What should Frontier do about this?

[Reconcilliation]

I don't think there ever really will be a good way of doing anything without making the entire economic aspect player-run.

Anything else is entirely artificial and prone to serious issues - which we will see after launch.

And because 'trade' in this game is actually just hauling, I think Frontier would've been better off with simply creating courier missions for 'traders', rather than a simplistic commodity haul setup.

 

[metatheurgist]

One way would be to limit the supply of goods. I don't think it should be so easy to fill a cargo hold with hundreds of tonnes of a pricey item. Large haulers would be forced to do more work to source goods, maybe establish contacts, trade multiple systems to fill a hold, etc.

 

[SuperGhostMaster]

I think that high profit is now set for testing purposes (a lot of players requested earlier the ability to earn money fast). IMO it will be much harder to earn money in the final release.

Or more likely, there will be many, much higher-priced items. Rather than scale back the current game, it makes far more sense to continue to scale up in leveling.

In any game, the start usually gives you a swift kick in the pants to get you going; if ED has a lengthy playthrough prior to end-game then that means there's a LOT of room to move up.

 

[SuperGhostMaster]

I don't think there ever really will be a good way of doing anything without making the entire economic aspect player-run.

Anything else is entirely artificial and prone to serious issues - which we will see after launch.

And because 'trade' in this game is actually just hauling, I think Frontier would've been better off with simply creating courier missions for 'traders', rather than a simplistic commodity haul setup.

This also leads to my wish-feature: a system by which I can pay another player to bring what I need; somewhere where I can offer a small profit in exchange for dropping what I need and in turn pay the delivery boy.

 

[Helo]

One way would be to limit the supply of goods. I don't think it should be so easy to fill a cargo hold with hundreds of tonnes of a pricey item. Large haulers would be forced to do more work to source goods, maybe establish contacts, trade multiple systems to fill a hold, etc.

Ahh, supply and demand. They'll have this, they demoed it at the start of Premium Beta but the market went flat in a couple of days and they removed it in the next patch. Honestly, I think the market going flat is a good thing for the overall health of the game, just not for Beta testing. And, given the larger size of the available galaxy, it wouldn't surprise me if supply and demand are back in effect for standard beta, maybe we just haven't notice it yet. I certainly notice the rising prices in ships, I wonder if that is player driven or Frontier's doing?

 

[Bad_Wolf]

At the moment once you reach 16/32 tons cargo capacity, trading becomes a good/very good way of making money. Once you get cargo capacity into the 100s, money in the game stops being a concern, you can easily make more than you can spend.

IMHO this is will be bad for the game in the long run, now maybe Frontier have this well in hand and later in the beta the ability to earn mega bucks will end. But maybe not, so what ideas can we come up with that Frontier might like to consider?

Bearing in mind that just decreasing the profit margin will make it impossible to start out trading, the only thing I can think of is decrease the profit margin but increase the number of courier or light cargo missions available at the start.

I'm sure someone must have a better suggestion?

It's Beta... wait and see instead of assuming.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

At the moment once you reach 16/32 tons cargo capacity, trading becomes a good/very good way of making money. Once you get cargo capacity into the 100s, money in the game stops being a concern, you can easily make more than you can spend.

IMHO this is will be bad for the game in the long run, now maybe Frontier have this well in hand and later in the beta the ability to earn mega bucks will end. But maybe not, so what ideas can we come up with that Frontier might like to consider?

Bearing in mind that just decreasing the profit margin will make it impossible to start out trading, the only thing I can think of is decrease the profit margin but increase the number of courier or light cargo missions available at the start.

I'm sure someone must have a better suggestion?

There was some angst in "Premium Beta" phase that money was very hard to come by, outside of endless combat farming in fixed locations... and that some testers couldn't progress through all the ships and equipment they wanted to try out.

In the current Standard Beta, trading itself is safe and lucrative, once you get the hang of it.


There will be a heap more stuff and complexity in the released game. Most of it will come down to "risk vs. reward". For example, low-margin trading in safe systems, versus high-margin trading in dangerous systems.


That risk/reward balance is out of wack for testers at present. In Standard Beta, "Interdiction" risk is minimal.

