The biggest issue in Elite Dangerous that no one really talks about - The Economy

[kmwmtd]

I see Eve's economy as one of the main reasons the game is still played today (its 14 years old!)

I played EVE for many years, and the player economy was pretty much the driving force behind everything I did in the game. Apart from a few seeded commodities, the source and sink for most items was player effort - players mining, salvaging, and building filled the economy; players building and getting their ships blown up emptied the economy. I had incentives to mine, run missions (money and salvage), take salvage for reprocessing, sell or build from the result materials, set up a POS (player owned station) for researching blueprints to sell, etc. As a result, I had many different types of ship (EVE also had a proper ship class/bonus system which ED is lacking) equipped for the various tasks I did each day, which meant credits (ISK) in the pockets of other players.

A player-driven economy (even one as simple as allowing players to give each other credits) is not the only thing lacking, but it would, seemingly, be a big step in the right direction.

However, I suspect that it is done the way it is as a hobbling technique. The only thing stopping a new player from jumping into an A-spec Anaconda in their first hour is the lack of credits to do it. If, on day one, a friend who has been playing for 2.5 years and is a multi-billionaire, simply gives them the credits, there is no incentive to do the things needed to get to that point 'organically'. Yes, they will probably get destroyed 10 minutes later in their first CZ or RES as they won't know what they're doing, but lots of players will simply 'skip to the end'. EVE avoided this by having a skill training system which meant players had to wait RL periods of time for the skills they needed to fly particular ships or use particular modules to finish training - getting into the EVE equivalent of an Anaconda ... a cruiser or battlecruiser, perhaps? ... would take weeks or months, during which time they'd had a chance to learn how to play to an extent.

Without something to replace this hobbling mechanism - skills, experience, ranks, kills etc - I suspect allowing player to player credit transfers might break as much as it creates.

 

[Olivia Vespera]

One of my last proposals was player owned Materials/Data production in order to have an alternative to grindy grinds. It would involve 'donating' credits and/or commodities in order to manufacture certain materials. It would make some commodities worthwile again and provide a limited money sink.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/355627-Player-owned-material-production

This is an interesting post. Production would be pretty cool. Maybe in season 3.

I like your ideas about the sinks in a form of fees for ships etc. and I want to share my idea. I have to mention that this idea has some big impact from EVE Online since I'm an active EVE player.

I'm not a fan of the economy at all on how it is right now, the biggest problem I have is that the simulation puts in the commodities in stations and the damand/supply is dependent from neighbouring systems. In my opinion this economy should be 100% run by players as DarnellJenkins mentioned above. The problem with this 100% player run economy is, that there is no real point in doing it. All you would do is flying commodities from station to station and in the end you will probably end up with some profit and ALL Titanium in one station and Gold in another.

so a few things one could do if there was a way to pay players with something they value is hire cmdrs to help your player minor faction gain influence and expand to neighbouring system.
With a Player driven economy, now called PDE, we'll be able to create contests that aren't solely based on out of game cosmetic items or in game CR which are worthless and tedious to transfer with commodity exchange.
A strong currency allows players to define their own goals and missions and pay other CMDRs to perform it.

I think you are correct in what you have said with the Economy. However I would also like to highlight what I find to be an even bigger problem.

That being the invisible economy, lets take the Federation for example supposedly this faction is made up/propped up by large interstellar corporations yet no stocks and shares system exists anywhere in the game. Yes, as you have rightly pointed out the prices of materials do change on a day to day basis, yet no long term investment exists for the players to interact with, strange considering in the current time billions are gained and lost in stocks and shares.

How brilliant would it be to go and explore the stars for weeks on end and return to base to see that you have made profit on your small gold investment. Or to flood the market with a certain resource to deflate the value of that product and make your enemies loose thousands of credits in the process.

Or even to be contracted out by one of the corporations in the Federation to attack competitors assets in new types of missions.

I think that it is brilliant that you have highlighted the faults with the economy system, it just seems to be an area in need of dire development in an already fantastic game!

Investing in your PMF with stocks and shares is a nice idea as a credit sink. I like that.

Probably the best decision that was made was NOT to implement a player driven economy and player to player trading. I would like to see production chains, but not an economy where we instantly meet chinese farmers and other cheater scum.

Player to player trading has too many risks.

Example: Banwave -> new account -> friends help out -> back in business way too soon
or buying credits by farmers

No way.

