Credits now meaningless? Might as well remove? Discuss

[RamirezKurita]

Ship prices explode exponentially. Imho, one of the worst design decisions in the game.

Missions etc pay the same, no matter whether you're in a Sidewinder or Anaconda. With the current ship price curve you either completely bypass all the progression through small-mid ships or you'll have to play for years to be able to afford one of the big three.

I'm happy I got to experience some ship progression. I still remember how happy I was when I finally could afford a Type-6 to start earning the big bucks.

Ship prices may increase exponentially, but so does ship performance in some metrics. It's true that cost increases faster than capabilities (by my reckoning, the relationship between a ship's cost and its trading performance is roughly ^0.45ish), but overall it's not an insurmountable difference. Having a relationship where cost scales slightly more aggressively than earnings is perfectly fine to have, as it both increases the relative risk of using the high-end kit due to repair/rebuy costs as well as giving a well-scaled progression. Newer players like to see their performance increases quickly as they explore the world around them, which necessitates early progression to be very rapid; conversely, established players need slower progression for the high-end to promote long-term goals and aspirational content.

This is quite visible in most games as well as in real life, whether it is an RPG, RTS or buying a new car. RPGs will often have massively inflated XP requirements at the top end to provide a ready source of progression, even if the improvements are relatively minor, sometimes taken to such extremes as making the XP cost to go from level 98 to 99 take more XP than going from 1 to 98 (Elite also does this with trade ranks, reaching Tycoon is only about 40% of the way to getting to Elite in trading). Strategy games will often have researches and upgrades tail off in efficiency, both to provide difficult decisions rather than the more routine ones the lower-level techs provide as well as providing a different style of gameplay for longer matches. Marketing does this with real-life products, within the budget everyday runabout cars there is always a higher-performing model for only a modest cost increase, but once you leave the domains of normal cars and into the "end-game" cars marketed at millionaires and petrolheads then things get very expensive very quickly.

There's also the issue that not all activities scale in the same way, trading scales pretty hard as the high-end ships can easily have 50x the cargo capacity of a sidewinder, yet have less than 10x the firepower (they can approach 50x the effective HP using resistance stacking, but their relatively poor maneuverability and large profiles mean that they do not take 50x the time to kill). However, I'd be willing to bet that the Small Ship Brigade would come out with their pitchforks and flaming torches if FD ever tried to give combat the same scaling as trading, so we are pretty much left at an impasse with regards to balancing different income sources.

 

[War Eagle]

Well I'm pretty new(About 3 weeks now) so I can say that I am trying to learn about all of it as I go. I can also say that most of the ships i skip after looking at the abilities of them compared to others in the same class. I have 5 ships at the moment but the next one I want is a very long way off- 866Mil to set it up. I currently have 214mil, Sidewinder, Viper Mark III, Type 7, Dolphin and a Diamondback Exp. Last night I took passengers(3) that would pay about 9mil after all said and done- it took me at least 5hrs to complete it.
So I don't think CR's grow on trees as a Noob, yes you can make enough for what I have fairly quickly but after that things get very expensive fast. But to me it's not about getting into and Anaconda as fast as I can- it's about learning the game, engineers, exploring different planets. I work a lot and have only my down time to play and it will take me forever to even leave the "Bubble" as you all call it. As I learn more things about how the missions work and mining the right materials I imagine that after you know most of it making CR's would not be much of a problem but for those of us that just started it's not quite as easy as some of you are saying it is.
Just my honest opinion.

 

[zimms]

But it is also your decision that your next step after a DBX is apparently an A-rated combat Corvette. There are some really great ships in between these two.

 

[War Eagle]

But it is also your decision that your next step after a DBX is apparently an A-rated combat Corvette. There are some really great ships in between these two.

Not sure this is directed to me but I'll answer it. Don't know what a DBX is? Oh Diamondback Exp- Gottcha Not a corvette no, I am looking at the Federal Assault Ship but you need a certain rank - I read that somewhere. But I do like the Type 7 very much for it's ability haul or mine. So I was pricing out a Type 10 acctually but the FAS would be next for me- it seems like a very good multi-pupose role ship like the T7.

 

[Exeider]

The enthusiasm with which void opal mining was embraced suggests that earning credits is still popular, even if there's no actual reason for earning them.