For example, three tooled-up hostile NPC Cobras can't smoke a single unarmed ZP Hauler if the pilot knows how to bug out and FrameShift effectively. Don't expect that to carry through to the final release!


In the final game, taking a poorly defended, fat trader ship through multi-government or anarchy systems won't be good for your health.


Remember, ALL of the responsibility for risk and consequence lies with the player and their decisions. We'll all learn at the "School of Hard Knocks".


My advice is to learn the ships, weapons and strategies now, while it's a benign test space out there. Learn how to fly, shoot, run. Learn how the law works. Get used to reading the Galaxy Map's info on the systems' government types - and learn which ones will be safer, and which ones won't.

Because, in the final release, by the time you think, "I should never have flown here", it'll be too late.

 

[Flin]

It's not a problem per se, but do agree that the earning and power curve should be tweaked. In general, higher volume trades will net you greater absolute return while smaller volume trades will net you greater profit margin.

Pilot in their starter sidewinder would take on risker missions while pilots in their Lakons would take on less risker routes. So this means more interesting and risker missions.

Also, in the old game there was a sweet spot in terms of cargo size and jump range. Type 6 is currently in that sweet spot, but I think it should be reduced to about 60-75.

Lastly, profit margins between 'safe' and 'risker' systems should be more distinct. Something else to tweak.

 

[laforge]

My solution would be to make larger ships considerably more vulnerable to piracy.

Smaller ships should mostly be able to run successfully, maybe even fight. But larger ships would struggle to run and face having to lose a cargo hold far more often unless they give up considerable trading space for weapons and shields.

This way you can still trade in large ships, but a % of your profit would have to go on hiring escorts.

This all seems realistic to me too.

Horrible idea. Larger ships should also have more room for better weaponry. Also in secure systems I hope to not see a pirate for several runs - if at all.

 

[IEatPelicans]

At the moment once you reach 16/32 tons cargo capacity, trading becomes a good/very good way of making money. Once you get cargo capacity into the 100s, money in the game stops being a concern, you can easily make more than you can spend.

IMHO this is will be bad for the game in the long run, now maybe Frontier have this well in hand and later in the beta the ability to earn mega bucks will end. But maybe not, so what ideas can we come up with that Frontier might like to consider?

...

I'm sure someone must have a better suggestion?

I totally agree and something needs to be done.

This is my proposed model (cut and paste job from another thread):

Pilot licencing. You shouldnt be able to simply waltz in with your 4 million credits and buy an Anaconda. You should also need to hold the appropriate pilot’s licence before the relevant vendor will accept your money. Licences are split into various different categories and different ships will require that you hold different levels of competency in different categories.

I think that Elite needs to include this because at the moment the game is pretty much exclusively focused on how many credits you can amass in your bank account. The fact of the matter is: whilst there are a variety of different ways to make money in elite, the current structure of the game is such that once you can afford a hauler or a cobra, there is very little incentive to do anything other than trade. I think thats going to get very boring very quickly. What’s the point in doing a bulletin board mission with a paltry reward of $5000 when I can simply haul 36 units of resonating separators in less time for 4 times as much profit???

At the moment, whenever we die, the Pilots Federation has to pay out large sums from an apparently magical supply of infinite cash. What I propose is that some sort of system where pilots gain licence qualifications by performing certain tasks for the Pilots Federation. The Pilot’s Federation should act as a body that facilitates the provision of piloting expertise by those pilots with the necessary skills to the customers who have a need of those skills. For example, a trader (npc or real player) pays the pilots federation a fee for an armed escort to protect their Lakon and its precious cargo on certain trade run. The Pilots Federation keeps a portion of this fee as commission and pays a small amount to whoever takes up that job. Although the pilot who takes the job receives only a small amount of money for their work, the ‘real’ benefit to the pilot is the increase in experience they receive for the skills categories relevant to that particular mission. Different types would reward pilots with different skills qualifications. Another example: instead of running a load of cargo, a particular weapon or piece of equipment between point A and point B, players and npcs could pay a fee to the Pilots Federation to have those items shipped for them. These would appear as missions offered by the Pilots Federation. Taking this particular type of mission would yield the pilot a small amount of money as well as an improved rating in the pilot’s licensing category (or categories) relevant to trading ships such as the Lakon type 6 and type 9. Each ship’s licensing requirements would differ. A Viper would require a higher degree of competency in the combat skills category but very little experience in terms of trading, whereas the licence requirements for the Lakon ships would be the opposite.