We would otherwise be flooded by bull poo like this: http://www.ebay.de/itm/Elite-Danger...859793?hash=item3ae6894851:g:8FMAAOSwlndZLqIm

Without a strong currency to pay groups like Teamsters that provide legitimate service to the community, such ventures will also cease to flourish. If that Ebay sale is real, I think CMDR Dale Carlton may be banned soon from the game as it is. Good job in rooting them out!

Anyways as long as we support legitimate groups like teamsters who provide legitimate services for legitimate currency, we can undercut gold farmers because of how many numerous ways there are to make currency and have fun.
The gold farmers will be continously banned and they'll feed money to FrontierDev by buying new accounts.. or being banned from purchasing the game all together.

main problem with credit transfers it would kill any incentive to play with eachother. It will also create alt armies like in Eve, wich at first may look good, but in the end would kill the game (again look at Eve).

Its one of the first things in ED I thought FD has good thought through. Let gameplay be the only way to interact with each other, as soon you introduce credit transfer it all becomes about the credits, and people wont bother to play anymore.

The OP isn't about allowing direct credit transfers. that already happens through commodity exchange. I buy a ton of palladium and give it to you. You sell that palladium. We agree the price of palladium is the galactic average.

It's about increasing the value of the credit or moving to another currency that can take on its job in a PDE. This can only be done if Frontier does things to fight hyperinflation by providing us credit sinks and/or the ability to buy cosmetics with a certain amount of credits.

That extra credit video is talking about a completely different genre of games with regard to in-game economy.
Even with the biggest amount of creativity i can muster, none of it applies to ED.
I read your post, i understand the attempt of that teamster group to introduce traces of a player driven economy (by providing a paid for service) into ED via emergent game play.
But i think you hurt your own post by trying to emphasize it with a video which i feel is totally out of context.
IF ED supported a player driven economy, including mechanics to easily exchange credits, ships, modules, market commodities, engineer commodities etc, that would be a different case.
There is no hyperinflation in ED...because by the very nature of the game, there can't be.

Really? It seems to go through the same beats for me.I disagree with your assessment.
the videos were about MMOs . ED is an MMO. it has a community that interacts with each other, there is an in game currency and there is value (even if it is near worthless) in trading in that currency (via commodity exchange).

There is hyperinflation due to both player progression and easy ways to earn currency. As you progress, the value of CR to you becomes less. If you engage in Quince missions, the value of CR to you becomes reduced.
You are less likely to do things for CR as you progress through the game unless it's an exorbitant amount of CR because you'd need an extraordinary amount of it at the end game.

Again i'm not asking for easily exchanged credits. Where did you get that idea from?
I'm asking either for credits to be deinflated or for a replacement currency (perhaps engineer commodities) that does the job.

Actually i dislike player driven markets, they lead to overpriced items, bots and gold farming. I actually dont need any money sink, i think thats a big plus to this game, just because your not forced to play.
If you have money sinks you will need to earn Credits and if someone has not that much time, he will get a big disadvancement by not having enought cash. This will lead them to either play more, use bots or buy Credits for real money.
...
In my opinion the op wants to start a buisiness to sell credits to other players for real money, but at the moment there is no reason to buy Credits.

credit sinks doesn't have to be something that you have to pay when you're offline. It can be an active thing that you only pay when you do something as opposed to something passive like that you're thinking.

I don't want to start a business to sell credits to other players. I do want there to be an economy where a group like Teamsters and others like em can survive. Providing services in exchange for a currency that's valuable in game. Not out of game.

FD might as well move forward and just leave credits as a means to an end, not any sort of functional use. Plenty of other areas they could focus on and gain good results.

Also, while the idea of a player economy is a nice one for a MMO, there is a large part of the playerbase who are not interested in ED as a MMO and wouldn't care for such changes. I'm in the middle, i enjoy the multiplayer aspect of ED, but i really don't want it to start taking too many ideas from MMOs so that the MMO side becomes the focus. I want more content for all, not just a portion of the community.

If a large part of the playerbase aren't intesrested in the MMO aspects of ED, they don't have to get involved with it. Players are free to not interact with other players if they so choose. Nothing's stopping them from not engaging in a PDE.

Did you watch the design by landfill video? It addresses how MMOdevs fix economies. Frontier has done this when they introduced Materials and Engineer Commodities to offset the dependency on old gear.

