This game desperately needs Player Trading NON pay cosmetics and a TRADE HUB.

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

I've been sat here trying to write a response, and bloody Ziggy here goes and kills it before I get a chance to chip in. Most repped for a reason indeed, I'll give you another... grudgingly...!

Not sure if this is something the team will ever do, but it's an interesting topic to think about. On the one hand it would add an extra layer to the trading, but then it would also open the door to exploitation and insane levels of inflation because as Ziggy says, credits mean very little to a lot of folks - especially those who have everything that they'd ever need credits for. Though I've not, until now, considered item-for-item trading as a possibility for an economic structure... and I'm not going to start now because already that introduces a whole level of complexity and instantly there are flaws with the idea that I'm not equipped to think through.

I'm not convinced that this is something that the game needs. I agree with player interaction, but I don't think player trading is the way that it's going to be achieved. I'm happy to be proven wrong, though.

This is one thing that annoys me about Elite and Frontier though...

"Lets not implement features that most other mmo's have because its open to exploitation"...

Thank goodness the rest of humanity didn't have this mindset because we would have had "lets not invent automobiles because there is a chance someone will break the speed limit"

For once look at the "WHYs" instead of the "WHY nots", so much missed opportunity and untapped potential...

You give us Crud like Engineers with no remorse, but won't implement mechanics that will add actual meaningful interactions...

With engineers where was this "lets not do it because it's open to exploit or its gonna upset the apple-cart?" mindset

I would personally be happy if you scrapped engineers and gave us half the tools that other MMO's have, like P2P trading, bank/vault storage, guilds, in game mail, etc.

At the moment I log in optimistically... only to sit in the dock.. then log out again, because I've got all the ships, they're engineered up their a**, etc

with player to player trading I could be hopping into an srv and farming tungsten to sell to players etc... giving me a meaningful goal... at the moment Elite is an MMO where everyone is in their own glass solitude bubble pointing at each other with lasers...

 

[Mrjupp]

I would like to see a Trade Hub Commodities Market, whereby if you need a Material you can go buy it, if another player has equally sold a Material to the Trade Hub. These Trade Hubs can be at specified locations only.

I would like to see all the special Engineer commodities sold at specified Trade Hubs and equally players sell them to the Trade Hubs. Not everyone likes to carry this cargo accumulating them until they wish to visit an Engineer. I don't even like going to an Engineer and sell such commodities as soon as I receive them, rather than take up valuable cargo space.

I would like to see us able to buy at Black Markets (and not just sell there). Again what we can buy would depend on what has been previously sold there by a player.

On a separate note, I would also like to see population levels alter dynamically according to the controlling minor faction state.

 

[Aashenfox]

This is one thing that annoys me about Elite and Frontier though...

"Lets not implement features that most other mmo's have because its open to exploitation"...

Thank goodness the rest of humanity didn't have this mindset because we would have had "lets not invent automobiles because there is a chance someone will break the speed limit"

For once look at the "WHYs" instead of the "WHY nots", so much missed opportunity and untapped potential...

You give us Crud like Engineers with no remorse, but won't implement mechanics that will add actual meaningful interactions...

With engineers where was this "lets not do it because it's open to exploit or its gonna upset the apple-cart?" mindset

I would personally be happy if you scrapped engineers and gave us half the tools that other MMO's have, like P2P trading, bank/vault storage, guilds, in game mail, etc.

At the moment I log in optimistically... only to sit in the dock.. then log out again, because I've got all the ships, they're engineered up their a**, etc

with player to player trading I could be hopping into an srv and farming tungsten to sell to players etc... giving me a meaningful goal... at the moment Elite is an MMO where everyone is in their own glass solitude bubble pointing at each other with lasers...

Well said, and also, every iteration of anything is better (assuming competent minds on the task), Elite could have a few additional tweaks to minimise the negatives. It's very defeatist to say it caused problems for other games, so it will for Elite, without even trying.

 

[Mohrgan]

Personal Shoppers are not game play. Personal Shoppers are short cuts. Selling to players simply gets you credits, the same credits that mining tungsten will still get you.

I for one, am glad Elite is different. Earning things individually rewards everyone in the same way. This is something the game would lack if everything could be bought with credits. Let Elite stay unique.

 

[kofeyh]

what's more important then player interaction and Non procedurally generated missions?

