Please Explain: Why people think Carriers should have less upkeep and lower purchase cost?

Lennox Dantes

Lennox Dantes
For the life of me, I cannot wrap my head around how players are complaining about purchase and maintenance costs of carriers.

What an entitled bunch of babies.

You honestly believe that YOU, unremarkable old YOU, "deserve" to be bestowed the godlike ability to manage and maintain and entire, powerful mobile space station.

AND! NOT ONLY THAT! You truly, in your disgruntled, wrinkled, lonely hearts, believe that you should be able to purchase these more easily AND have minimal upkeep costs on this MASSIVE, BEHEMOTH, MULTI-FUNCTION, PROFIT GENERATING BEAST.

As someone grounded in reality. Who doesnt feel owed anything and enjoys elite for being the safe little carebear haven that it is. I am completely stunned (ok , knowing how entitled and spoiled this community is I expected this) how people can justify their complaints.

So please. Legitimate responses only. Answer two questions for me:

1. How do you justify being able to solely manage a massive, multifunction, mobile space station and not have severe running costs? (Personally, I feel the 10mil is NOTHiNG. Hell I just pirates for 1 hour and made 50.)

2. How do you justify your sense of entitlement when it comes to having all this power as an individual (which is completely immersion breaking btw) and then have the gaul to demand this unrealistic scenario be presented on the silver platter of low entry fee.

Please. Indulge me. I dont suffer from elitism, entitlement, or hyper-sensitivity. Quite frankly, I love this concept. I just wish that cost way more and required 10x the upkeep, thus requiring people to work together to maintain them. I see absolutely no reasonable example of why any individual should harness this power. Especially for such a cheap cost. Yes. Cheap, relative to what you are getting.

Relax.
 

Quantis Trap

Quantis Trap
I DON'T CARE about the costs that everyone else seems to be salty about. I think they're stepping on the real issues which are (1) Fleet Carriers need to travel faster and (2) they need to open up more interesting game play.
 

CMDR SpadedTail

CMDR SpadedTail
If you can afford a 5 billion Cr vessel, you can afford 10m/week to keep it running. An extra 1 billion Cr is enough to keep it running for two years.

52 weeks in a year = 520 million a year = 1 billion (approximately) to pay for two years of FC.

Just the rebuy of a proper Cutter is enough to pay it for over a month!

Edit: Wow my post did NOT age well...
 
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zimms

zimms
Insulting and condescending OPs - so hot right now.

"What an entitled bunch of babies "
"You honestly believe that YOU, unremarkable old YOU "
"You truly, in your disgruntled, wrinkled, lonely hearts "

"So please. Legitimate responses only. "
Okay, here's my legitimate response. Stop being a toxic donkey.
 

Shanaeri

Shanaeri
I've also been putting a fair amount of thought into the upkeep mechanic. It's still unfun. negative conditioning and still punishes players for not playing.. The thing is both we and frontier are thinking that carriers cost 5BN+500m a year to pay for. If you view it as they cost 10bn (5bn+5 years of maint) then it somehow feels more palatable. It's looking at the carrier from a total cost of ownership (TCO) perspective rather than an initial purchase price..

A lot of it is how it's presented.. For example, I would sell carriers at 7bn but include 3years of maint in the price, Like you do when you buy a service plan for a car. So sell carriers in 3 versions. 5bn+annual maint. 7Bn with 3 years maint and 10bn with no maint for life(Elite would be 12 --13 years old by the time the 10bn cost paid for itself)

The players are, in the way it was presented by frontier fixating on the upkeep cost because in their mind they are racking up a debt(which they are if you don't look at it from a TCO point of view) IF the cost of the carrier is more expensive AND includes X years in the price then the true cost is presented on screen.. up front and how much or how little you play the game is up to you.

So if you view the ACTUAL purchase cost of a carrier is 10Bn, not 5bn in your value decision making process it becomes clearer and easier to decide if you should buy one or not.
 