When it was introduced, Everyone wanted the new shiny engineered modules. but you can only get them with engineer commodities which are arbitrary to find and get.
The collection and player trading of those engineer commodities when it was requried for engineered allowed a PDE to flourish.

I'm alright if they don't fix credits. But there does need to be a usable currency to support a PDE. It occured with Engineer Commodities pre patch, it can very well happen again.

Why would I ever need to pay someone? There is no service that anyone could provide or item that I would buy from some other player, so why is this an issue?.

Imagine if you could pay a group of mercenries to help you take down a capital ship.
Imagine if you could pay a group of cmdrs to help your minor faction gain enough influence to expand.
these are a few examples of the services that could be provided that players might want. Currently there's nothing valuable enough to pay CMDRs who'd be willing to provide these services.

Great Read. Accretion is to dawn high on Elite right now. Rep +1 , Lets hope that frontier actually reads it and take note , thank you!

Thank you too! ^^

 

[Karunamon]

Actually i dislike player driven markets, they lead to overpriced items

Like A8 thrusters being more expensive than the ship they're attached to?

bots

Makes the game's numbers look better and gives the gankers something productive to do.

and gold farming.

Already happens.

If you have money sinks you will need to earn Credits and if someone has not that much time, he will get a big disadvancement by not having enought cash.

Already happens with engineer grind.

This will lead them to either play more, use bots or buy Credits for real money.

As above - this already happens. Credit sellers objectively exist - I've been approached by them more than once.

In my opinion the op wants to start a buisiness to sell credits to other players for real money, but at the moment there is no reason to buy Credits.

Sure there is - reduction of grind.

 

[Vorxian]

We would otherwise be flooded by bull poo like this: http://www.ebay.de/itm/Elite-Danger...859793?hash=item3ae6894851:g:8FMAAOSwlndZLqIm

Ohhhh

I could sell my account to... never considered that...

 

[Boomer Kay]

Sure there is - reduction of grind.

So I give you 400 million to buy your Anaconda and then? Watcha gonna do?
You have no ranks, you have no engineers unlocked, you have not traveled anywhere and you will most likely never get out of the station, since you'll be stuck in the mailslot. ^^

 

[CMDR MERANGO]

Elite: The best of the best!

The game is designed to be just that, BUT, it takes time, commitment, grind and the whole 9 yards to attain 'Elite' and the overall game experience is still extremely enjoyable trying to gain Elite status in any of the genres.'

CMIV

 

[Karunamon]

So I give you 400 million to buy your Anaconda and then? Watcha gonna do?
You have no ranks, you have no engineers unlocked, you have not traveled anywhere and you will most likely never get out of the station, since you'll be stuck in the mailslot. ^^

I've flown a 'conda in beta once. It's not that difficult. And I'd probably sit on a few of those millions for rebuys.

That's my main problem with this game now. I used to have a Python, and loved it, but I got it right before the last release when mission boards were hosed in the entire universe. I had to sell it and go back to an AspX to afford the rebuys.

No savings means no risky stuff, no risky stuff means no fun. And spending hours of time grinding mats is also completely counter to my idea of fun, so the endgame right now for me has absolutely no interesting way of getting there. And so the game sits uninstalled in my steam library until the next release.

If I could have an achievable goal without an absurd time commitment doing the game equivalent of watching paint dry, that's what I'd be doing right now. As it stands, grinding low paying missions and engineer crap to get back up to that point so I can go back to doing more interesting pew pew stuff is completely unappealing.

 

[Darkfyre99]

If we want player more player driven enterprises like Teamsters, then we need a robust player economy that relies on a strong currency.

What if we don't want a player economy?

What if we don't want to deal with the headaches generated by gold farmers and account thieves, who become much more prevelent once a player economy is in place, and thus stuff in the game starts to be worth real world money?

What if for most players in this game, Elite: Dangerous is more of a single-player co-op game, than an MMO?

Thanks, but no thanks. I've done my time having to deal with player to player trading and auction houses. Never again.

 

[Olivia Vespera]

What if we don't want a player economy?

What if we don't want to deal with the headaches generated by gold farmers and account thieves, who become much more prevelent once a player economy is in place, and thus stuff in the game starts to be worth real world money?

What if for most players in this game, Elite: Dangerous is more of a single-player co-op game, than an MMO?

...then play in solo or private group... and stay away from it.

Just because something exist doesn't mean you have to take part in it.​

 

[Karunamon]

...then play in solo or private group... and stay away from it.

