General Economy is broken! Rebuying is ridiculous! Who pay other 95% of ship's price?

[Eliza]

Half of players are at or below median skill in combat.

Exactly.

Oh...I describe myself as an "average" pilot at best.
"I've seen things, you people wouldn't believe..." <--- literally
And I'm in awe of some the guys/gals I saw and competed flying/fighting. And they gave me tips and lessons to get better too. Sometimes for a price (Rebuy), but if you're not whining like a baby afterwards, 99% of the "gankers" are a bunch of nice people after all. Given, exceptions define the rule, so it's simply not fair to put the majority of the pvp'ers into the same bucket as the "bottomholes".

 

[Jukelo]

Although costs are ridiculously low and have been since 2015 the real problem is the wide income disparity. You can make 100k an hour, like you can make 100 million an hour... and there is usually no difference in required skill, effort or time investment between the two. In these conditions, it's impossible to achieve any kind of sensible pace of progression, and the economy remains out of whack, and no adjustment to costs will make any sense since they will be either unnoticeable or utterly punishing to this or that part of the playerbase.
Tweaking a few numbers for a very few select activities like Frontier did recently barely even registers in the grand scheme of things.

 

[Eliza]

Although costs are ridiculously low and have been since 2015 the real problem is the wide income disparity. You can make 100k an hour, like you can make 100 million an hour... and there is usually no difference in required skill, effort or time investment between the two. In these conditions, it's impossible to achieve any kind of sensible pace of progression, and the economy remains out of whack, and no adjustment to costs will make any sense since they will be either unnoticeable or utterly punishing to this or that part of the playerbase.
Tweaking a few numbers for a very few select activities like Frontier did recently barely even registers in the grand scheme of things.

I'm (almost) on the same page like you, but to quote Arf (ship Interiors): "Where to start and where to stop?"

Risk/Reward is as unbalanced like Crime/Punishment. You'll never get everyone into the same boat...unfortunatly.

 

[Robert Maynard]

And I'm in awe of some the guys/gals I saw and competed flying/fighting. And they gave me tips and lessons to get better too.

Indeed.

Sometimes for a price (Rebuy), but if you're not whining like a baby afterwards, 99% of the "gankers" are a bunch of nice people after all.

They've already had what they wanted - and the chance to "recruit" is always there.

Given, exceptions define the rule, so it's simply not fair to put the majority of the pvp'ers into the same bucket as the "bottomholes".

Of course not all PvPers are considered the same - however all PvP is, in my case at least, unwanted.

 

[Jukelo]

Guys, PvP is at best only tangential to the topic at hand, any issue where PvP is concerned can be addressed separately. The current system treats rebuys at the hand of another player differently already.

 

[Eliza]

Indeed.

They've already had what they wanted - and the chance to "recruit" is always there.

Of course not all PvPers are considered the same - however all PvP is, in my case at least, unwanted.

Do we agree, that PowerPlay was INTENDED to act as a tool for consensual pvp? So shipping pamphletes in Solo or PG is literally "not intended gameplay", but the game suits it. So, if you want to have some kind of "pvp-flagging"-mechanics to avoid unwanted encounters, you have to bite into the lemon and think about "private undermining" in PP.

So, "all modes are (un-)equal" after all

 

[Eliza]

Guys, PvP is at best only tangential to the topic at hand...

Given...I'll stop here...

Fly safe, Commanders! (all of you, whatever mode you're in )

 

[Dillon Fallon]

I'm really not sure how credit balance corresponds to how much fun you're having in the game (at least insofar as if you have too much, the game isn't as much fun somehow).

One solution could be to build a 90 million credit rebuy Cutter and self destruct a few times if you really feel you have too much.

As for the economy being put of whack, well that's been the case since December 2018 when mining went crazy (at the latest). The horse has already bolted and any attempt to drag it back puts us back into the cycle of players finding 100 million cr/hr exploits, which FDev repeatedly patched out.

Or perhaps the reason we're here is FDev in effect listened to the community by way of taking note of how popular these exploits were and boosted earnings in the game based on this feedback. It's only natural that you would have a bell curve of people's opinions ranging from thinking earnings are too low to too high, but as I would expect members of this forum to be among the most knowledgeable of how to earn credits, us saying earning credits is too easy probably doesn't carry that much weight.