Quite a lot of things; being about to trade with players because I can't be bothered, and opting out of paying for cosmetics, probably aren't on my top 5, to be fair. Player trading is grand, as long as it actually works as intended, in most any MMO I've ever played, and I've played quite a few, player trading == gold farming. Always. Without exception. Never mind account farming.

I'd rather Frontier find more useful ways to allow trade, without it descending into the usual farce. And don't say "that'd never happen". It always does. Always. As soon as there is a financial incentive, it happens.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

It's very defeatist to say it caused problems for other games, so it will for Elite, without even trying.

You must have a lot of faith in FD if you think they can solve problems that the likes of EA, Ubisoft, and Blizzard cannot!

 

[kofeyh]

Well said, and also, every iteration of anything is better (assuming competent minds on the task), Elite could have a few additional tweaks to minimise the negatives. It's very defeatist to say it caused problems for other games, so it will for Elite, without even trying.

Frontier's approach of a materials agent, for trading, wasn't a bad solution; allows for trading, just not between players. Because this is the bit that creates mass exploitation. As soon as an 'economy' exists between players, it starts. And saying "well we won't know if we don't try" ignores the very established pattern that in virtually every instance this is enabled, it happens.

As soon as the game introduces a way to profit directly from mechanics, people will. Automatically. Because they can. Because this is how the world works. If there is money to be made from a thing, then there will be. Pretending Elite would be any different, is farcical.

Frontier may be many things; and the lack of trading of certain things may be irksome, it has however stalled the inevitable account farming, theft and so on that player economies have. When something is a very well established pattern, it's exceedingly wise to consider that pattern.

You must have a lot of faith in FD if you think they can solve problems that the likes of EA, Ubisoft, and Blizzard cannot!

Eleventy developers have tumbled down the same stairs, all in a row, because there is a busted step; but surely if Frontier doesn't try, how will we ever know if they will tumble down the same stairs?

Yes, quite.

--

This is not an easy thing to do well; in most every case player economies exist, there is rampant economy/ account farming that developers then have to spend a large time corralling; some developers have full time economists on staff to manage the economies to handle determined portions trying to subvert outcomes, and even then, huge heists and thefts and shenanigans happen. Which of course in of itself can make a game an incredible experience; but I don't believe the player base is at all mature enough to cope with that.

Given history both within elite, and without (economies elsewhere), as much as I love the developer and what they have achieved, they are in no way equipped to deal with the fall out. At all. Neither is the community. People still complain about rebuys, about station ramming, about mined landing pads, about being shot at (at all) in open; imagine the fallout from stolen ships or entire player groups wiped out.

Not even once. And if people think this wouldn't happen in elite, surely? Oh honey..

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Well said, and also, every iteration of anything is better (assuming competent minds on the task), Elite could have a few additional tweaks to minimise the negatives. It's very defeatist to say it caused problems for other games, so it will for Elite, without even trying.

Thanks, I'm just stating my opinions based on having played multiple MMOs in the past, sinking more hours than I should've into them

In WoW, if I got bored with the raiding and PvP scene, I would farm ore/herbs, Play the auction house, buy low sell high... get into bidding wars with other players... farm old content because the boss has a 1% chance to drop an item that people want as transmog (Making one item visually look like another)

In Elite, it feels very single player, almost like other players are movie extras in the background.

Wall of text alert:
Even with the mission system, I want missions that require you to rope in other players to complete.... picture this... You get a mission to retrieve something "inside one of these CQC structures", but the door to the structure is locked with a release button on the other side of the station... so you need a player to hold their data link scanner on that item to open the door for you, Once you are inside, the come under fire, needing to release the button locking you inside... you then can navigate your way to a panel and hack it to turn the station weapons friendly to assist your friend on the outside, (or disable the guns if they are the thing shooting him.

You get the item, hand it in and get the reward, for group quests you can share it with other people like wow does..

You get quest I mentioned above.... but the prerequisite is you hire a wingman.... so the quest has a "invite to mission option"... once you invite somone they get the mission with a different set of objectives... (the hold the button and defend one)... once their objectives are done... they get instant reward like you get in multicrew.

Now I just thought of that while typing...

This is not an easy thing to do well; in most every case player economies exist, there is rampant farming that developers then have to spend a large time corralling; some developers have full time economists on staff to manage the economies to handle determined portions trying to subvert outcomes, and even then, huge heists and thefts and shenanigans happen. Which of course in of itself can make a game an incredible experience; but I don't believe the player base is at all mature enough to cope with that.