Just because something exist doesn't mean you have to take part in it.​

Not entirely accurate given the changes that a player-driven economy would have on the rest of the universe. Prices would start reflecting their actual value rather than whatever arbitrary crap the BGS came up with, which could very much disadvantage you. Kinda like the engineer

It would also mean that solo mode would be effectively dead.

 

[Chaparral]

With all of the complaints about exploits on the forums, I think it's risky business to drop the current background sim to move to a player based trade economy. My personal experience is not with EVE but with other MMO's where player based economies can lock out new players from basic gear and turn game play into mats runs for RL cash. I wouldn't mind if some of the Elite missions rewarded more interesting things like engineer favors, ship transfer passes, or engineer roll buffs, etc. - but I think FDEV has taken the safest route here. As others have mentioned, if you want to help out a new player, winged bounty hunting, cargo sharing, multicrew, etc. can give a more than adequate leg up.

 

[Olivia Vespera]

Not entirely accurate given the changes that a player-driven economy would have on the rest of the universe. Prices would start reflecting their actual value rather than whatever arbitrary crap the BGS came up with, which could very much disadvantage you.

It would also mean that solo mode would be effectively dead.

I don't think you understand what i mean by a player driven economy then.

A player driven economy is independent from the BGS. it doesn't replace it. That's not what I'm asking.

What I'm asking for is a way for me to pay another player something valuable for services they provide me.

For example, pre 2.2 patch, I'll pay you 25 modular terminals that you can use on engineer upgrades if you help me raise my PMF's influence by doing 20 missions for them.

that does not affect the environmental economy/bgs... okay it does in my example but not in the way you meant. No prices that you care about increase or not.

 

[ITZC0ATL]

I don't think hyperinflation is necessarily the cause of over-prived items. Scalability is important for any game, and Elite actually manages that relatively well. When I first joined, earning the credits for an Asp was a huge accomplishment and anything higher seemed improbably far away. However, as my skills increased, so did my methods of earning money, and then I had a Clipper. After saving for that, larger ships still felt crazy expensive - BUT after upskilling some more, I have an Anaconda as well. The Cutter currently feels like an impossibly expensive ship, not to mention fleshing out the mid-range of my fleet a bit more and outfitting to boot.

My point is, in regards hyperinflation, that the pricing of ships initially seemed like ridiculous inflation but when it came down to practical gameplay actually provided quite a scalable economy and better economic longevity than I've had from a game in a while.

Now, on the other hand, I agree that Elite sorely lacks player interaction and a player-driven economy would be a good way to move towards that. The Fuel Rat are definitely one of the coolest player-driven concepts that I've came across online, and that came about by FDev allowing players to do a single interaction - refuelling.

Now, I'm also quite a fan of the ecomony model on certain Minecraft servers. Anyone familiar with the game will know that some resources are a pain to obtain, while others are plentiful. Some people need a huge amount of Material A for a project but keep getting Material B. Others have too much Material B but not enough Material C. I have a habit of selling off my iron, for example, to pay for stone for construction. Some people see stone as common and worthless but iron as integral to their projects. I just like building and personally I'm happy to fund construction projects with my spare iron. It's a player-driven ecomony that simply works - off real supply and demand.

Doing something similar with engineer commodoties/material/data/etc. would definitely be a step in the right direction. Interested in exploration but not combat? Let someone who loves combat sell you all those chemical processors. Interested in mining and not combat? Sell your excess and be able to afford the ship of your dreams. This would probably require a rework of some of the commodoties/materials that are currently in game, but it makes a lot of sense to let people do what they choose to in a game like Elite and use money gained from that profession to pay for the things they'd prefer not to do.

Player interaction in general is just a bit too sparse at the moment, so I'd love anything that spruced it up. You could even make players buy homebases (see, moneysink!) in order to sell their products, and that would even incentivice players to travel to buy certain wares. The trade in engineered parts could potentially be hugely lucrative, and to be fair, a lot of effort can go into getting the perfect roll. I for one would love to see the people who have that dedication be rewarded, and the people who'd rather focus on other aspects of the game have the option (like real life) to simply pay someone else to.

You could even make it so that player trade could only be conducted using a 'reserve currency', which would also (controversy aside) allow FD to implement some more micro-transactions and fund development.

 

[Darkfyre99]

...then play in solo or private group... and stay away from it.

