Insurance not required?

[Dakron Nova]

As Ive said before.....FD please remove insurance!

 

[babelfisch]

If I see a crying girl who accidentally dropped her ice cream I might buy her another one. If she throws it in the next river, well no more ice cream.

You should remember that this is still a (very uncompetitive) game, I have no problem if they turns a blind eye once in awhile. The problem begins when this is made public and everyone starts to flood the support. So I guess this thread is actually worse than support's decision.

 

[Jack Schitt]

The first loss for a player, instead of the usual Insurance screen, another screen should pop up explaining exactly what the insurance system is, how it works and how to check how much it is for your ship at any given time.

I agree with the idea of a pop-up screen, but it should be a warning when you first try to undock without insurance cover and there should not be a do-over once you've accepted it.

Spoiler

A lot of people speed-read blocks of text, so there will always be those players who click through and then claim not to have understood. But that should not be an excuse. This wouldn't be a message given only to particular players at moments of great stress following a ship loss, it would be a universal message displayed to anyone who was about to exceed the limits of the insurance system for the first time.

As I and others have pointed out, FD introduced a similar pop-up message when players were buying weapons and forgetting to assign them to fire groups before combat. Insurance should be no different.

Then a lovely little blurb stating that as a new player and this is your first claim, FD (or the Pilots Federation) will replace your ship free of charge but any subsequent claims will incur the full insurance cost. Do you accept these conditions Yes/No.

But this is the speed-reading problem again. In the heat of the moment some players will see "claim... replace... free of charge... Yes/No," and be mashing on that Yes button like one of Skinner's pigeons on a pellet lever before their brain has even processed the rest of the words. Then on the second claim, when it's Sidewinder or nothing, it'll be "Waaah, didn't understand, game sucks, want ship back!" and we're back to square one with support having to make the call.

Except that if it's done this way it's arguably giving an advantage to the players who don't read properly; they'll continue to fly on the edge and maximise their profits and probably get that Anaconda long before the players who read, understand, and then play carefully by holding back insurance funds and/or not flying stock ships into combat zones.

Far simpler and fairer to have all the information up front and no mulligans. If you're the sort of player who doesn't read instructions before clicking through, the loss of your expensive ship should be the lesson that teaches you not to ignore important information. The only lesson that FD are teaching at the moment is that you can do whatever the hell you want because a grovelling message to support will get back anything you lose.

Unfortunately they have now set multiple precedents that are fully in the public awareness. I sincerely doubt that anyone in support will want to reject any reset request now, and I can't wait to read the vintage whine that will ensue if they do.

 

[Stigbob]

The majority of threads where people got reimbursed mention that support said it was a one off deal and the OP asked nicely in a polite way, see vindicator jones thread.

I don't have an issue with support helping someone out for being a bit daft or inexperienced*, it can only help the game.

*one of the things I like about the game is the way you have to find out things for yourself, this is good from a challenge point of view and nostalgic for old fart gamers from the dawn of time (like me). Is it fair to expect young whipper snappers who've cut their teeth on easy games with no negative aspects to dying and unskippable tutorials to know the manual is important ?, I don't think so (but that's just me).

 

[Alex Brentnall]

If thats true (AND IT IS) why does the game have such egregious death penalties in the first place.

One would think that no actual beta testing had occurred.

Bit late but I'll reply anyway.

Because living on the edge is good. Dying in TF2 is about as annoying as dropping your hat because you re-spawn instantly with no penalties. Part of the thing that makes Day Z, minecraft and other games so amazing and adrenaline pumping is the risk of loosing it all.
I had 1 rebuy on my Clipper left, if I died I would have to sell it and downgrade until I got cash or risk no insurance. I was determined not to die as I flew very carefully into a station with 5% hull and 30 seconds of emergency oxygen. I've never spent as long carefully docking, checking my radar and trying not to have a heart attack because I really didn't want to downgrade.
If there were 0 penalties I'd have self destructed miles away from the station instead of using the reboot/repair and been back in the fight with a shiny new clipper and no worries at all.

 

[Sire]

I feel for both sides:

From the Devs side:
Well its a big in game hit that will make a player leave, that player could be worth £X in future expansions and paint packs.
That player will also not recommend Elite to friends and may loose future customers.
Also that player adds to the life of the galaxy.
Also that player could leave negative reviews or other negative articles preventing future sales.

For each unhappy player FD don't lose by giving back his money they lose two fair players due to the image loss ED suffers for such unprofessional behaviour. If you are convinced you're on the right side you must keep on following your own path and not change rules at any wind's blow.

From everyone else's:
Well that kinda makes death meaningless, lots of anger from those who have lost ships in the past.

From everyone else's:
Why should I follow the rules I others don't and earn their living better than me?