Now first, a little on my problem solving pedigree: AFSO21, LEAN, Six Sigma trained... in my first year at Altus AFB my team and I cut $6M in wasted fuel use while increasing training by 9% and making things easier for everyone. I could go on but what I'm getting at is that the core issue with any list of problems is defining the real problem.
Credit exploits: why do people need credits? Ganking: why do people get upset about getting killed? Why do people care if a newbie is flying a Corvette? I believe the core reason is this: TIME.
This game takes up a TREMENDOUS amount of time, real world time, and so players are doing everything against the clock. Look at the posts: x credts per y unit of time. Most MMO games don't penalize you for dying, for example Call of Duty, you just respawn and you even still make some progress on your character even if you lose every match. CQC was built to sort of acknowledge this problem in Elite. TIME = MONEY and therefore credits need to be farmed ASAP. Why? Because this is a game where death is penalized.
The while "rebuy" insurance mechanic was fun for the original games because they were single player. NPC behave logically, pirates pirate, traders trade, aliens attack... simple. When you throw humans into the mix, results change unpredictably and the penalty of losing your cargo and paying a rebuy (credits = time) is a loss of TIME. A big waste of time, not a small "Rats that was frustrating, oh well, lets try that again" amount of time.
I suggest... and really think about this here don't just auto-reject because you've invested so much time into this already (that's called the "sunk cost" fallacy)... is to eliminate the losses after ship destruction. Players have NO rebuy, NO cargo loss, NO data loss, they just respawn at the last facility, or in prison like you currently have it because that is a fun game mechanic. This would eliminate all the crying over PvP because if an unshielded T-9 gets whacked with a full load of cargo, the player loses the few minutes of time that it too to jump there, but it's out a big amount of time to buy back that cargo and insurance premium. They'll have a "dammit" feeling for a little while, but not enough to quit. Have you seen how many people quit the game because they lost a ship? I know two personally, who not only quit but almost actively push others to support Star Citizen instead of Elite... how is that fun? At the end of the day, you're a business out for profit and console players want to die worry free... hence the need for billions of credits to pad your death.
The counter argument is "you need to feel a sense of loss" but really, do you? It's not reality, it's entertainment, and I'd put numbers of sales against titles like Witcher, Elder Scrolls, Halo, etc etc etc.... none of them have you go back in time 3 or 4 hours when you get killed. You still have a feeling of danger, still don't want to lose, but if you die you don't lose that much time. Have I said TIME enough yet?
Anyway, for your consideration.
Credit exploits: why do people need credits? Ganking: why do people get upset about getting killed? Why do people care if a newbie is flying a Corvette? I believe the core reason is this: TIME.
This game takes up a TREMENDOUS amount of time, real world time, and so players are doing everything against the clock. Look at the posts: x credts per y unit of time. Most MMO games don't penalize you for dying, for example Call of Duty, you just respawn and you even still make some progress on your character even if you lose every match. CQC was built to sort of acknowledge this problem in Elite. TIME = MONEY and therefore credits need to be farmed ASAP. Why? Because this is a game where death is penalized.
The while "rebuy" insurance mechanic was fun for the original games because they were single player. NPC behave logically, pirates pirate, traders trade, aliens attack... simple. When you throw humans into the mix, results change unpredictably and the penalty of losing your cargo and paying a rebuy (credits = time) is a loss of TIME. A big waste of time, not a small "Rats that was frustrating, oh well, lets try that again" amount of time.
I suggest... and really think about this here don't just auto-reject because you've invested so much time into this already (that's called the "sunk cost" fallacy)... is to eliminate the losses after ship destruction. Players have NO rebuy, NO cargo loss, NO data loss, they just respawn at the last facility, or in prison like you currently have it because that is a fun game mechanic. This would eliminate all the crying over PvP because if an unshielded T-9 gets whacked with a full load of cargo, the player loses the few minutes of time that it too to jump there, but it's out a big amount of time to buy back that cargo and insurance premium. They'll have a "dammit" feeling for a little while, but not enough to quit. Have you seen how many people quit the game because they lost a ship? I know two personally, who not only quit but almost actively push others to support Star Citizen instead of Elite... how is that fun? At the end of the day, you're a business out for profit and console players want to die worry free... hence the need for billions of credits to pad your death.
The counter argument is "you need to feel a sense of loss" but really, do you? It's not reality, it's entertainment, and I'd put numbers of sales against titles like Witcher, Elder Scrolls, Halo, etc etc etc.... none of them have you go back in time 3 or 4 hours when you get killed. You still have a feeling of danger, still don't want to lose, but if you die you don't lose that much time. Have I said TIME enough yet?
Anyway, for your consideration.
So there isn't any need for multi-mode because there are no ganking complaints, no need for C&P changes, no need to patch credit exploits... I must have been playing something else for the last 5 years.