 

[Cohen the Worrior]

Yes, insurance and rebuying process is one of most economy breaking things!
5% is nothing. This make ship losing not an issue. Destroyed? Just rebuy for two cents!

FDev give us a lot of ways to earn huge money, but not thinking about how players will use them. Nerfing mining? Why? Just make players to spend their credits!
Let us pay REAL(in ED reality) prices. Let money work.
Make money easy to earn and easy to spend.
Make mining and trading really rewarding, make many services more expensive - ammo, maintenance, fueling...
Insurances, taxes, paid engineerings... Material buyingselling/sharing is a good thing, because this is has sense. Players will have option between grinding and moneyearning activities.
Rebalance ships/modules/suits/guns prices. Laser gun which has price of four sidewinders is silly!
Ship have integrity, why weapons not? Etc Etc Etc
Number of ways are just limited by gameplay team's imagination.

Let's look at rebuy/insurance: 5% and you have your overengineered ship from the ashes. Completely not good. Let us decide what amount of money we will pay for what amount of discount at rebuy every month depended on ship+modules price. For example, 1% of ship's price for every 5% insurance coverage, 19% for vanilla 95% rebuy discount, every month.
Inter Astra is a great base for this service!
If we are rich or sure about indestructible nature of our ship - we can fly without insurance and pay 100% if we lose ship.
Or get guaranteed stock Sidewinder from generous Pilots Federation!

If money will have regular incoming/outcoming, most "problems" of game economics will not be a problems. No mining nerfing needed. More gameplay options will appear in the future. Like banks and interests, or moneysharing between players.

Right now many players sit on bags of credits and they do not know where to spend them.

Think about that.

I agree completely. If Fdev would make it harder to make money, they could ease up on the grinds. Lower the engineering grinds, raise the money grind.
Also set up a realistic economy.
Why would 12 businessmen pay me 25M to get them to a plant 15ly down the road, when they could buy their own ship for that money, and sell it after they got there?
Profit from trading, mining, missions should be devided by 10.

 

[Cohen the Worrior]

Welcome to the wonderful world of Elite!

If you've been here before 2015/2016 (I think), you would have experienced the glory of: "It's all too expensive! I even can't afford new bullets for my multicannon and it takes, literally, AGES to afford a Python!"

Now we're all reaping what "we" sowed before.

So when stupid players want something, they get it, but a sane requests get ignored?
Give them what they need, not what they want.

 

[Eliza]

So when stupid players want something, they get it, but a sane requests get ignored?
Give them what they need, not what they want.

Sad part of the story is, that most people nowadays confuse "need" with "want"...

 

[Cohen the Worrior]

See, here's the thing.

Why is it a problem that some people have an absolute ton of cash
And why is the proposed solution always to impose costs on everyone, regardless of whether they're one of the players with an absolute ton of cash?
The people who tend to see the rebuy screen more often than anyone else - newbies and pvpers - generally aren't the same people with gigantic bank balances from doing nothing but mining and grinding credits for the last five years, so imposing extra insurance costs will do nothing to solve the "problem" of a minority of players having a big number in their credit balance, while creating plenty of problems for other players.

It's like deciding that billionaires are too rich so the way to solve the problem is to impose a gigantic fee on going to the toilet. The billionaires barely notice the toilet tax while everyone that isn't a billionaire is left deciding whether they can afford to poop.

The problem is that a lot of players rush through the game, flying an Anaconda three days in. They never got the excitement of being able to buy their first upgrades. Carefully considering what ship to fly next? Naah.
So to keep the players occupied, we replaced that with boring grind.
Good job!

 

[Elfener]

https://hosting.zaonce.net/elite/website/assets/ELITE-DANGEROUS-GAME-MANUAL.pdf - Page 26

Spoiler: Page 26 content

SECURE FEED AUTHENTICATED...DECRYPTING SECURE TRANSMISSION
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PRIMARY TRANSMISSION BEGINS...
Sue, Cripple & Sneer, Solicitors
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Reference: JAS 161200/42
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[Kzak]

Didn't we have this discussion back in 2014?

