Making B and C grades useful.

[DemiserofD]

Another person assuming everyone playing this game has the resources to buy A-rated modules and G5 engineer them all. The price leap from B to A is often HUGE, data you might want to add to your charts.

I simply don't think that's a good place for even a single module type to sit, let alone two. Money begets money, so a typical player will need to buy a B or C rated set of modules once or maybe twice before they leave that area of the game behind forever.

Far better to give them a much more universal place in the game, one that can be useful even to players in their 10000th hour, not just those in their 1st.

 

[RamirezKurita]

Another person assuming everyone playing this game has the resources to buy A-rated modules and G5 engineer them all. The price leap from B to A is often HUGE, data you might want to add to your charts.

The price difference isn't that large really though. Large in terms of percentage, perhaps, but the overall price is still pretty irrelevant as income rates have soared in recent years; a 3x increase from a very small number is still a very small number, albeit a bit less small. Even for an Anaconda, the difference between A and B rated thrusters (34 million credits) is basically just 10-30 minutes of gameplay away with current earnings. This isn't 2016 where 5 million credits an hour is good earnings, we are now in a time period where 50 million/hour is considered to be hardly worth doing.

We can't put the toothpaste back in the tube but we can certainly restrict the toothpaste supply back to 1st year levels.

That won't do anything about the toothpaste that is already saturating the local area, players that have abused credit earnings will still be left with effectively infinite money. No, what we need to do is to rebuild the tube around the house-sized blob of toothpaste and balance the game around toothpaste being available by the tonne rather than the previous pea-sized allocations per person.

To bring the analogy back to Elite - restricting income won't achieve anything as so many players already have effectively infinite money already in the bank at the moment. Reducing income might help new player experience, but someone with billions in the bank will still have the economy ruined for them as they have enough to buy anything they want for the next 5 years of updates; instead, costs need to be increased to match the new post-billions economy where earning 100+million an hour is considered to be normal in a high-end ship.

Considering how earnings seem to be at least 10x what they used to be, a basic increase of all costs by a factor of 10 would be a good start, although some individual ships and modules might need some extra tweaks on an individual basis to keep things in line. A cost difference of 34 million credits between 7A and 7B thrusters might be insignificant, but if that cost difference were to be increased to hundreds of millions then a lot of players would probably give A-rated modules a miss, either because they are expensive or because they don't like what that cost does to their maintenance/rebuy costs.

 

[metatheurgist]

Who cares about the past? Old players are already ruined, just get the game experience back to something good for the new players and the players that haven't spoiled themselves. If people want to get back to that? There's always the clear save button.

 

[Old Duck]

The price difference isn't that large really though. Large in terms of percentage, perhaps, but the overall price is still pretty irrelevant as income rates have soared in recent years; a 3x increase from a very small number is still a very small number, albeit a bit less small. Even for an Anaconda, the difference between A and B rated thrusters (34 million credits) is basically just 10-30 minutes of gameplay away with current earnings. This isn't 2016 where 5 million credits an hour is good earnings, we are now in a time period where 50 million/hour is considered to be hardly worth doing.

This is a problem with the current economy in Elite rather than the module pricing, is it not? Though I suppose applying inflation to the game (everything we spend money on) is one option to balance the game again. How many rubles did that loaf of bread cost?

It really is too bad that the economy in ED isn't "real", rather than this simplistic arcade easy-mode unbalanced nonsense that it currently is. Oh well, that's a discussion for another thread!

 

[Lancel]

I did use a C-rated power plant on my Anaconda at first just due to price and the availability of credits, but I admit there isn't much insentive to use that long term over A-rated, or D-rated even.

 

[Misty_Dark]

Another person assuming everyone playing this game has the resources to buy A-rated modules and G5 engineer them all. The price leap from B to A is often HUGE, data you might want to add to your charts.

Huh? first of all you make the comparisson between A and B.
[QUOTE="Old Duck]
B is useful - it's high integrity, meaning it can take a heck of a beating compared to A. That's why my combat Cobra has B thrusters, for example.
[/QUOTE]

So you set the scene with a comparison between A and B.

And I also included the base modules without any engineering

No engineering
4A thrusters - 88 integrity (speed 312/445)
4B thrusters - 96 integrity (speed 302/431)
8 integrity difference (9.1%)

As for credits, these are easy to come by, and today you do not even need to spend hours doing mining, just doing ordinary missions will earn you plenty if credits, as the payout have increased quite alot over the years, and the costs of ships and modules have stayed the same.

I make no assuptions about engineering, byut feel free to make your own assumptions, but be prepared to back up any statements you make. like the 9% is what you call a "heck of a beating".... a nice use of words and then make snotty remarks about costs....