Ship cost scaling in this game needs to be leveled out.
- Thread starter Ransurias
- Start date
Hopefully, FD will eventually realize the discouraging lack of player progression past the Asp and decrease the cost of high-tier ships. The game's general demographic isn't going to be indefinitely content in their Cobra / Viper / Asp -- including me, and especially since I despise a lot of the currently-available ships from an aesthetic point of view. In terms of progression, there's not much more than bigger ships to aspire for at the moment, and there's no reasonable way for the average joe to realistically find themselves in anything better than their mid-tier vessels. It's a recipe for disaster as far as player retention.
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They shouldn't take as much time as they currently require to "get," much less to fully kit out for combat / exploration / whatever. More ships would be nice as far as bridging gaps in the current ship selection, but they won't substantially alleviate the accessibility barrier. As I've said, the game needs more ways of profitably earning money. Bringing exploration / bounty hunting / mining in line with trading would be a good way to do it, and expanding on the number of doable activities to earn credits within the context of structure and progression (i.e. missions) would be a great way to help things along. Scaling is a big problem in the game, and the lack of content works in a vicious cycle to exacerbate that lack of scaling.
I think you're grievously underestimating the staggering amount of time spent doing repetitive activities it would take to earn enough money to sustain a Python or an Anaconda. The argument that they should be "status symbols" is a laughable and immeasurably destructive way of cutting off accessibility in the name of rewarding the tiny, tiny demographic of players that don't utterly despise grinding trade routes for ages, especially since ships are some of the only progression currently available in the game.
Basically, the scenario is this. You start in your Sidewinder, struggle for a few days, find a good way of making a few hundred thousand credits, buy an Eagle or a Viper, proceed to buy a Cobra, and eventually purchase an Asp. By then, you're about six inches into the six-foot credit barrier between your current ship and a more interesting one, and there's nothing to do besides grind trade routes for a large freighter for the purpose of grinding more trade routes, sell exploration data for next to nothing compared to what you'd make from trading, repetitiously bounty hunt for gimmicky, inconsistent profit that eventually wears down into utter tedium, and eventually stop playing because you're bored to tears of the bare-bones activities the game currently offers.
In one way or another, ship costs need to be scaled down and leveled out, either through direct cuts to the cost of ships or more -- and better -- ways of making the stupidly ridiculous amount of money required to get them. That's the bottom line. I don't think there's anything else that needs to be said that hasn't been said already in this thread.
Why shouldnt it take time? There is no end in the game, and just because some want the biggest things as quick as possible doesnt mean the rest of us dont want to feel accomplishment from putting in time. If i got to the biggest ship after a week i would feel cheated. To reach the biggest ships is a "game" in itself for me. It will feel great when i finally can afford one. If it was handed to me i wouldnt feel a thing. Sorry i dont understand the problem other than "give me everything asap" mentality. But again, there are more than double amount of ships to come so you will have a lot of ships to buy on the way to the biggest ones. Im FAAAAAR away from the bigger ones. Am i crying? Not at all.
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Mhm. Good for you. I'm willing to bet plenty of money that you're going to be burnt out and long gone well before you're anywhere remotely close to being able to afford to buy and outfit one, just like a good fraction of the game's current playerbase. For you, and for pretty much everyone, the Anaconda basically exists as a purchasable ship for no reason at all. But, hey -- it's "something to work for" and a "status symbol," right? Forget the fact that larger ships are potentially fun and interesting for many players, even though they're inhibited by their sluggishness in combat and that their general-purpose capabilities are trumped by dedicated, cheaper vessels. None of that really matters.
"They should cost exponentially more because... Uh, well, because they should, since 'status symbols' and stuff, and since they're (only modestly) bigger by tonnage, or perhaps since there's nothing else to invest and save in for X reason. Oh, and let's throw in the entitled generation cliche for good measure in spite of the game's potential for much deeper and more meaningful investments." <--- Your argument, and the logic behind most of the opposition in this thread. When bigger ships are much more capable in combat than they currently are, then we can talk about them being justifiably expensive.