Winterwalker

Winterwalker
Shanaeri said:
They shouldn't. just bump the price up to 10Bn with no upkeep. 10bn is about the amount a carrier+5 years maint will cost, so removes the punishment for not playing. while still taking money from the economy
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The reason I don't agree with this is because it's been ages since credits have been an issue in ED, when in reality the fine balance between boom and bankruptcy was a big part of what made previous games special. With FC's, credits will be an issue again and personally I'm really looking forward to the challenge of keeping one solvent.
 

Shanaeri

Shanaeri
Winterwalker said:
The reason I don't agree with this is because it's been ages since credits have been an issue in ED, when in reality the fine balance between boom and bankruptcy was a big part of what made previous games special. With FC's, credits will be an issue again and personally I'm really looking forward to the challenge of keeping one solvent.
Click to expand...

The above issue is what you get from tacking on a player-driven economy onto a game that has not had one since launch and for a number of years. When you buy a carrier put aside 10Bn (5bn down and 5bn in the bank) and dont have to worry about costs for 5 more years. What would help frontier is including X years maint cost in the price. Anything you then make back from the carrier is a bonus.
 

Snowymonk

Snowymonk
I understand the purchase and upkeep model.
I don’t agree with the figures.

Real world analogy:
If anyone has bought a new car recently through leasing (from a car showroom - keeping with the analogy that Frontier gave) then you purchase it and then commit to an ongoing monthly rental.

Irrespective of whether I have a job and have money coming into the household, I still have to pay the monthly leasing cost or the car will be repossessed.

Shan’s suggestion is the purchase only approach (10bn and no upkeep). It’s a different financing model - not what Frontier are proposing.

I would like both the purchase and subsequent leasing cost to be lower.

We are now in the negation phase of the sale where we suck our teeth, appear to dither, kick the tyres and try to point out all the things (perceived) wrong with the deal, hoping that the salesperson sweetens the deal.
 

Demsit

D
The decision to make Fleet carriers that expensive with such a high weekly upkeep cost was purely made for the shareholders. Not for ingame logic, not because just a select few should have them, but because they (FDEV) want to artificially boost their statistics. Make no mistake: they want as many commanders as possible to buy them, and they want them to spend lots and lots of time in the game doing so; potentially even buying cosmetics with ARX. It's all about the money for a company that is doing fairly well already, and it is totally acceptable for 'us' to argue against an EA business model.

Lennox Dantes said:
1. How do you justify being able to solely manage a massive, multifunction, mobile space station and not have severe running costs? (Personally, I feel the 10mil is NOTHiNG. Hell I just pirates for 1 hour and made 50.)
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Storage, spaceships (especially insurance), fighter crew... all these things should have running costs, and some indeed have. It's just that other solutions have been found to simulate these running costs. It is entirely possible to do that, even for fleet carriers. Like maybe the idea that NPCs use your services as well and that this income covers the costs? There are many more NPSs than players roaming the galaxy afterall. It's by no means realistic that the only income you can ever generate in these things comes from other commanders, or that selling commodities at the standard galactic price (0% tariff) doesn't earn you money. So this is certainly not a question about realism.
Generally I don't think people are against running costs... just think about how filthy rich some of our fighter pilots are, and how little outrage you see about that on the forum. It's more about the mechanics and how acceptable they are. A weekly upkeep cost with the threat of decomissioning your very expensive investment is obviously not a very accepted model. A cut from all your earnings on the other hand seemingly is. The only strong reason to apply the 'weekly payment' model is stated in the entry text to my posting... and it's not really a good one from the players perspective.