Given history both within elite, and without (economies elsewhere), as much as I love the developer and what they have achieved, they are in no way equipped to deal with the fall out. At all. Neither is the community. People still complain about rebuys, about station ramming, about mined landing pads; imagine the fallout from stolen ships or entire player groups wiped out.

Yeah, not even one. lol.

I agree, but you already have a worse environment... people are finding ways to exploit the game client to circumvent the material grind...

With trading you could have a scenario with people that like doing missions and farming doing that, and people that like engineering and have money doing that, each person doing the activity they enjoy with decent motivation and reward... The amount of time I have dumped modular terminals is sad... I would much rather put them on the auction house.

It all currently feels like artificial gating and grind due to lack of depth in mechanics and content.... like you get with shallow free to play games

 

[kofeyh]

I agree, but you already have a worse environment... people are finding ways to exploit the game client to circumvent the material grind...

Hang on; you agree, but then complain that people are playing the game in a way that's exploiting mechanics; this is very different to exploiting the client (which means a hack or other ToS violation) - never mind that Frontier has absolutely clamped down on such events previously.

Regardless, my comment stands; community cannot cope with multiple approaches to game mechanics, as is; ergo it's never going to cope with a player economy. Because it's still hung up over the very basics, still!

With trading you could have a scenario with people that like doing missions and farming doing that, and people that like engineering and have money doing that... The amount of time I have dumped modular terminals is sad... I would much rather put them on the auction house.

Says the person who is happy to ignore how people play in one breath (materials) and yet has a massive problem with how people play in another breath (mission stacking, mode switching, et-all) or 'cheesing' situations for profit (be it modules, or profits). Frontier are going to, forever, have this issue that a portion of the player base will find ways to cheese mechanics; player economies monitise that outcome.

Like I said; the player base cannot stand that there are multiple ways to do a thing as it is; a player economy adds way more ways to do that thing. Do you really think it'll suddenly be more tolerant? If you do, then I am afraid you just haven't been paying attention.

There is, still, a great degree of naivety in the player base. And within the development team. I am very glad they have resisted a player based economy. The game isn't remotely ready for it, and they are in no position to manage it.

Sandy has previously indicated they would possibly consider some form of materials trade mechanic, involving a third party agent; much like the bounty/ bond/ fine agents we have now. This is a fairly smart way to address the material trade question, without enabling all of the crap that automatically appears with player economies.

 

[Speccy]

I think some sort of "Material Trader" would be good in stations/ports, but only for exchanging materials, NOT selling them to you.

Eg, You can acquire one lot of polonium in exchange for three lots of yttrium. So you'd still be putting the work in to collect mats.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

with player to player trading I could be hopping into an srv and farming tungsten to sell to players etc... giving me a meaningful goal...

So lets spitball some numbers. What do you feel a right price would be for 1 piece of tungsten? Nothing exact, just ballpark. 1.000, 10.000, 100.000, 1.000.000?

I asked Powderpanic as a buyer, so what would you feel as a seller the price should be?

 

[kofeyh]

I think some sort of "Material Trader" would be good in stations/ports, but only for exchanging materials, NOT selling them to you.

Eg, You can acquire one lot of polonium in exchange for three lots of yttrium. So you'd still be putting the work in to collect mats.

Yep. Sandy has mentioned this a couple times now I think; to me it's a no brainer and really good quality of life improvement; if there's a 'cost' or 'loss' basis where you trade say two rares, for a single and so on (so it's like-for-like, rare for rare, or common for common) then this still rewards the effort to collect, regardless of the materials in question, as they can be traded, rather than just dumped.

--

Given this comes up time and time again, adding 'credits' to the mix (so outright buy/ sell) then this would automatically increase the upwards pressure on credit acquisition; and billionaires (like myself) can just forever buy crap and never have to collect again. I'm happy to save a little time as much as the next person, but that would be a genuine garbage outcome.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Hang on; you agree, but then complain that people are playing the game in a way that's exploiting mechanics; this is very different to exploiting the client (which means a hack or other ToS violation) - never mind that Frontier has absolutely clamped down on such events previously.

Regardless, my comment stands; community cannot cope with multiple approaches to game mechanics, as is; ergo it's never going to cope with a player economy. Because it's still hung up over the very basics, still!