I think the only way to tell whether the 'economy' is working is by asking the 90% of players who don't use the forums and/or YouTube to discover the latest 'get rich quick' scheme. If those players are happily progressing from Sidewinder to (say) Kra2t in a way that gives them a sense of achievement/accomplishment then ED is in the right place. If they're getting to a 'Conda in 50 hours and then quitting because there's 'no end game' then things need rebalancing.

Well that's because Fdev made mining fun, I mean there is something satisfying about blowing up an asteroid, whether it's the first, fifth or fiftieth time. That boom is just satisfying as hell.

Elite credit is not the equivalent of gold in another MMO. It's mechanically an XP system (with mats for engineers), spawn, maybe, but gold... Nope.

You give this simulation far too much credit. Mouahaha.

I have said this before and agree 100%, credits are akin to an XP bar, the longer you play generally the more you have until you have "enough". Right now I have enough money to buy ANOTHER anaconda if I want, I'm not going to because the smaller and cheaper ships are just as interesting. I still find myself going back to my Asp X, course this time as a short range explorer instead of my long haul explorer. I go back to my Cobra IV, yes you can get it on xbox apparently, as a mining ship because it's a 'neat little ship' to me. I probably will try out the Krait or some of the newer ships, but I have most of the ships I want, equipped for the roles I have them dedicated for.

If anything I'm saving my money for a carrier, and even though sure, I'll have to do some mat grinding or what have you, I still want one, because that will be my new project. (I'm still hoping they/fdev don't lock out carriers based on population numbers in your squadron. Yes I know they are meant for groups, but I dont mind taking longer doing it myself, I still want one.)

 

[Commander Biscuit]

The concern for newbies advancing in the game too fast is touching, but honestly I don't think that many are. We can advance quickly after resetting a save, because we know how the game works, but being an actual newbie is quite different.

I've said this before and it's still true. The cash grind was shortened, because it was replaced with the longer engineering grind. Can you imagine this game having both at the same time? And as a new player? Go ask a normal person in the street how long they'd be willing to grind to get the best spaceship in a videogame, I'm pretty sure the answer wouldn't involve the word "days" or "weeks". We have Stockholm Syndrome for grind as gamers and have to recognize that. I enjoy the grind sometimes, so I'm glad engineering exists. But let's let the new players get their foot on the rung of the ladder, and let them get an interesting ship without too much misery.

 

[Neutrino Sunset]

I played for a second hour last night. Now I have played for 2 hours in total and have over 3M credits. Enough for a decently fit Cobra MkIII.

"Go ask a normal person in the street how long they'd be willing to grind to get the best spaceship in a videogame, I'm pretty sure the answer wouldn't involve the word "days" or "weeks". "

Ok. But now ask any fan of any of the original Elite games how long they would expect it to take to get from the starter ship to the most iconic mid class ship in the game. I bet you they won't say 2 hours. That rate of pregression just removes all the game from the game.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

The concern for newbies advancing in the game too fast is touching, but honestly I don't think that many are. We can advance quickly after resetting a save, because we know how the game works, but being an actual newbie is quite different.

I've said this before and it's still true. The cash grind was shortened, because it was replaced with the longer engineering grind. Can you imagine this game having both at the same time? And as a new player? Go ask a normal person in the street how long they'd be willing to grind to get the best spaceship in a videogame, I'm pretty sure the answer wouldn't involve the word "days" or "weeks". We have Stockholm Syndrome for grind as gamers and have to recognize that. I enjoy the grind sometimes, so I'm glad engineering exists. But let's let the new players get their foot on the rung of the ladder, and let them get an interesting ship without too much misery.

I am inclined to agree with the why.......... but i would say it is better to hold a tight control of the credits and just lessen the grind on the mats then.

what makes more sense, being able to earn 10s of millions of credits in 24hrs work - enough to buy an anaconda?

or making it possible to buy a few small units of iron and sulfur, as well as get hold of some ship components (ones which must be in regular supply because they are used to build ships in the 1st place) with credits if you choose?.

IMO aside from a few rare cases (of which if done correctly void opals could have been one) where a specific item is genuinely rare money should be able to buy anything...........

