How much money (credits) should players be allowed to earn/have in game?

[Lobstris]

Firstly some of the people in this thread wanting 50-100m cr/hour? Wha...? Why? Just... why? Are you only intending to play the game for a couple of hours or what? Do you get bored if you can't buy a new ship every hour?

That said, I'd much rather missions were back to under 1m credits per mission max, and earnings were less than 5m cr per hour tops, to be in line with max profits (plus a little surplus) from the commodities market and normal trading. with people asking "Based on those max earnings, what should high end ships and modules cost, and what should acceptable credit sinks be?"

And the age old chestnut of "It doesn't affect you, so why should you care what others earn?" (Hi GG7!) - two words. SHARED UNIVERSE!!! If the game wasn't multiplayer it wouldn't matter - but it is, so. And, as always, forcing people into one method of play 'du jour' to 'keep up with the Jones'' all the time, doesn't strike me as great for the game's longevity either.

 

[GG7]

I am a pc player since alpha with over a 1000 hours of playtime and also play on ps4 so I have been round a bit. I am happy sitting with an amount I find adequate in the bank and just doing the things I enjoy.

As do most of us thankfully. I never set out to become a Billionaire in this game. It just happened over time in the course of doing stuff I enjoy doing within the game.

If anyone out there who has as many hours invested into this game as I have wasn't a Billionaire several times over, I would have to seriously question what the heck have they been doing for the last 3 years! lol!

As others have pointed out over and over... Making money in ED is not that hard. Its certainly not rocket science.

 

[GG7]

And the age old chestnut of "It doesn't affect you, so why should you care what others earn?" (Hi GG7!) - two words. SHARED UNIVERSE!!! If the game wasn't multiplayer it wouldn't matter - but it is, so. And, as always, forcing people into one method of play 'du jour' to 'keep up with the Jones'' all the time, doesn't strike me as great for the game's longevity either.

Dream on!

I play in SOLO 99% of the time. Tell me again how my earnings directly impact you?

I want a serious point by point list of all the aspects of how YOUR ED experience has been negatively impacted by the Billions of CR I have in my account that I use for playing in SOLO 99% of the time. (The other 1% is spent in Private Groups)

You obviously are convinced that this fallacy is true, so you must have a list in your head.

Lets see it on here.

 

[ApexWanderer]

@GG7 ,how you've earnt your money effects the BGS .

P.s chill out.

 

[metatheurgist]

It should be linked to your combat rank. In fact you shouldn't even see a Corvette, Anaconda or Cutter in the shipyard unless you're at least Dangerous.

 

[Kaocraft]

Oh please!

That is hardly a relevant/viable comparison Mr. Drama Queen. Unlike your ridiculous comparison, everyone in this game has access to the same missions and money making avenues as any other player. It is up to the individual as to whether or not they engage in taking advantage of them.

Obsessing over how other people choose to spend their time, and thus in some cases make 10 times the amount of CR per month as someone else is nothing but a personal choice.

I get it... You and others are incredibly envious/jealous of the accomplishments of other players, and so you want to eliminate or limit their earnings to make you feel better about your own lackluster accomplishments. ~ You

Like I said... Nothing Frontier can do, or will do to fix STUPID!

Thats just not true. Everyone comes into this with their own sets of limitations and time constraints and everything else. The logic is exactly the same for real life as it is for simulated life. The only difference is that a video game is a video game so in the end it (for all intents and purposes) *doesn't matter*. Your reasoning sounds completely callous and ridiculous when it's translated into real life terms, which is why I made the comparison. It's not for dramatic effect but to highlight that the line of thinking you're applying here is not convincing and not valid.

If what you were saying made sense, it would make general sense. The basis of your argument is that since people can't see each other's credit balances, that they shouldn't care what's in them. But it's a multiplayer game and relative advantage matters, is noticed, and is felt.

 

[SavingPrincess]

@GG7 ,how you've earnt your money effects the BGS .

P.s chill out.

How, can you please explain it to me?

 

[Stealthie]

No restrictions on the reserves and the cost of the most expensive ship's insurance per hr to earn.

That's a reasonable way to look at it but I'd say there should also be the risk that losing a big ship should be a substantial setback rather than being something you can recover from in 1 hour.