 

[Screemonster]

The problem is that a lot of players rush through the game, flying an Anaconda three days in. They never got the excitement of being able to buy their first upgrades. Carefully considering what ship to fly next? Naah.
So to keep the players occupied, we replaced that with boring grind.
Good job!

That's not what I asked.
I didn't ask what the problem was.
I asked why it was a problem.
"Players have spaceships I don't think they should have" is not a problem.
"People playing the game differently to how I want to play the game" is not a problem anyone else has but you.
If you want to hobble yourself by throwing your credits down a well every week then nobody's stopping you, just as nothing stops people playing open only, or in iron-man-mode where they delete their CMDR if they blow up.

 

[Jukelo]

That's not what I asked.
I didn't ask what the problem was.
I asked why it was a problem.
"Players have spaceships I don't think they should have" is not a problem.
"People playing the game differently to how I want to play the game" is not a problem anyone else has but you.
If you want to hobble yourself by throwing your credits down a well every week then nobody's stopping you, just as nothing stops people playing open only, or in iron-man-mode where they delete their CMDR if they blow up.

That's a sterile answer, which could be aimed at any suggestion. By this logic, the suggestions forum should be closed because anybody could just pretend the game works the way they wish it did rather than how it actually does, with no need to enforce their whims on anybody else. Want CZ bonds buffed? Just use your imagination! No need to ruin the game for the rest of us who like CZ bonds the way they are!

The added bonus is Frontier doesn't have to make any changes to the game anymore!

 

[varonica]

One of the major problems with this type of thread is, there is no economy in ED, what you think of as an economy is an artificial construct micro-managed by FDEV and designed to make players think they are taking part in an economy, but in fact players have no effect on the economy. You can't say the economy is broken because it never existed in the first place and insurance payments for ships is entirely designed for player convenience.

If it worked as insurance actually does for every player ship destroyed the insurance would change, for players with a propensity for destroying ships through thier own actions and not caused by attacks by other players, say they crash into stations a lot, insurance would increase drastically and maybe eventually they would be refused insurance.

Any application of real world economy to in game insurance would entirely disadvantage new players and players with the least money. Us older players with fleet carriers and billions would just shrug, new players would end up broke with no insurance and no ship.

The in game ship insurance is entirely designed to make it easy for players to get thier ships back without suffering to much loss, and that's it, nothing else, nothing to do with economy because there is none!

 

[Agony_Aunt]

It should be noted that there's already a very old split and a fixed assignment to various insurance policies :

• Standard Pilots Federation Member : 5%
• Backer : 2.5%
• Founder : 1.25%

I take it most don't even know there's different rebuy cost for the 3 different Groups of CMDRs.

Read OP... thought, hope someone tells him about beta/alpha backers. He'll lose his marbles.

 

[Craith]

I would have loved to experience that glory

cost of fuel could eat your trading profit if you were not careful, repairs could be higher then the rebuy (admittedely a bit silly, leading to some people self destructing).

repairs were to harsh IMO, losing shield meant making a loss, especially since payouts were way lower. An anaconda in a conflict zone gave 3k (actually any ship).

I was planning to get my anaconda after 1 year, in the end it became a corvette after 10 months, nowadays people complain if they they don't have their cutter after 1 week.

 

[krm398]

Quick question, what about newer players making their way in the game? No problem essentially wiping them out back to the start because they hit the mailslot while learning to fly their newly acquired Cobra with their precious cargo aboard? Just because you may have a bajillion credits in the bank to cover massive insurance hikes doesn’t mean all players do.

Also, insurance works in real life as well - if I wrap my $45,000 car around a tree, I pay a $250 deductible and insurance sorts the rest, including anything I’ve added to the car.

Now what MIGHT be interesting is an increased rate for engineered ships…

in reality you forgot to mention the yearly and monthly payments you make long before you get the car wrecked, so yes you DO pay big bucks for the right to mess up your car, only in smaller payments. here getting back a ship is practically free. a 46 million dollar ship gets replaced for what? 1.2 mil? and no monthly payments before that.