Scarcity and the need to be aware of the bottom line to me is Elite. Part of the game that ED prior to recent versions did well was that money was always tight. If this had carried through it would make a lot of choices players make more meaningful. And I disagree with the money aspect, its not infinite money thats the problem- its a matter of getting to a point where progress snowballs to the point where choices become meaningless.
FDev: Credit rebalancing incoming, "more reward for higher risk" activities
- Thread starter StuartGT
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Scarcity and the need to be aware of the bottom line to me is Elite. Part of the game that ED prior to recent versions did well was that money was always tight. If this had carried through it would make a lot of choices players make more meaningful. And I disagree with the money aspect, its not infinite money thats the problem- its a matter of getting to a point where progress snowballs to the point where choices become meaningless.
It should be an ecosystem of traders being the rich guys worried about the bottom line, but needing to lean on mercs for protection. Pirates scratching a living using cheap ships and features like Powerplay taking away the daily uncertainty and replacing it with the kings shilling.
Right now all small ships are pointless, most classes of ship have no real place. It should be that being Elite is about overcoming the weakness of your dealt hand to survive.
This...so much this.
I'm not some multi-billion credit whale...I don't own a FC...I haven't even reached an Elite rank yet. Give me a reason to do something other than a single hour of mining to outfit the new ship I bought. Give me anxiety about flying a ship with an expensive rebuy. MAKE THE STRUGGLE REAL!
While it doesn't effect you in the slightest, the progression and experience of gameplay to that Annaconda will effect the new players experience.
The origin of the problem all stems back to the price of ships and modules relative to each other.
For modules each upgrade in Rating and size gave ever smaller and smaller increase in performance compared to cost.
Compare the 1E Fuel Scoop performance and cost to the 1A
Compare the 1E Fuel Scoop performance and cost to the 2E 3E etc
Similarly the Power Plant and so forth.
Then consider the Costs of the Starting ships, their modules and capabilities to that of the mid range and high end ships.
Every Credit gives you less and less for what you get an increases exponentially, yet the increase in capability to earn credits was relatively a
So for example a Trading Hauler costs ~400,000 CR and carrying 22 tons
A Trading Type 6 costs ~2,900,000 CR and carries 106 tons
So ~7.25 times the cost for ~4.8 times the Cargo units with a small increase in performance and suitability etc that is hard to justify that extra cost.
The issue is compounded by A rating, or in the larger ships,, where the cost ratio increases far more than the utility.
This extreme increase in CR costs per utility made the call for more profit for the larger ships as the Ship progression experience became a longer and longer slog to reach the next ship and as the game scaled to that the small ships and even medium ships became priced below the rewards for Normal Missions or the current gold rush activities.
Where as if the original Cost of Ships and Modules reflected their increased capability more rationally then Ship progression would have been a more even experience as to the time required became more reasonable.
Compare with the prices of ships and modules in FE2/FFE and you sill see a far more compacted price of ships and you will see
A Sidewinder is of similar price to that of ED where as the Anaconda is 146 times more expensive in ED.
Yes the two games ships are not 1:1 for each other but gives an idea on how much more each ship was over the previous "Tier'
This is also the cause of the lack maintenance costs fuel costs and interesting differences between ships as the service and repair costs were % of the ships and modules and so ballooned out unreasonably making larger ships uneconomic to repair.
This is a shame as there was originally a differential with ships by the manufacture etc which was the answer of the Imperial Clipper vs Type 7 debate as the Lakon was a ship that was designed to have fewer crew, lower maintenance and repair costs and lower over all running costs vs the Gutamaya with higher performance at the cost of higher running costs, thus creating a niche for each ship.
The Lakon being a bulk trader that with its low running costs, being able to turn a reasonable profit running low profit but large supply goods that would hold their price for a long time
Where as the Gutamaya ship needs to look for higher profit per unit goods, that would be more supply and demand sensitive so would need more about more finding those short term market gems before moving on
If the Anaconda was 1/100th its price and modules didn't increase in cost exponentially then earnings could have been balanced so that the Anaconda was reasonably attainable yet at the same time not make the first dozen ships skippable in an hour
A Compression in price also would have made trading more diverse in commodities
How much trade is there by players in regular commodities due to their relatively low profit margins to the few high value commodities.
