What should Frontier do about this?

[Falkenherz]

I think this problem can be solved quite easily:

High profit margin commodities should only exist in low numbers.

Low profit margin commodities should exist in high numbers, making them viable only by means of larger hauls.

In order to make trading more of a challenge, interdictions will surely become tougher. If you are a good pilot and slingshot fast towards your target and use the gravity break, you should be able to avoid most interdictions. Other traders would need to beef up their defenses.

Also, there should be special offers and trade opportunities to discover, which come and go more frequently throughout all systems. Like this, traders are forced to explore more and cannot settle so much on certain fixed trade routes. To make a fortune in trading would then require you to become a trader of fortune, while the standard-trade-route trader would not die out but level down back to what a standard mercenary approach would yield.

Although I have to agree with some posters here: I do not want to spend my play time having to grind for the ship and equipment I want. This game should be more about having a proper ship and then do whatever I want with it.

 

[IEatPelicans]

I do not like any of your ideas at all!!!
This is a game I play for Fun
I'am not @ work !!! I dont need chores I have to do !! It is enough and justly so that I have to earn the credits to buy abetter ship.
The concept of having to do dailies or same type of grind stinks
Have been ther and have done that, LOTRO , and not again thank you!

When game is final, I believe that the sheer size of the Milky Way will make most people explore and trade - mine , just as the original game.
Should be a few years of game time in that.

Cheers Cmdr's

Exactly. I dont want to have this game turned into a job where you have to grind all day to get any significant progress. At some point you should be able to purchase what you want in a decent playtime.

i respect both of your opinions... and i dont want this game to become a series of "chores" you're forced to do. I absolutely want this game to be about having the freedom to forge your own path as much as you do. But at the moment, the path that this game is headed down is this:

1. Everyone has the choice of one easy way to make money.
2. Everyone trades in "safe mode" until they get their anaconda.
3. Then everyone graduates from "safe mode" to "anaconda mode"
4. Everyone gets bored and quits.

There needs to be an element of "grind", particularly in relation to the higher tier of ships. But grinding doesnt have to be boring. At the moment, there is only one viable grind: trading. And i think that's a mistake. The way i see it, there's only two real alternatives:

(a) have no grind (might as well just give every player an anaconda and 20 million in credits; or

(b) make grinding more interesting.

My proposal is more about (b) and less about (a). I know that time consuming grinding is a huge criticism of MMO games, but that doent mean that the developers of this game can't find a good compromise position.

 

[Daffan]

It won't solve the problem. It will be more difficult to start but when you get your hands on a decent capacity ship the outcome will be the same as OP described.

Yup trading is just natural progression, the only way to stem trading is a player economy like EVE. But than it's no longer FEDEX simulator but trade/buy industry simulator.

 

[vulkman]

I can say from experience (played F:E2 pretty much up to that point and beyond) that the same thing happens with you that happens with rich people in real life: You start spending a lot more on stupid experiments.

In F:E2 it was quite easy to burn through large amounts of cash by selling and buying ships as the used price was way lower than the new price, and as I had made enough money to buy the biggest, best equipped freighter in the galaxy, I just got into full on midlife-crisis mode, bought an Imperial Courier complete with all the extras, sold it because it was overpriced crap, bought something else, mining equipment and whatnot, ventured into building a mining empire, went on exploring unkown parts of the galaxy and the likes.

But yes, I did eventually quit playing F:E2 because of this, but it was only after years of good fun and with a feeling of true accomplishment and satisfaction, so I am not afraid for history to repeat itself in E: D.

 

[KING5TON]

DB has said that he doesn't want any one profession to be the go to profession that everyone picks as it's the only way to make money.

This means that all the professions in the game need to be balanced so no one profession is better than the other.

Trading in the Beta I believe is purposely setup the way it is for testing purposes only. Once released it will not be the only way to make big bucks.

This can be achieved by tiering professions so that the rewards increase as you progress.
e.g.
Traders make more money via increasing their cargo hold and working out decent trade routs.
Miners make more money via increasing their cargo hold, buying better mining equipment and working out where the valuable resources are.
Pirates make more money via increasing their cargo hold, buying better weapons and equipment to allow more efficient pirating against bigger and bigger targets
Bounty hunters make more money via increased bounties on tougher and tougher opponents.
Explorers make more money by selling info on further and further out systems.
etc....

 

[Thespen Tombs]

Thanks everyone for posting, even if not everyone agreed I think it proved interesting and maybe useful too.

2 ideas I liked (not that they will solve the problem by themselves) are:

Increasing the costs of running a big ship including the need to hire protection when you are running with an expensive cargo. I like the though of being able to hire on as the muscle for both PC and NPC traders; it could even lead to more player interaction

And also limiting the amount of goods that you can both purchase and sell at a single station; this could lead you to being more like an old fashioned tramp steamer, not just concentrating on a particular trade run, but travelling from port to port on a meandering route buying and selling what will turn a profit

I also hope opening up new trade routes will be lucrative too, as this will give you a good motive to explore.

Thanks again and if you have any other ideas keep posting them,

 

[zerGus]

Applying some Economic theory in real-time may be interesting?

1. Adjust the prices bid / offered for cargo according to supply and demand:
- Bidding for a small lot of 4 tons of Fish in a large market like Chango Dock and will result in an offer very close to the posted price.
- Bidding for 400 fish in a small station with very low supply will result in an offer significantly above the posted price; the supply is not available at a reasonable price.

2. Make the deviation of posted prices from the galactic mean a function of the volume of trade (by commodity) at each station. Larger markets would have prices closer to the galactic mean.


As a consequence;
- Margins on low-volume routes will increase but will only be attractive to small or medium ships. Larger vessels will not be able to shift a full cargo hold into a small market at a decent price.
- Margins on high-volume routes will decrease, but will remain attractive to larger ships which can fill their hold close to posted prices and also unload the full cargo in one sale at the first destination.

 

[Mace71]

Especially if we start the game with 100 cr

I can just hear the complaints at that when it happens! All these non Elite (original) players who are trying to change the game, they will have a fit. Can't wait