Back when the Ancient Ruins mission was worth Cr200m a pop, it was commonly held that being able to complete it in 10 hours gave you a pretty good return on your time-investment, which'd suggest that Cr20m/hr was a decent income.

Given that things still cost the same as they did back then, I'd say that Cr20m/hr is still pretty reasonable, although I suspect people would want more than that these days.

*EDIT*

Also, I should say, I'm absolutely in favour of the game having proper "gold rushes" that people can use to give their income a short-term boost.

Rather than just being random (or the result of bugs), I'd like to see them being predictable, though, so there'd be some skill involved in spotting when these things were likely to occur or perhaps even influencing the BGS in order to provoke them to appear.

 

[SavingPrincess]

"My workplace does not disclose or in any way provide workers with the financial status of any other worker at the company. Therefore, any complaints regarding pay rates and/or any perceived inequality in theses areas have no relevance to the job. "
~ You

Hahahahaha... this is hilarious.

This is such a straw man, I'm surprised he's not heading off to the Emerald City in search of a heart.

Trying to link playing a video game to a real life job is an argument that couldn't fall flatter on its face if it tried. But, let's have a little fun, I've got five minutes:

1. We PAY to play games, we don't PAY to work for a company
2. Working contributes VALUE, playing a video game does not
3. Money in real life, is a finite resource, generated from an economy with limited resources... CR in Elite are numbers that mean LITERALLY nothing... a dev with a console command can add trillions to his account and it affects no one
4. Elite does not discriminate (maybe against those with limited free time xD) or hire, or fire, etc.

I could go on and on and on about how patently ridiculous your analogy is and how it has no bearing on ANY conversation being had here (and I mean NONE, no moral, no intellectual, no objective, none... period)...

So I say to you sir... after a turn to the camera and a brief pause for comedic effect...

BWAAAAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA...

 

[acg515]

This is a galaxy where random citizens can own military ships with military grade weaponry. So I mean, the military industrial complex isn't exactly going to limit anyone's money because who are they going to sell weapons to then?

 

[BirdWisdom]

It was a simple question I asked elsewhere but didn't get an answer so I'm throwing it out there:

How much credits per hour or day should a player be allowed to earn?

How much cash reserves should a player be allowed to have?

I'm only asking because apparently this concerns quite a lot of the player base.

Genuinely I am interested because there is definitely a "too much", allowing some players to proceed at an insane rate, but logically if you decide there is a "too much" then you also need to define what is "enough"?

My point of view if player earn to less CR will be like this !

rule 1 = slow to get more ships

rule 2 = the microshop will be slow because the rule number 1 for the beginner

rule 3 = what are you thinking about devs ?

rule 4 = will CR make the God like carrier ?

rule 5 = who knows ?

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I was really happy with what i experienced (i think the first patch of horizons).

- Missions were underdeveloped and didn't pay anything noticeable. The sandbox was more valid than the mission board, it was basically a placeholder.
- The rate of credits was slow enough to make you experience the sandbox pillars.. you got so bored doing just one thing, but there was always something new to try in the *same pay grade*, that getting enough for your first asp asp was just the perfect amount of time to make you go try everything once. It was perfect.
- Then you went to Robigo and had the best experience ever in starship gaming for the next 2 weeks. Nothing has ever simulated a kessel run like that.. even in elite.
- Then you stabilise and earn enough for mid game just as you get sick of it.
- Then the galaxy was your playground with a bit of experience in just about everything.

New players are honestly suffering, if you started during.. actually anything after that you got ripped off.

EDIT: For the literal number of credits thats just compared to what the game leads you through to get them. I know some people like that counter next to your name but yeah.

 

[BirdWisdom]

42

Its the ultimate answer!

Are you one who is brain washed there pore thing hehe

 

[MrFailfactory]

I'm never really in favor of easy and/or effortless money (Play Hard, Work Hard, with the former being more important than the latter), but I'm just going to say that I really started to enjoy the various things the game has to offer after the bugged Moira CG.

That payout took me from a barely-afforded T-6, straight to a Python and an Anaconda. One week completely changed the game for me; not only did I no longer have to worry very much about credits, but now I also had the ability to print credits at will due to having those ships.