But if the current hundreds of thousands of credits different between the average prices of commodities and it compressed down to where rational profits, when against rational compress prices, could be made on the vast variety of goods, ideally based on supply, demand, location and BGS (and Community goals?)
Again if you didnt need a million credits for a module upgrade but only 10,000 then to earn it in the same time, the profits from trading, or any activity for that matter, need not be as extreme and can be rationalized to all fit together.
Lets say as an example an Anaconda was supposed to be a 10 hour ship, and I repeat, just for the same of example to make the maths easier.
Currently that is 146,968,450 for the base model and so one would need to earn 1,470,000 Credits an hour.
That is more than the 13 smallest ships an hour and if one was to make a 50% profit on say trading on the galactic average
Crop Harvesters -> Coffee back and forth
That is 1739 CR a ton both ways based on average prices and a 50% return with no supply or damage issues for the example.
So 845 tons an hour and 8453 tons total
But if the Anaconda was 1,469,684 the earnings required is a smaller 14,700 Credits a hour
Noting that the aim to to compress the extreme prices not cut everything by a factor of one hundred so the small ships are sill priced similar as they are now, the larger ships are just relatively much cheaper than they are now
Using the Commodities prices above it is just 10 tons an hour so they might need to be adjusted and compressed to get the right place
The 14,700 Credits a hour then becomes a figure that makes it a reasonable option to progress thought the small ships &/or upgrade their existing ship to whilst still progressing towards the goal ship in the time frame planned
Basally make each CR worth MORE not LESS by simply adding 0s to the rewards to be able to pay for exponentially priced ships and modules and make the ships and modules be actually worth the credits and not just the next point in a mathematical formula
If you only need to make 30-70 CR per unit profit on a trade good for it to be a worthwhile trade, then more goods can be worth while trades, from Bio-waste and Algae to Clothing and Consumer goods, where as if you need to make 10,000 - 50,000 CR per unit profit then all those commodities worth less than that may as well not even be in the game.
The same for Mining, if the common ores paid a rational profit, the precious stones need neither to be so extremely priced nor the only way to profit.
Incidentally this also makes missions make far more sense.
Currently we have:
Factions Seeking to pay for x tonnes of goods and offering to pay for those goods the multiple times CR it would cost to buy a Hauler outfit it, fly it to a market that sells buy those goods and bring them back.
Economy Class passengers paying the price of a Hauler with enough economy cabins to carry them to move one jump away
Factions paying Millions of credits for you to salvage 4 tons "Commercial Samples worth 1/100th of that
Factions offering data delivery that pay more than it costs to buy a wing of Sidewinders to delivery the Boom Data.
If you didnt need missions to have so many 000s of CR to be reasonable progress then they once again add to the verisimilitude.
It would make sense a faction would pay a premium for some good that they cannot source locally, and don't want to wait for the next Bulk Trading Mega ship so commission a tramp trader but not so much that it would be worth more than the ship they are hiring.
You play your game. I'll play mine.
Trouble is I'm playing your game which is essentially broken. <2.0 credits were perfect, credit inflation and lack of truly co-dependent roles has distorted the game.
Now you're switching horses. The point I replied to was not to do with imbalance between in-game roles (which I agree is broken), but your assertion that playing with limited money makes your game somehow more relevant than playing with unlimited money.
Unlimited money does distort the game, because then everything is easily within reach without much effort required. Once you are there, then there is nothing left to really 'do' regards your ship- upkeep is a dirty word, but why is it I can repair a T-9 just as easily and cheaply as a Cutter or Corvette? In the early days when you advanced to a new ship it was a big deal- hell, even new modules were acquired slowly. Now? Its instant. Grades mean nothing, ships largely mean nothing.
There should be skill balancing your income and outlay, and a fine line between bankruptcy and profit based on risks taken and a whole load of other factors now redundant because credits grow on trees.