Says the person who is happy to ignore how people play in one breath (materials) and yet has a massive problem with how people play in another breath (mission stacking, mode switching, et-all) or leveraging game bugs for profit (which will be the defacto outcome if there is a player economy). Like I said; the player base cannot stand that there are multiple ways to do a thing as it is; a player economy adds way more ways to do that thing. Do you really think it'll suddenly be more tolerant?

If you do, then I am afraid you just haven't been paying attention.

You're right, Elite should stay exactly as it is and stagnate, because according to you the playerbase are a bunch of dumbasses and "exploits" and "time and resources", and, you get the picture,

We want progress!!, when do we want it?, Tomorrow... if its not raining.. you know what, make it next week

 

[kofeyh]

You're right, Elite should stay exactly as it is and stagnate, because according to you the playerbase are a bunch of dumbasses and "exploits" and "time and resources", and, you get the picture,

I never said that; don't misquote me. You've massively oversimplified and completely ignored what I said, and rolled over the response with a completely unrelated supposition; which is that the community isn't at all across the issues player economies raise, nor can it grapple with the various ways things can be done (endless forum posts illustrate this, on an almost daily basis) - and instead promote supposition that this is saying "let the game stagnate" instead.

Which is, well, I don't even know where to start with that. No? Yeah no.

Let's assume for a moment what I said was "I don't believe the developer is able to, at this time, create and manage a player based economy, nor do I believe the player base is at all prepared for the consequences"; because this is essentially what I said. So, now that we know what I said, because I've repeated it to make sure it's quite clear what I said, let's agree to disagree.

Fly safe.

 

[StiTch]

There's just one thing iffy with this sentiment.

Right now, if a PvPer is flying around in his sooped up FDL, the mentality is: worked for it, earned it, deserves the advantage gained. And before you set off, this is a sentiment expressed by many PvPers and one I agree with. So don't take this as some PvEer out to make your life miserable.

We all agree I feel that by now credits have pretty much become meaningless. So when you say you are willing to pay a lot, how much do you have in mind for a piece of polonium for instance that would make you hesitate buying a substantial amount of it? Because in all of this, if it is meant to add gameplay, you need to have to make a decision. If you can buy all your needs in that regard without blinking or noticing any change in your bankaccount, it's not gameplay is it?

I feel that is the big issue here. The argument is made: it will create a lot of gameplay and drag this game out of it's shallowness. If the argument had been: look, I just don't care about the grind and I want an easier route to obtain these materials, that's also valid, but, well, that's not the general sentiment I'm reading.

Prior to this I made a statement that covers this off.

Perhaps if we didn't have to roll thousands of times to be considered "viable" this issue would disappear in PvP. Frustration aside, the actual process in obtaining mats isn't so much as having to do it ad nauseum.

A lot of players have a problem with "the engineer grind" but I find that most complainants around the actual mat collection are PvE players. In fact I've known relatively few PvPers that want the mods to just be handed to players.

I for one have commented multiple times that forcing players to experience all walks of the game to achieve top-of-the-range mods all around is actually kinda awesome. I've also stated multiple times that obtaining the mats should be more engaging, because the problem is not around obtaining mats - it is around needing to obtain those mats a disgusting number of times in order to achieve a "god roll". So the better solution would be to strip out secondary effects or similar, removing a layer of RNG and forcing mods to do only their intended job.

Most PvP complaints are around the disparity between CMDRs that have had the time to put in several thousand rolls into obtaining god rolls for their ships, and CMDRs that have "standard G5 rolls" - the two of which are worlds apart. This means that the divide between "time each player has" means just as much as the divide between player skills in a duel.

If you're looking for the loudest whiners about mat farming itself, or players begging for a mat exchange, they aren't over here

 

[Aashenfox]

So lets spitball some numbers. What do you feel a right price would be for 1 piece of tungsten? Nothing exact, just ballpark. 1.000, 10.000, 100.000, 1.000.000?

I asked Powderpanic as a buyer, so what would you feel as a seller the price should be?

I'd pay up to 50 grand a piece, and that's what I'd expect to get for it as a seller. Why though Ziggy? In the WoW auction house, naturally, the prices are dictated by supply and demand (and to a degree time, but Elite does not have timed events, dailies, weeklies, etc, so that would not be a factor), they can fluctuate WILDLY. You can pay 10g a piece of iron one week and 100 the next. Certainly it will take the community time to 'feel out' the appropriate credits/effort ratio, cos if they're too expensive, people go back to farming, so it's a self adjusting mechanism, usually.