No. Here's a few things that *should* be considered status symbols -- faction-owned territory won through blood, sweat and tears from groups of players, colonization rings, huge multi-crew vessels that actually are powerful enough in combat to justify their cost (unlike the Anaconda), and other time-consuming and expensive investments that currently aren't in the game. Personal ships able to be piloted by single players shouldn't be "status symbols."
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I don't personally think the problem is the amount it costs to buy them, but rather the scaling of the game once you have them.
I finally got my Python last week after a LOT of normal trading through gamma and launch.
You see those 10-15k missions in your sidewinder or cobra? Those are the exact same missions you'll see when you fly a 60 million ship.
The missions 'MUST' scale with the ship. If I have 216 cargo space why are there no missions to deliver 200+ tons of something? I still see those super rare "Deliver 50 X to Y for 150k" but I've never seen a "deliver 200 tons of X to Y for 600k".
Any kind of damage costs tens of thousands of credits. To fully kit out a Python I've heard it costs another 250 million or more. Delivering 10 X to Y for 10k doesn't really help much. The game needs to scale with the ship.
I'm not saying I want to see missions paying out millions, I just want them to scale up so I want to see 200+ cargo missions with the same pay-out ratio as the small ones.
I finally got my Python last week after a LOT of normal trading through gamma and launch.
You see those 10-15k missions in your sidewinder or cobra? Those are the exact same missions you'll see when you fly a 60 million ship.
The missions 'MUST' scale with the ship. If I have 216 cargo space why are there no missions to deliver 200+ tons of something? I still see those super rare "Deliver 50 X to Y for 150k" but I've never seen a "deliver 200 tons of X to Y for 600k".
Any kind of damage costs tens of thousands of credits. To fully kit out a Python I've heard it costs another 250 million or more. Delivering 10 X to Y for 10k doesn't really help much. The game needs to scale with the ship.
I'm not saying I want to see missions paying out millions, I just want them to scale up so I want to see 200+ cargo missions with the same pay-out ratio as the small ones.
You must always have the last word, I'm right ?
Let me say that there are some that think that the price of the ships is way to low and must be increased.
Let me say that many enjoy the way and not the goal to get just a bigger ship. You may think trading is tedious, I for myself enjoy it and no one forces you to make it repetitive and uninteresting. In fact, boredoom is the best thing to make brain work - discover new things, make it iteresting to you !
An example: yesterday i was running a mid-profitable route in open play. On some point i realized that another commander is running the same route and we are almost in sync with each other. From that point it was fun, it was race ! I must be at dock before him ! I Think he memorized it as well. We started to optimize everything, velocity to exit SC , angle to exit SC to be able to exit to the gate directly, docking in record time - figure out just every movement to be right. It was incredible fun.
After that was over (server disconnect) i realized that i have earned over 4 million credits during this competition.
It is way to easy to get one of bigger ships this way.
You need grinding for discovering and bring to perfection the skills you need for maintain and fly bigger ships.
I think the prices are just right. You shouldn't be able to get an Anaconda or a Lakon type 9 in a few weeks or even months. It should take a year or more. These are huge ships that will make huge profits. On the RP (role-playing) side of it, these ships represent a huge resource investment for the manufacturers. They construct ships for profit.
As for an Asp costing 6 million or so. Yeah. it's a combat ship with the capabilities of a hauler. I definitely plan to get one when I get the scratch. And on the RP side, building the Asp isn't small potatoes.
So I think it's just right. Also, if it's too easy, people get bored. There's enough boredom in space travel already. We don't need more.
As for an Asp costing 6 million or so. Yeah. it's a combat ship with the capabilities of a hauler. I definitely plan to get one when I get the scratch. And on the RP side, building the Asp isn't small potatoes.
So I think it's just right. Also, if it's too easy, people get bored. There's enough boredom in space travel already. We don't need more.