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You're missing the point that the effort was put in accumulating the wealth in the first place; I put in my time mining VO for my first few billion, then LTDs for a few billion more, Painite for a few billion more. I can run my carrier for the next 10+ years without ever earning another credit - that, essentially, makes owning a carrier the same as buying any other ship - I own it and I really don't need to think about upkeep costs. I'm an early backer of this game, I played the original back in the 80's - I fully understand the effort required to upgrade a ship and the thrill of finally being able to afford an upgrade, but there's still plenty to do re: upgrades - engineering takes some time to gather required materials.
As for what there is "to do", well, I've already explained how I like to play the game - I like being far out in the black, exploring new systems and quietly mining in the rings without anyone around, and I enjoy seeing my credit balance go up. That's "my game", hence why I told you to play, "your game" while I play mine. I'm constantly amazed at just how much it bothers people like you that certain people choose not to play the game the way YOU choose to. How I play makes NOT ONE JOT of difference to your game experience so why are you so concerned with how I choose to play the game? It's the same with people worried that new players will be in an Anaconda inside a week... so what? Who cares if it took someone a week, a month, a year, or 3 years to do the same thing?
I don't think it's fair to include an optional bonus that is only acquired doing non-exploration related stuff, however yes, your base estimate is about right, although the rider is you need to be in basically unexplored territory, you probably won't get anywhere near that until you get a few thousand LY away from the bubble at least.
Because if everyone is subject to the same pressures, then the game starts to even out. Pirates would need to be wary about getting involved in prolonged fights, traders would get rich but need to balance risk with reward, bounty hunters having to fight efficiently.
Its not about "you"- its about making the galaxy cutthroat enough so mistakes are more common and that playing it safe (like you do) does not pay better than someone robbing a bank all in one go, making crime more tempting and generating more negative BGS influence and not the competitive positive actions we have now. In short, because legit credits are far, far too easy to get it makes everything else pointless.
Engineering is broken, its inevitable rather than adding anything really unique so its just a time delayed A rated module.
Just under 500ly south west of Colonia and its hard to find a "discovered" system
If we're talking about higher rewards for risk, can we talk about how passenger mission 'kill pirate' requests only pay 5k per kill?
Not sure if it's bugged or just terrible, but either way, it sucks.
Not sure if it's bugged or just terrible, but either way, it sucks.
The galaxy is HUGE - after 6 years, less than 0.05% has been explored. There will ALWAYS be a safe little corner away from anyone and everyone that people can go to if we so choose. To call that somehow not playing the game is ridiculous. Like I said, I'll play my game. Sod off and play yours.
And if you come back to the bubble what then? And anyway, even in the depths of space you'd still need to repair, balance the books. In fact, for you it would not be any change at all, just you'd see much less in profit.
Lovely.
If I come back to the bubble, then I may do some engineering, materials gathering, perhaps a little combat out in the Witch Head, take part in some CGs, if they make new ships available, I may pick one up, whatever catches my fancy, really. In the depths of space, I have my carrier -- I can repair myself, the books are balanced for the next decade, and I can potter around and explore and mine to my hearts' content. That's MY game after I did the grind for a few years.
As for "lovely"... Awww, did you see a bad word and get your feelings hurt?
Even a few hundred light years, especially above or below the galactic plane and there are plenty of unexplored systems. But, yes, as you point out, the best way to ensure a field of untouched systems is to go at least a couple of thousand LY out from the bubble.
Which is a pretty shallow game from my perspective- its why the main loop of ownership needs to be more difficult, making features like Powerplay that provide twists and outlets more vital.
Not really, why were you triggered by what I said? Do you see me telling you to 'sod off' anywhere?
And I care that you think that's, "a pretty shallow game from my perspective", WHY exactly? Who the F**K are YOU to tell anyone that the way they play the game should conform to YOUR particular gameplay style? "Triggered"??? What a pansy little term that is. You're the one running around telling people how they should be playing the game, not me. Like I've said from the outset -- how does the way in which I (or anyone else) plays the game affect how you play your game? Why do I care if it took me three months of playing the game as it was 5 years ago to buy a particular ship and someone today can do it in a week? I really don't! If they can get that ship in that time as the game exists today, then good for them. Go for it! How about you focus on how YOU prefer to play the game and I'll focus on how I like to play the game. It is, after all, a GAME, a minor diversion for a few hours per week. Nothing more.
LOL. I think its time to calm down a bit. I'm allowed to have an opinion, aren't I?