I just think FD have chosen to artificially remove the progression from the wrong time sink if that is the case.

 

[ThePriestSeto]

Just make decals and cosmetics purchasable with CR (high amounts tho).

 

[lysan]

I always thought they were meaningless as there are infinity of them.
The currency for this game is time.
It's permeated into every aspect of the game.

EDIT I'm not rich, 140M cr, and a few ships partially RNG'd

Been in this game from day one, never made it to a billion, I like to do other things and for now im having a break from ED because I’m at a point where something is funtemental missing in the game in my opinion.

Mega haulers and a autopilot for star jumps.

 

[RamirezKurita]

The concern for newbies advancing in the game too fast is touching, but honestly I don't think that many are. We can advance quickly after resetting a save, because we know how the game works, but being an actual newbie is quite different.

I've said this before and it's still true. The cash grind was shortened, because it was replaced with the longer engineering grind. Can you imagine this game having both at the same time? And as a new player? Go ask a normal person in the street how long they'd be willing to grind to get the best spaceship in a videogame, I'm pretty sure the answer wouldn't involve the word "days" or "weeks". We have Stockholm Syndrome for grind as gamers and have to recognize that. I enjoy the grind sometimes, so I'm glad engineering exists. But let's let the new players get their foot on the rung of the ladder, and let them get an interesting ship without too much misery.

It does depend very much on who you ask. Some games, particularly RPGs and MOBAs, can take huge amounts of time to get the top-end stuff and players are more than willing to spend the time to get them. World of Warcraft pretty much requires 8-20 days play time to max out a character without significant influence from other players or alt characters depending on how focused you are on grinding, while Diablo 2 generally needs 30+ days to reach max level without a whole team backing you up (and in both cases, this doesn't include actually equipping said character with top-end kit). Similarly, progression-centric MOBA games like World of Tanks or World of Warships usually take 200+ hours of playing for a new account to get up to the top tier, with many players several hundred hours.

If you put content into a game that takes time to get, players will put the time in. It's as simple as that. Sure, it's important to create plenty of low hanging fruits to get players involved in the first place, but there should always be aspirational content that is out of reach for the majority of players to give players goals and dreams.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

It does depend very much on who you ask. Some games, particularly RPGs and MOBAs, can take huge amounts of time to get the top-end stuff and players are more than willing to spend the time to get them. World of Warcraft pretty much requires 8-20 days play time to max out a character without significant influence from other players or alt characters depending on how focused you are on grinding, while Diablo 2 generally needs 30+ days to reach max level without a whole team backing you up (and in both cases, this doesn't include actually equipping said character with top-end kit). Similarly, progression-centric MOBA games like World of Tanks or World of Warships usually take 200+ hours of playing for a new account to get up to the top tier, with many players several hundred hours.

If you put content into a game that takes time to get, players will put the time in. It's as simple as that. Sure, it's important to create plenty of low hanging fruits to get players involved in the first place, but there should always be aspirational content that is out of reach for the majority of players to give players goals and dreams.

"Aspirational" - dude, just skip on the corpspeak. Nothing about engineers is "aspirational" neither. It just encroaches on the normal gameplay and puts further roadblocks in for pointless power creep. "Haspirachunal" content is optional - engineers is not.

 

[cmdr Ramius007]

Fines and bounties scaled up with ship size can be nice credit sink as well as tool to make pve more skill based. hitting mail slot in cutter 2mln fine and so on

 

[Jethzk]

I like collecting credits. I would own more ships if engineering wasn't such a drag.

What we really need are over inflated vanity cosmetic items for people to blow their billions on. Something that looks cool but does nothing. People go crazy for these items. Fun fact, in Guildwars 1, max level armor was relatively easy to achieve and not too expensive. They also made a lot of fancier armors available in the game with increased requirements/price. Gold selling became a big problem in Guildwars 1 because people would buy gold to get the vanity items. Looking cool was important! With Guildwars 2 Arena.net still focuses heavily on vanity items, but switched to a micro transaction based store that allowed them to sell gold.

Bottom line is, Fdev did it wrong. They should have made vanity items a part of the game to begin with and then monetized them. Had they done this and continued creating cool ship art, people would think the crime and punishment system was expensive, instead of just a slap on the wrist.