2413430
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...=1#post2413427
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showth...=1#post2413430
Yeah, I can see that there's huge amounts of potential problems, especially in how that kind of change would impact on other parts of the game.
In the end, I think it's going to become a matter of degree. Naturally, this shouldn't feel like a second job - it's a game, you play it in your spare time... it should be enjoyable. If you're not enjoying it, then something is wrong. And I can't imagine Frontier want to drive away players. A feature like this should enhance gameplay, not make it worse.
It definitely shouldn't be more expensive repairing your ship than blowing it up and getting a spanking brand new one on insurance. That's a stupid outcome.
I do think that if you still make a half-decent profit from bounties/missions after subtracting repair costs, then there isn't really a case for complaining about them. Rather than that part of the game being a simple bar you fill up (money from bounties), there's an actual gameplay balance you have to strike as a player (money from bounties - repair costs = profit?), then that sounds like more fun. You have to run your ship as well as fly it. And it can go wrong, whereas building up bounties with no cost is just scooping water into a bucket. The question would be where to strike the balance, and that's then a decision that the devs have to turn over and struggle with.
I have a feeling that you're right that if it was implemented to the level I described, it might become basically unplayable, and yeah, I don't want that. I love the game too.
Yeah, I can see that there's huge amounts of potential problems, especially in how that kind of change would impact on other parts of the game.
In the end, I think it's going to become a matter of degree. Naturally, this shouldn't feel like a second job - it's a game, you play it in your spare time... it should be enjoyable. If you're not enjoying it, then something is wrong. And I can't imagine Frontier want to drive away players. A feature like this should enhance gameplay, not make it worse.
It definitely shouldn't be more expensive repairing your ship than blowing it up and getting a spanking brand new one on insurance. That's a stupid outcome.
I do think that if you still make a half-decent profit from bounties/missions after subtracting repair costs, then there isn't really a case for complaining about them. Rather than that part of the game being a simple bar you fill up (money from bounties), there's an actual gameplay balance you have to strike as a player (money from bounties - repair costs = profit?), then that sounds like more fun. You have to run your ship as well as fly it. And it can go wrong, whereas building up bounties with no cost is just scooping water into a bucket. The question would be where to strike the balance, and that's then a decision that the devs have to turn over and struggle with.
I have a feeling that you're right that if it was implemented to the level I described, it might become basically unplayable, and yeah, I don't want that. I love the game too.
I think we have reached an agreement after all. This is one of the rare events where i actually feel good after a discussion here. for that, I thank you .. Fly safe CMDR o7
I'm not defending the repair costs as they stand, whether that's a mistake or not.
I'm genuinely trying to make others understand the point of view of some of us - that this isn't a one-sided issue. Some of us actually don't mind repair costs being high - some of us actively prefer it. Whether the devs think the current repair costs need fixing or not doesn't come into it.
The overall issue of repairs and how much they cost is an area that is open to balance and degrees of shade, rather than a simple problem with a simple fix. That's all. We're allowed to have and express our preference too, aren't we?
The weird thing is, the issue seemed to have been sorted.
All of a sudden it's back.
Makes me wonder, how many folks at FD are turning that (and others) without talking to each other ?
I have come to accept their external communication isn't always top notch, perhaps internally it isn't much better ?
All of a sudden it's back.
Makes me wonder, how many folks at FD are turning that (and others) without talking to each other ?
I have come to accept their external communication isn't always top notch, perhaps internally it isn't much better ?
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I seldom, if ever moan about FD.
This time its different. You guys are screwing with hull repair costs to such an extent that the game is unplayable at times. You cant pursue an upgrade path for your ship if very time you get a minor scrape you're in for high repair costs. This retards progress far too much. I'm not against hiking these repair cost btw. I think that before this upgrade they were too low. The higher cost has the benefit of people flying much more carefully, this avoiding collisions and less showing off in space stations etc.,
I think you guys should take some suggestions in this thread and work them into this issue. I liked the one by DidierDrbois: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/member.php?u=69810 - using base costs and percentages to stabilise the repair bills. The changes put in so far seem quite arbitrary.
Stop sucking it out of your thumbs guys, and get with developing an approach that is workable.
This time its different. You guys are screwing with hull repair costs to such an extent that the game is unplayable at times. You cant pursue an upgrade path for your ship if very time you get a minor scrape you're in for high repair costs. This retards progress far too much. I'm not against hiking these repair cost btw. I think that before this upgrade they were too low. The higher cost has the benefit of people flying much more carefully, this avoiding collisions and less showing off in space stations etc.,
I think you guys should take some suggestions in this thread and work them into this issue. I liked the one by DidierDrbois: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/member.php?u=69810 - using base costs and percentages to stabilise the repair bills. The changes put in so far seem quite arbitrary.
Stop sucking it out of your thumbs guys, and get with developing an approach that is workable.
You mean small missiles boat should not be able to sink a destroyer ?
It's all about cost/effectiveness. It's cause of this patrol boat exist : because it's not a good idea to use a nuclear aircraft carrier to chase smugglers.
You think everyone should have a nuclear aircraft carrier cause it is the most potent ship you can buy, I think thanks to maintenance cost people need to think about their cost in relation to want they want to do with their ship, what they can do and what they can't.
Even the most potent ship must have limitations, and as he is the most potent, the limitation is about what is required to maintain it.
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I got a whopping .5 of a million repair bill last night in my Python. Was down to 50% hull after taking on a SSS wing of Vultures.
Yeah, head scratching has long been the reserve of the unimaginative.
How about COOL, AWESOME money sinks you WANT to burn all your money on?
The FDL is one of those things. Utterly unnecessary, but a fun thing to have around to burn 80 million on.
Also, the Anaconda costs 900 million to max out. I much doubt we have all that many players with ELITE rank in trading.
And once we do, there will be the Corvette, the Panther etc. No problem.
OK, repairs go up and big hull integrity bills appear and meanwhile three piddly new ships are introduced. Is this FD's way of trying to force us all into the small ships to give the new players a chance or what?
That's fair enough, and your point of view certainly has some good arguments. I'm just sick of people defending everything in this game with arguments like 'learn to fight better' and 'in real life it would cost more' kind of stuff. There were a lot of people (not you) who were defending these repair costs with unreasonable arguments and have all of a sudden gone very quiet now it's confirmed an error have gone silent.
It's the same people every time. "Elite is perfect and nothing needs to change" until they change something, then "Elite is perfect and nothing needs to change".