In the recent beta, FD stated that much of the reason for shackling the economy (no player trading, throttled gunner rewards, etc) have to do with preventing players from advancing through the game too quickly.
I agree that mechanisms should be in place to prevent "Power Leveling" because it reduces the variety of experiences in the game, and would quickly lead to min/maxing across the board.
However, I'm not certain that money is the best approach. Elite Dangerous was designed with the money, for the most part, being your character's "XP." You can buy most ships as soon as you can afford it.
While this feature was interpreted by players as full freedom, it has become clear that FD want to lead characters through an arc of advancement, where small ships lead to bigger ships, and so on.
Does it make sense, to separate this arc from the economy? To limit ship availability based on achievements other than money? We already have this for some ships, where availability is based on Military rank. What if we were to limit all ships based on Elite Ranking?
Ships currently come in four classifications: Combat, Trading, Exploration, and Multipurpose. One approach could be to limit ships based on your appropriate elite ranking. So, to get a Combat ship, for example, you'd need a certain minimum combat Elite Rank. (For Multipurpose, I would say Any Elite Rank).
While this would be a new (and controversial) limitation, it would free FD to release the shackles on the economy. There would be less impediment on implementing Player Trading, and we could rebalance multi-crew rewards without worrying about power-leveling players.
Of course, there may be other approaches other than Elite Rank, but I think that Elite's advancement arc has always been about achievement, rather than an RPG'esque idea of skills or abilities, and I don't think I would want to change that.
I agree that mechanisms should be in place to prevent "Power Leveling" because it reduces the variety of experiences in the game, and would quickly lead to min/maxing across the board.
However, I'm not certain that money is the best approach. Elite Dangerous was designed with the money, for the most part, being your character's "XP." You can buy most ships as soon as you can afford it.
While this feature was interpreted by players as full freedom, it has become clear that FD want to lead characters through an arc of advancement, where small ships lead to bigger ships, and so on.
Does it make sense, to separate this arc from the economy? To limit ship availability based on achievements other than money? We already have this for some ships, where availability is based on Military rank. What if we were to limit all ships based on Elite Ranking?
Ships currently come in four classifications: Combat, Trading, Exploration, and Multipurpose. One approach could be to limit ships based on your appropriate elite ranking. So, to get a Combat ship, for example, you'd need a certain minimum combat Elite Rank. (For Multipurpose, I would say Any Elite Rank).
While this would be a new (and controversial) limitation, it would free FD to release the shackles on the economy. There would be less impediment on implementing Player Trading, and we could rebalance multi-crew rewards without worrying about power-leveling players.
Of course, there may be other approaches other than Elite Rank, but I think that Elite's advancement arc has always been about achievement, rather than an RPG'esque idea of skills or abilities, and I don't think I would want to change that.