The hardships of the past are in the past, my friends, and they should stay back there. The game has matured, and it is no longer appropriate to require 6 months of fairly consistent time investment to reach a point of perpetual sustainability. It was appropriate back then, but not any longer.

I would say that the game should be balanced so that a new Commander should be able to afford (and equip) an Anaconda in one month of reasonably consistent play. The definition of reasonably consistent play is variable, of course, but my definition would be 10-20 hours per week, or put another way, in the first 80 hours of played time.

It's unfortunate what happened with the passenger missions - all they had to do was increase the number of passengers on the higher paying missions such that you couldn't take more than 3 of them at one time.

That's all they had to do to fix that particular quirk.

Riôt

 

[Funny]

Credits per hour should honestly be able to go to about 50 mil per hour. That's a reasonable use of everyone's time. Though the skill needed would be rather large (what that skill entails, well, that would depend on the method of earning money/profession).
A 'normal' player should be able to earn 20 mil per hour easily (medium skill), a 'casual' about 5-10 ('low' skill).

I think it's kinda important to address the materials though. Right now, those actually take up most of your time. I can go out exploring, and earn decent money while having fun taking in the sights. I can't, however, earn decent mats for things related to exploring.
Same goes for combat, though mostly because nobody in their right mind would really combine materials gathering with their chosen activities because it breaks the flow or is outright dangerous to do (in cz - which just pay poorly, like, really poorly considering it's one of the hardest and riskiest combat things in the game right now).
And the same goes for literally anything else, even those who exlusively do missions...

 

[MarkAusten]

I sometimes wonder what would happen if credits were removed and everything was obtained through reputation.

(Not a suggestion, just a thought)

What would be the difference? You are just replacing one form of currency with another.

 

[MarkAusten]

It should be linked to your combat rank. In fact you shouldn't even see a Corvette, Anaconda or Cutter in the shipyard unless you're at least Dangerous.

Er, I'm ranked dangerous in combat (I think) but only because my T9 was set up with turrets. I'm a trader. 90% of my "kills" are from the turrets knocking ships down while I tried to run from interdictions.

 

[CMDR Karrde Sun]

I'm never really in favor of easy and/or effortless money (Play Hard, Work Hard, with the former being more important than the latter), but I'm just going to say that I really started to enjoy the various things the game has to offer after the bugged Moira CG.

Was that a bug? It felt more like a social experiment to see how that would go. They confirmed it was okay before it was over.

Sadly i don't think they'll do it again, everyone flocked to it and it was well over before many people got a chance to get in.

Yeah i had a great time there too, would certainly do even anti thargoid cg's for that kinda money

 

[kofeyh]

It was a simple question I asked elsewhere but didn't get an answer so I'm throwing it out there:

How much credits per hour or day should a player be allowed to earn?

How much cash reserves should a player be allowed to have?

I'm only asking because apparently this concerns quite a lot of the player base.

No, it only concerns a vocal minority. Most people want to have time invested result in experiences and progress. Because that's why the bought the game in the first place. They bought the game to play the game, not have some random internet person dictate their experience 24x7.

Genuinely I am interested because there is definitely a "too much", allowing some players to proceed at an insane rate, but logically if you decide there is a "too much" then you also need to define what is "enough"?

It should be defined by the developer. Which it is. That's not the problem, though. The problem is commanders believe they have an inalienable right to dictate "how much". This is a flawed assumption, and because the developer can be shouted at to the point of capitulation, the vocal few realise they can just endlessly shout and get exactly what they want.

The issue isn't even credits at this point; it's Frontier complete lack of consistency, or a wholistic approach to the various experiences available, and any credit value associated. It feeds a cycle of moralising commanders, that batter the developer down, which then causes a great degree of damage, which creates more inconsistent results, and the cycle repeats.

 

[Stealthie]

I would say that the game should be balanced so that a new Commander should be able to afford (and equip) an Anaconda in one month of reasonably consistent play. The definition of reasonably consistent play is variable, of course, but my definition would be 10-20 hours per week, or put another way, in the first 80 hours of played time.

That's always been perfectly viable.

Maybe not guaranteed to happen regularly but every so often there'll be a CG which requires high-value items and then it's easy to make half a billion credits in a week.

Course, the same people who are currently happy to hammer bulk passenger missions week after week will say "Ain't got time to grind at a CG".