Just because something exist doesn't mean you have to take part in it.​

Sorry, I like open as it is, despite the flaws and the exploits. The last thing it needs is a player-driven economy. Been there, done that, wrecked my wrists in the process.

A player-driven pretty would amplify those flaws and exploits. That is what an economy does, it amplifies output, both good and bad. Frontier has avoided this by making even basic barter non-existent in the game. Even in open, this game remains an Elite game: one Commander and their ship. A tiny, insignificant speck in the immensity of the Universe.

Right now, there's only one currency in this game worth anything: time. You and you alone get to decide what your time is worth, in terms of credits and engineering materials. Yes, you can potentially transfer commodities between players, but at present, the time it would take longer than what you could make even with the legitimate ways of making credits for most players.

Not entirely accurate given the changes that a player-driven economy would have on the rest of the universe. Prices would start reflecting their actual value rather than whatever arbitrary crap the BGS came up with, which could very much disadvantage you.

It would also mean that solo mode would be effectively dead.

^^^ Also this.

 

[MVP_Bluntman]

My problem is that the game decided to go with a dynamic economy that's driven on supply and demand of commodities, however there's nothing to really judge the value of specific commodities next to, its essentially static because these prices either rise or fall off set values, not off player interaction, for example while players can buy goods at a station, thus promoting more demand, who supplies it, nothing, because its the environment that supplies the commodities not the player, so credits are essentially useless in any shape with this economy because they have no value in a static market. If it was a fluctuating market, we would see the goods rise and fall with the value of the reserve currency, outside of other variables such as supply and demand.

 

[RamirezKurita]

What the game needs is an economy that makes sense, not an economy dictated by a few thousand regular men with ven and delusions of grandeur space trucking around.

 

[Kaocraft]

Credits in Elite are not currency. They are what in other games would be called Experience Points (XP). Ship outfitting and all of that is really just a space-y version of speccing out your character. That's why the ship tiers are exponentially higher than one another. It's a thinly disguised leveling system. "Buying" and "Selling" of commodities is just a shell game. There are no items in the game that actually *do* anything. There are no consumables to buy apart from fuel and limpets, both of which cost next to nothing and have no gameplay significance. Your money doesn't do anything. It has no meaningful impact on anything other than your own account. There's no inflation because there's no trade. Credits haven't been devalued; they have no value in the first place.

And again inflation doesn't matter or exist, because the prices of all goods are set by the game. Nobody can sell anything to anyone, there is no auction house or exchange of modules or anything else. There's nothing of any use-value in the entire game that another player can give to you. Everybody buys from the company store.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Another thing to consider is, considering FD's track record with things like this, how can anyone expect them to implement anything like OP suggests without it being full of exploitable holes?

 

[Sneake Llama]

The problem with trying to "fix" the economy is that it will never work in Elite. Player philosophy, for the most part, dictates to do the activity that will net you the best profit or outcome for the time spent.

Implementing ANYTHING to make the economy more dynamic such as player produced goods or a stock market is useless. Players will invest and produced only the most profitable alternative. The only way to check this is to create some type of risk factor involved, but this is dangerous as too much risk and no one will find it worth it.

Cash sinks are also very detrimental, as "mandatory" cash sinks such as docking/launch fees or berth fees will cause players to just avoid them if they can, changing how players play the game. In extreme cases, whole areas of the game may be abandoned to avoid losing money for no reason. Kind of how companies try so hard to find tax loop holes.

The only good cash sink is when players feel their money is going toward something worth while. Insurance is a good cash sink. Keeps players in check so they don't recklessly run around, players don't complain about it and they understand why it's there. Cash sinks that "tax" players for playing the game is not a good idea and push players away.

Frontier will NEVER make in-game currency be able to purchase Frontier Store items, even making in-game currency into store credit (100,000,000 credits can convert to store credit). Ever. Real-currency stores make money for Frontier. Making in-game currency have that effect erases that profit for them. They would NEVER do that.

 

[Boomer Kay]

Another thing to consider is, considering FD's track record with things like this, how can anyone expect them to implement anything like OP suggests without it being full of exploitable holes?

Even if they implement it flawlessly, the flaw is in the system. You can't really tell who's a player, so most, if not all "player driven" economies have ended up as bot driven economies anyway.
Unless you write code or actually create content (a la second life), you're just a buttonmasher collecting pixels for recipes, which is ultimately better done by bots. They are less prone to carpal tunnel syndrome. ;p