Lennox Dantes said:
2. How do you justify your sense of entitlement when it comes to having all this power as an individual (which is completely immersion breaking btw) and then have the gaul to demand this unrealistic scenario be presented on the silver platter of low entry fee.
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There is no sense of entitlement involved. We fly massive ships already, and the 'power' of a fleet carrier is very debatable. But if it is immersion - breaking that a single person could ever own such a thing, then the logical step would be to not allow anybody to have one. There is a discussion ongoing about the price tag though, and most responses I've seen ranged from something between 2 and 3 billion, with either a somewhat lower weekly upkeep cost or no upkeep at all. Literally everybody thinks they should be expensive to initially buy with a price of easily more than one billion. For comparison: The base cost of a cutter, the most expensive ship in the galaxy, is 200 million credits. So most comments I've read would like a FC to cost 10 to 15 times the price of a base cutter, which is fairly reasonable in my opinion.
 
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Vandaahl

Vandaahl
Snowymonk said:
Real world analogy:
If anyone has bought a new car recently through leasing (from a car showroom - keeping with the analogy that Frontier gave) then you purchase it and then commit to an ongoing monthly rental.
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It that really how far your imagination goes? Car versus a carriers with crew? :rolleyes:

Fine, if you leave that real life car somewhere unattended and try to find it after 8 months leave, it'll be gone, and you won't get anything refunded.
 

Snowymonk

Snowymonk
Vandaahl said:
It that really how far your imagination goes?
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Nothing to do with imagination (or lack of as you implied). I was just pointing out the parallels with the current car industry.

A couple of years ago, I moved away from a single ‘one-off’ car purchase model when my previous car needed replacing.

There are upsides to leasing (e.g. lower temporary costs) but there are also downsides (e.g. I need to continue paying every month).
During these times of CoronaVirus, my car is currently sat outside my house not doing much - it is almost ‘unattended’, but I am still paying for it. Whilst I continue to do that, it’s still mine.
 

Florenus

Florenus
I tend to not complain too much about game features. For me it's always "take it or leave it" scenario.
The same with carriers - I'm not sure they're for me, mainly because of the unkeep costs - I don't like the idea of being forced to log in regularily (even if I do now) to take care of them. It's too much like owning a virtual dog or something.
But that's it. They might not be for me, although I might check them out and who knows, I might grow to like it.
I just can't stand all those who assume that everything in the game should be tailored for them and therefore cheaper, easier, faster or whatever.
 

varonica

varonica
Lennox Dantes said:
For the life of me, I cannot wrap my head around how players are complaining about purchase and maintenance costs of carriers.
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Because not every activity returns vast torrents of wealth, in fact some activities return nothing at all for months or even years at a time, but which time the FC will have been decommissioned and sold off from under you.
 

Stabby_Dave

Stabby_Dave
Regarding the car analogy: If I know I'm not going to be able to drive for an extended period, I can take my car off road, where it incurs no wear and tear, no fuel cost and requires no maintenance. That's cos I bought it outright, rather than leased it. That's why I'd advocate an optional "mothballing" option.

Personally, I have time to play all day if I want, so the upkeep fee means nothing to me. If I want to do something else, I'll chuck a billion or two in the bank and toddle off for six months. Others, however, don't have this option. Yes, you can easily make the weekly upkeep in an hour, but what about CMDRs who only have an hour or two per week to play? Ok, maybe - maybe, they can use the carrier market to earn the upkeep, but that remains to be seen.

I really don't think (as always), there's going to be an answer that suits everyone. Do I think there should be a weekly fee for when you're using the carrier? Yes. How much should it be? I don't know. Should there be some kind of method to put it "off road" and incur no costs (although it would be temporarily unusable)? Yes.

Well, that's my tuppence worth. Let's see what comes out of the beta.
 

Hoopes81

Hoopes81
Demsit said:
The decision to make Fleet carriers that expensive with such a high weekly upkeep cost was purely made for the shareholders. Not for ingame logic, not because just a select few should have them, but because they (FDEV) want to artificially boost their statistics. Make no mistake: they want as many commanders as possible to buy them, and they want them to spend lots and lots of time in the game doing so; potentially even buying cosmetics with ARX. It's all about the money for a company that is doing fairly well already
Click to expand...

Oh my god, a business that all about making money!! Who would've guessed!
 
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