Adding to this, would be the pilots status ranking (harmless, competent, dangerous etc) which would impact the type of missions available as well is the monetary reward for completion. This way, the Pilots Federation has a stream of income which it uses to replace the destroyed ships of the insured pilots Federation Members. It also means that players are forced to do other things than simply trade until they have enough credits for the next biggest ship, rinse, repeat.

The other advantage that I can see this bringing is that it will allow the Devs have some degree of control over where players are located. One of my biggest concerns about the game is that whilst the freedom of 400 billion star systems is a wonderful thing, it has the potential to spoil the game because all of the human players will be far too thinly spread to make the multiplayer experience any fun. Players in this game are going to be motivated by the desire to pilot the biggest/fastest/most powerful ships in the game. By dictating the availability and location of certain missions and the corresponding pilot’s licence qualifications, the developers can artificially create concentrations of human players but without restricting the size of the galaxy or the freedom of players to explore if they want to.

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

I totally agree and something needs to be done.

This is my proposed model (cut and paste job from another thread):

Pilot licencing. You shouldnt be able to simply waltz in with your 4 million credits and buy an Anaconda. You should also need to hold the appropriate pilot’s licence before the relevant vendor will accept your money. Licences are split into various different categories and different ships will require that you hold different levels of competency in different categories.

I think that Elite needs to include this because at the moment the game is pretty much exclusively focused on how many credits you can amass in your bank account. The fact of the matter is: whilst there are a variety of different ways to make money in elite, the current structure of the game is such that once you can afford a hauler or a cobra, there is very little incentive to do anything other than trade. I think thats going to get very boring very quickly. What’s the point in doing a bulletin board mission with a paltry reward of $5000 when I can simply haul 36 units of resonating separators in less time for 4 times as much profit???

At the moment, whenever we die, the Pilots Federation has to pay out large sums from an apparently magical supply of infinite cash. What I propose is that some sort of system where pilots gain licence qualifications by performing certain tasks for the Pilots Federation. The Pilot’s Federation should act as a body that facilitates the provision of piloting expertise by those pilots with the necessary skills to the customers who have a need of those skills. For example, a trader (npc or real player) pays the pilots federation a fee for an armed escort to protect their Lakon and its precious cargo on certain trade run. The Pilots Federation keeps a portion of this fee as commission and pays a small amount to whoever takes up that job. Although the pilot who takes the job receives only a small amount of money for their work, the ‘real’ benefit to the pilot is the increase in experience they receive for the skills categories relevant to that particular mission. Different types would reward pilots with different skills qualifications. Another example: instead of running a load of cargo, a particular weapon or piece of equipment between point A and point B, players and npcs could pay a fee to the Pilots Federation to have those items shipped for them. These would appear as missions offered by the Pilots Federation. Taking this particular type of mission would yield the pilot a small amount of money as well as an improved rating in the pilot’s licensing category (or categories) relevant to trading ships such as the Lakon type 6 and type 9. Each ship’s licensing requirements would differ. A Viper would require a higher degree of competency in the combat skills category but very little experience in terms of trading, whereas the licence requirements for the Lakon ships would be the opposite.

Adding to this, would be the pilots status ranking (harmless, competent, dangerous etc) which would impact the type of missions available as well is the monetary reward for completion. This way, the Pilots Federation has a stream of income which it uses to replace the destroyed ships of the insured pilots Federation Members. It also means that players are forced to do other things than simply trade until they have enough credits for the next biggest ship, rinse, repeat.

The other advantage that I can see this bringing is that it will allow the Devs have some degree of control over where players are located. One of my biggest concerns about the game is that whilst the freedom of 400 billion star systems is a wonderful thing, it has the potential to spoil the game because all of the human players will be far too thinly spread to make the multiplayer experience any fun. Players in this game are going to be motivated by the desire to pilot the biggest/fastest/most powerful ships in the game. By dictating the availability and location of certain missions and the corresponding pilot’s licence qualifications, the developers can artificially create concentrations of human players but without restricting the size of the galaxy or the freedom of players to explore if they want to.