Except the Anaconda doesn't make "huge profits." It's far, far, far, FAR less profitable to operate an Anaconda than pretty much any other ship in the game -- or a Python. It shouldn't take a "year or more" to do find myself in a single-pilot shop that's only modestly bigger by tonnage than, say, the Cobra. It shouldn't take a "year or more" to accrue the amount of money required to pilot a ship with a number of basic shortcomings that make it both worse and similar to other vessels for various purposes and functions, like mining and combat. It's just a moderately bigger version of the Python, and the Python is, for all intents and purposes, just a moderately bigger version of the Cobra. They can all land on small landing pads, they can all capably grind bounties, and they can all mine or trade reasonably well. The murky, relatively slim advantages brought to the table by the Python and the Anaconda don't justify their laughably staggering costs. Why can't you see that?
It's been said countless times, but mind-numbing grinding toward the shallow goal of a ship that functions the same as any other ship doesn't make the game difficult in any way, shape or form. It makes it hollow and less accessible for players that don't want to invest so much time into repetitive activities to make money, and that's bad for player retention and the game as a whole. There's tons upon tons of things to expand upon in ED in terms of difficulty and content. Why should single-man ships that can dock on dinky little landing pads be an end goal? Just because we should have to work for a ship doesn't mean we should invest a *major* part of our lives for it. That sort of commitment should be relegated to bigger things, like territorial expansion, a greatly expanded and overhauled exploration system that rewards investments, and other potentially major (but currently nonexistent) components of the game.
If ships aren't going to change in terms of functionality and capability, they need to be leveled out. Why? Because they're not different enough to distinguish themselves for their respective prices. Nothing screams this fact louder than a typical hum-drum A-kitted Viper laughing off an Anaconda in an assassination mission in under two minutes.
Heh. You know, in my brief time on these forums, I've been constantly irked by the curious "everything-is-fine" disposition permeating the minds of some of the community here. "Make your own fun! If you're disappointed, the game isn't for you and you should go home or l2p. Casuals like you have no place here. You're part of the spoon-fed generation."
Meanwhile, most people in the real world -- you know, the people that aren't rocking their rose-tinted shades -- value and appreciate structure, viable diversity, progression, and scaling, which are elements crucial to just about any game, a little more than that. Understandably, they're wanting more, especially in terms of accessibility and content.
"You need grinding for discovering and bringing to perfection the skills you need to maintain and fly bigger ships." <--- That's nothing more than a sappy, far-fetched rationalization for the game's utter lack of structure and scaling, which punishes the everloving hell out of players that already worked strenuously for their investment.
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Yeah, and do more to kill off player retention for no particularly good reason... That is, beyond the elitist sentiments of a handful of forum warriors that think 99.5% of the playerbase shouldn't ever have any reasonable expectation to ever have nice things.
In all seriousness, something needs to change. More ways of making decent money need to exist, and the game's five main pillars -- exploration, trading, mining, missions, and bounty hunting -- all could use some pretty substantial work to make them less repetitious and more evenly-rewarding.
It can't be stressed enough. More content. More accessibility. More content. More accessibility. Bridges or progression and scaling that currently don't exist between my dinky Cobra and the Anaconda need to be constructed. Things need to change, because they're not okay at the moment.
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IMO, prices seem to be about right for the available ships. I just hope the missing gaps are filled in with some of the additional ships promised. Notably, there seems to be a gap in the 2-4M range, and something around 10M. I'd also like to see a more advanced "fighter" type of ship that progresses beyond the Viper. Maybe a strategic fighter/bomber or a strike fighter type of craft.
First, the price is not the issue, you earn that money if you're good enough. What we need is more information regarding the larger tie ships.
How many does it need to be commandeered? if they are 2 - 8 crew ships there should be 2 - 8 players or NPC hired to crew it. They will need a salary and so on.
the cost is not only just buying it, and off you go.
How many does it need to be commandeered? if they are 2 - 8 crew ships there should be 2 - 8 players or NPC hired to crew it. They will need a salary and so on.
the cost is not only just buying it, and off you go.
Oh Yes, they do. You have not tried ohne of these ? A-kitted Python needs about 5 seconds to destroy A-kitted Viper.
First trigger pull - shiels are gone.
Second one - BOOM. You have no time to even activate Shield cells.
Do not judge Anacondas and Pythoms by some reports on this forum - NPC are poor comparison.