There are so many things in Elite that are so different from other MMOs (like I mentioned above, just not having dailies or weekly raids is already in Elite's favour, it won't create glut times at the auction house). Of all the games that could implement trading, but don't because of irrational fears, Elite is the one that would suffer the absolute least. THat's why I won't stop campaigning for auction houses and guilds. Take almost any negative of these mechanisms in WoW, and I'll tell you why they won't be a factor in Elite (if I can, obviously).

Let me again address some random perceived negatives...

Gold sellers? I don't think we have a big enough playerbase for them to make an impact, I also think Elite's demographic of people would put them off, we just aren't a community that likes to cheat in general, with the noted exceptions.
Bots? You must be joking, but even if there were, they'd be playing in solo if they have any brain (who wouldn't want to rack up bot kills?? ), so we won't even see them.
Trivialising mats collection for the lazy? Sure, but that's a gameplay choice. If I decide my credits are worth less to me than my time, that's my concern, no? Blaze your own trail and all that?
ACCOUNT THEFT FOR CREDITS - THIS is the only real issue, BUT, look again at point 1 above (Gold sellers) and realise that it wouldn't be on a scale anywhere near what is seen in WoW. This would create additoinal support workload, but I don't think it's asking a lot for the advantages.

And the pros:

Give meaning to professions
Let people make credits doing what they like doing (I like collecting CIF, many don't, I hate mining, others don't) WHY can we not exchange the fruits of our favored activities!!? Why, God, WHY?!
Many people like to play the auction house when they're bored, buy low, sell high, look out for people who made a typo when setting their prices, etc, predict the market, this was always fun.
Let people feel like they are participating in a universe that's fluid, not one where everything seems like a giant sociology experiment where you are the only 'real' human. Right now, we're all in our own Truman show.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

I never said that; don't misquote me. You've massively oversimplified and completely ignored what I said, and rolled over the response with a completely unrelated supposition; which is that the community isn't at all across the issues player economies raise and is happy to remain ignorant. Thank you for so eloquently exampling that simple point.

Agree to disagree. Fly safe.

I'm just making a juvenile point illustrating how people like to pontificate on the forum to press their own ideologies.

We both want the game and community to grow and improve, we may have different ideas about how that can be achieved, but at the end of the day all of our compasses point north

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

Prior to this I made a statement that covers this off.

Perhaps if we didn't have to roll thousands of times to be considered "viable" this issue would disappear in PvP. Frustration aside, the actual process in obtaining mats isn't so much as having to do it ad nauseum.

I'm not disagreeing with your post, in fact I try to do as little engineering as possible so I won't have to spend 2 hours scanning wakes to get a couple of FSD roles to max out my range. When I get a roll I can live with I'm outta there. I'd be happy if a mechanic was introduced that for instance depended on what quality and quantity of materials you gather to determine the effectiveness of an upgrade. In that case the effort put in is on par with the result. As it is, someone can be rolling for days and get the same result as someone who rolls once and got lucky.

But I'm also not seeing how your post covers mine off It's true that if you remove the source of displeasure, the issue goes away. But if engineers will be engineers, and the argument is made for material trading then my point remains.

 

[kofeyh]

I'm just making a juvenile point illustrating how people like to pontificate on the forum to press their own ideologies.

We both want the game and community to grow and improve, we may have different ideas about how that can be achieved, but at the end of the day all of our compasses point north

Noted. Absolutely. However there's doing a thing, and doing a thing well. The latter is notoriously hard. Player economies are one such example. They are notoriously hard. And often, often are just an utter wasteland of garbage, despite countless, countless hours of effort. I'd prefer the developer spends time improving the things they can do well, where there is established example showing they can do that well, so there is a better framework and foundation for such a thing as a player economy, to rest on.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I'd pay up to 50 grand a piece, and that's what I'd expect to get for it as a seller. Why though Ziggy?

At 50g a piece I wouldn't blink an eye buying 100 materials which would amount to 5 million. What's an average cr/h rating you can do if you want to make money these days? Now think of the effort involved in gathering 100 pieces of a material. Do you see how the effort you need to put in gathering 100 materials is completely disproportionate to the price you will get for it?