I do not like any of your ideas at all!!!
This is a game I play for Fun
I'am not @ work !!! I dont need chores I have to do !! It is enough and justly so that I have to earn the credits to buy abetter ship.
The concept of having to do dailies or same type of grind stinks
Have been ther and have done that, LOTRO , and not again thank you!

When game is final, I believe that the sheer size of the Milky Way will make most people explore and trade - mine , just as the original game.
Should be a few years of game time in that.

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[laforge]

I do not like any of your ideas at all!!!
This is a game I play for Fun
I'am not at work !!! I dont need chores I have to do !! It is enough and justly so that I have to earn the credits to buy abetter ship.
The concept of having to do dailies or same type of grind stinks
Have been ther and have done that, LOTRO , and not again thank you!

When game is final, I believe that the sheer size of the Milky Way will make most people explore and trade - mine , just as the original game.
Should be a few years of game time in that.

Cheers Cmdr's

Exactly. I dont want to have this game turned into a job where you have to grind all day to get any significant progress. At some point you should be able to purchase what you want in a decent playtime.

 

[mid_gen]

The game shouldn't be about getting the ships, it should be about what you do with them.

The little sidey can take on anything up to a Cobra/Lakon T9 solo without any probs. Two good pilots should be able to clean up an Anaconda easily enough.

As long as it remains the case that bigger ship != instawin, then it doesn't matter how much or little grind it takes to get cash and ships. It will be quite refreshing being able to fully enjoy a game without having to pour your entire waking life into it.

 

[CaptainKremmen]

I do not like any of your ideas at all!!!
This is a game I play for Fun
I'am not @ <REMOVED> work !!! I dont need chores I have to do !! It is enough and justly so that I have to earn the credits to buy abetter ship.
The concept of having to do dailies or same type of grind stinks
Have been ther and have done that, LOTRO , and not again thank you!

When game is final, I believe that the sheer size of the Milky Way will make most people explore and trade - mine , just as the original game.
Should be a few years of game time in that.

Cheers Cmdr's

Oi, settle down.

The idea of tiered progress is an interesting one. If you disagree, you can say so without going all 48-point font on us.

 

[Dai]

every elite ever made was like this, hard to start with and then money does become less of a concern. but that is how it should be. you will have earned your wings early on with the hard graft. and you are then free to explore the 400 billion star systems is that not enough?

leave the fun in the GAME

 

[DirkLarien]

One way would be to limit the supply of goods. I don't think it should be so easy to fill a cargo hold with hundreds of tonnes of a pricey item. Large haulers would be forced to do more work to source goods, maybe establish contacts, trade multiple systems to fill a hold, etc.

this sound good.

It's Beta... wait and see instead of assuming.

Yes beta.... dont wait and see.
Discuss!

This is the whole point of beta.

 

[Flin]

Regardless of rate of earning for different ships and different stages, at some point players will be flushed with credits as ship insurance is generously priced and if cargo insurance is implemented as other suggested, it would be even easier.

So once players get to say 10 million credits stage, we're all gentlemen and ladies of leisure.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

At the moment once you reach 16/32 tons cargo capacity, trading becomes a good/very good way of making money. Once you get cargo capacity into the 100s, money in the game stops being a concern, you can easily make more than you can spend.

IMHO this is will be bad for the game in the long run, now maybe Frontier have this well in hand and later in the beta the ability to earn mega bucks will end. But maybe not, so what ideas can we come up with that Frontier might like to consider?

Bearing in mind that just decreasing the profit margin will make it impossible to start out trading, the only thing I can think of is decrease the profit margin but increase the number of courier or light cargo missions available at the start.

I'm sure someone must have a better suggestion?

If you are worried about what to do in next stage you will get lot of things to do with your trading money - exploring, mining, piracy, passenger transporting, etc.

 

[Cmdr Eagleboy]

this sound good.


Yes beta.... dont wait and see.
Discuss!

This is the whole point of beta.

Not really. Another thread about worrying of the balance is pointless - FD have all telemetry and information and they probably do weekly game design meetings with them.

Whole point of beta from our perspective is to provide FD that data

 

[rayvon]

There is no problem, this is how the game works, some people get bored easily in a sandbox because its all about imagination, either you have it or you don't.