Economy and hence immersion broken

[Holven]

TL;DR: All I am asking for is that prices for single units in relation to tons.. and for a box of looted medicine vs. a ton.. actually pan out logically. As is.. it is utterly unbelievable. Also goes for suits and weapons. (TL;DR added for clarity)

First of all, I love the world of Elite and have done so ever since I stumbeled into it with a weird Space Legends collection of games for the old Amiga. A version of Elite+ was one of the games. Then I purchased Frontier Elite II and I particularily enjoyed the small booklet of storries that came with it. While I loved playing the game I dreamt of setting foot on alien planets as described in that booklet.

Then with ED and particularly the video diary where Braben himself described where he wanted to take the game it seemed like this would become reality some day.

Being a backer to a certain level I started flying even before the "pill", I began the launched game in a Cobra. I just enjoyed immersing myself. I never grinded much. New ships happened when they happened. I was just happy to have this huge immersive playground.

Updates have come and gone. The economy has been occasionally broken and fixed.

But nothing totally broke my immersion before. Changed it, sure.

Until suddenly we have bases that you can loot, stuff the loot in your ship, fetch more in the base, fly to a station, and sell used trinkets and crap to any bartender for at least 500'000 credits or more!

Also the prices of armor and weapons.

What have you guys done to economy? Did you even think? I mean, the prices per ton of some stuff compared to prices of ships etc was a bit weird, but not entirely unbelievable. There were ways to explain it. But pre-used trinkets and leftovers from bases being worth as much credits as entire containers of goods? Seriously?

I have read the explanations people have had on "costs of miniaturization" etc. Sorry, it just doesn't cut it.

The economy in its Odyssey state is, for lack of a better word, ridiculous.

At least to me, immersion has been broken.

And what is the point of this over valued loot?
Probably just to avoid players saying there's no point to this, because hey.. solid money can be made from it.

When loot could instead have been possible to break down into materials or whatever. Many potential solutions here beyond insane prices.

That missions pay is fine. Personal risk and all. In fact the payouts from missions and new exploration alone should go along way on the "worth it" scale. If more was needed, I'm sure there could have been new ways to contribute to powerplay or earn faction influence, etc.

I don't pretend to hold all the answers here, but when I see a game design apparently made without thinking twice about immersion in game that I thought tried to be highly immersive.. I just wonder what is going on.

I can't quite put into words how surprised I am that economical immersion gets broken so brazenly. And for what? Even at the ridiculously high costs of Odyssey equipment it doesn't really make a dent in most commanders' economy. Do new commanders have to work through foot to get a ship? I mean.. that would explain why they made it so super easy to make credits on ground.. in relation to purchasing the cheaper ships. But even if that is the case, once you have a ship.. we already know how easy it is earning money then. Make designs that make sense, huh?

So, it's actually the first time I complain a game is too easy, and not even because it is easy, but because immersion has been torn apart, at least for me. I know it has all probably been said before, but only by joining the choir can I hope to be heard.


(Sure, there are lots of other issues, but from experience I expect the bugs to be fixed along with most other problems, so I won't bother going there.)


But thanks for the dream, Braben. Your game designs were solid. I wish you had more of a hand in this, as I can only assume you're mostly into running the company these days. I can't believe this haphazard design could possibly come from your hand, right? Right?

 

[Ydiss]

If I summarised your post right, you feel that it's not immersive to have materials used as a form of currency and you'd feel it would be more convincing if we could just buy upgrades with credits. Might I suggest that the fact that the vast numbers of billionaires in the galaxy, due to having an endless supply of currency generating activities, isn't particularly realistic? If a realistic economy is what you're looking for then I don't think Odyssey is the culprit for killing that, do you?

I spoke with my friend about this the other day and we pondered on the idea of a computer game designed with a realistic economy: that is to say, one with a finite volume of wealth that its players had to vie over, suplemented only by very, very scarce values of "minable" commodities (so, for example, precious metals) that was also finite and could run out.

After about an hour talking about it, we both agreed that it would be a horrible game to play.

Engineering mats are not designed perfectly. In fact, it's like a couple hundred unique currencies the way it's designed. But there's no way using credits only would have made for much longevity given how massively inflated the game's "economy" is. And that's by design. And it's OK that it works that way.

 

[Holven]

If I summarised your post right, you feel that it's not immersive to have materials used as a form of currency and you'd feel it would be more convincing if we could just buy upgrades with credits. Might I suggest that the fact that the vast numbers of billionaires in the galaxy, due to having an endless supply of currency generating activities, isn't particularly realistic? If a realistic economy is what you're looking for then I don't think Odyssey is the culprit for killing that, do you?

I spoke with my friend about this the other day and we pondered on the idea of a computer game designed with a realistic economy: that is to say, one with a finite volume of wealth that its players had to vie over, suplemented only by very, very scarce values of "minable" commodities (so, for example, precious metals) that was also finite and could run out.

After about an hour talking about it, we both agreed that it would be a horrible game to play.

Engineering mats are not designed perfectly. In fact, it's like a couple hundred unique currencies the way it's designed. But there's no way using credits only would have made for much longevity given how massively inflated the game's "economy" is. And that's by design. And it's OK that it works that way.

Ah no, not what I said at all. I stated that loot is overpriced. You can sell non-assets for extreme sums. With 15 run of the mill items in my inventory it paid out more than 500'000 Credits. If a few medical supplies and some data pads are worth half a mill.. our pilots are being seriously underpaid for a ton of computers. .. or this loot is seriously overvalued.

If we can purchase tons of armor and weapons at the prices we do.. how come single units cost more?

And on the contrary I am suggesting that using materials for something more useful than selling them would be a better solution than having insanely priced loot.

I seriously wonder how you managed to misunderstand my post almost 100%.

And just to comment on your view on what would be realistic here:
Elite takes place on a galactic scale. In any human based economy there is practically no limit to materials available for mining; planets upon planets upon planets.. and asteroids etc. Resource economy should theoretically the lowest value in game, but never mind that. Point is, that would be realistic. But I'm not on about "realistic". I'm on about market prices for Odessy items being stupid. Not the upgrades, no, no, the over the counter stuff.

And as to the galaxy being full of billionaire pilots.. I didn't even mention that. Pilots don't run the economy, they merely exist in it. But here's the thing.. seen from each individual's point of view .. for each successful "player" pilot there are thousands of non-successful NPCs. Is it unrealistic? Sure, but that is a different question. All I am asking for is that prices for single units in relation to tons.. and for a box of medicine vs. a ton.. actually pan out logically. As is.. it is utterly unbelievable.