SC Economy revamp and other ideas

[ORCA1911]

The trade system

Obviously im going to start with the trade system, I consider the chat trade as the first step of a much bigger concept we could get in near future. We simply cant get past the language barrier and unless you live on the chat window you wont sell anything, only buy, if anyone reads your request that is.

Spoiler

The trade needs to move to a separate window where all trade/sell offers are shown and last for 24 hours with at least a price filter and 100GS as default lowest price. If the tax could be lower then the default price could be higher. 10 trades per day should be a good starting limit or no limit if we can get such a fairy tale.

The chat trade could be used as an instant trade without tax or not used at all (deleted).

Bundles

Instead of all the limit attempts and everything in-between, putting basic materials up for trade would be a perfect win-win for everyone. The older players could sell their excess materials to newer players, the veterans would earn GS and new players would get the much needed materials instantly and all would sort itself out by that point where limiting resources is not even needed but everyone would be satisfied because they got what they needed in a very simple way.

Needless to say that such sales should come in stacks, selling 100 pieces of something 3 items at a time is a Sisyphean task. Stacks should come with a default fixed price and a fixed amount of pieces per stack (10 items per one stack would be a good start with 50-100GS for one stack depending on how hard that item is to acquire and not how much one thinks its worth might be, im looking at you devs).

How would this affect the bundles then? Well, we could get rid of metal blanks and other basic resources not fit of the name like Rare destroyer parts and for the first time in the bundle history only get actual rare destroyer parts randomly ranging between one or more ores OR one or more plates, whatever the latter.

Guaranteed drops means guaranteed buys, financial background doesnt matter because at least you know you will get what you need without a fear of spending money and getting nowhere at all in the end.

Max rank missions

It is weird for me to write about this topic, but if you really want to sell ellydium ships by not making them nearly broken to no chance of repair, why not make them modular so you can take them with you as the ““max rank”” ship of any rank. I would love them for that alone.

Voucher missions

In all honesty they are fair, if you want vouchers, play your factions max rank ship, but that is no solution really, introducing the same but scaled by tier voucher missions is the best way to end the current voucher dilemma.

The tier system

Seeing the new content roll out and all the issues with constant tier changes and bonuses, I would only suggest a 3-tier system giving bonuses only to the lowest ranks of each tier but never mixing them together in any way. It would look like this, first tier would go from rank 1 to rank 6, second would go from rank 7 to 11 and the third one would go from 12 to 15.

Explanation is simple, i spent a lot of time teaching newcomers while also analyzing their knowledge, skill, power of the ships and builds and modes available to them, they just synergize best at these tiers and provide just the perfect amount of everything from experience to overall gains and progress and unlocks provided by the game itself.

Open Space Quests

Downright pointless to do yet i do them every once in a while just for the giggles, maybe reworking them to give iridium instead would spark some more interest and activity in this mode. The credit and synergy they offer are so minimal anyway that nobody could do any decent progress on completing them even on premium. Also more alien world daily missions would be great, Leviathan catacombs could be an awesome map addition and a start to that idea.

Customization

If all of what i suggested gets done by some miracle, customization would be the only natural thing to upgrade and monetize decently, the more you make the more profit one could gain and since the game is skill based, drop your act with broken shippery and rather focus upon visual aspects of the game for profit.

Also a totally unrelated thing that kind of bothers me personally, IF the makers of the game wish for fame and profit like a MOBA or FPS games have these days with all of their tournaments and other events, then going home on Friday afternoon while everything is in a “crash and burn” state (over the whole weekend) is not really the best thing one should do.

Let me hear your opinion, i know i left out plenty and forgot even more and a whole economy plan doesnt fit on one A4 page but you gotta start somewhere at least.

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[ORCA1911]

Added a thing or two meanwhile.

[41387612]

I like it and I think you covered it but to put it in lamens terms; the ellydium ships can have the rank changed which I think should count as being the max rank for its side of conflict. Thing about it is that if you are doing a mission and have to use max rank ship and are having difficulties completing it because of say, idk, some deep pockets with r15 taikin are destroying the game for example, then it would be great to just lower the rank of all ellydium ships to like rank 9 and go do your thing.

[ORCA1911]

The idea was kinda simple, basically lower your lets say tharga to r5 and play r5 ships and have fun doing missions as well, simple as that 

[3835727]

54 minutes ago, ORCA1911 said:

The idea was kinda simple, basically lower your lets say tharga to r5 and play r5 ships and have fun doing missions as well, simple as that 

And yet here we are. With nothing but a bad feeling.

[ORCA1911]

Well, we can suggest but the rest is up to other people…

[39481814]

The max rank is a problem, but event missions shouldn’t force us to play random games without options to fulfill them. For example capture a beacon and win the game when we keep getting games without beacons. Also missions in general should be based on skills of each pilot not ship ranks. This will give better stats to devs. For example kill 4 enemies with a frigate. There is some players who will find this easy because 90% of the times they play in higher rank they get this medal. Others get this medal only a 10% in the higher rank. In this case i think it is wise to avoid frustration of those players and lower the requeriments of the mission.

Using Ellydium ships as max rank isn’t a good idea because it is like blocking something and giving a workaround to everybody at the same time. Here the problem is you only need a Ellydium ship with a rank of 5 to bypass everything.

Open space missions got something new lately. The ‘old friends of Natasha’ mission got a multi sector objective. i don’t remember seen this before. I hope this won’t be the last improve. And better rewards, if not in loot, at least once we finish the mission.

Customitation is hard to monetize when we have so many different ships and so many free paints.

[ORCA1911]

I see everything in terms like “what are they stat testing now”, so this max rank thing is probably related to the question of how far ahead is a SC player on average i guess. If not that than the aim of pushing vets to end-game ships and tiers with max rank idea is a useless idea because it mildly fixes an issue that’s not really worth fixing much + it’s kinda their fault bombarding T3 with soo many cool ships and special treatments that people just don’t wanna play higher tiers, which is kinda the games aim, or rather should be.

There are many issues present even aside the taikin rampage (which also should not exist since we had at least a public test and now its just tharga all over again) but i believe the key is upgrading the trade system ASAP to a listing version rather than chat being the main point. It would sort of trigger a chain reaction of possible upgrades and improvements that will benefit both sides and allow the game to grow as it should. 

[3522870]

On 1.5.2017 at 1:56 AM, ORCA1911 said:

Seeing the new content roll out and all the issues with constant tier changes and bonuses, I would only suggest a 3-tier system giving bonuses only to the lowest ranks of each tier but never mixing them together in any way. It would look like this, first tier would go from rank 1 to rank 6, second would go from rank 7 to 11 and the third one would go from 12 to 15.

Explanation is simple, i spent a lot of time teaching newcomers while also analyzing their knowledge, skill, power of the ships and builds and modes available to them, they just synergize best at these tiers and provide just the perfect amount of everything from experience to overall gains and progress and unlocks provided by the game itself.

I can live with everything you wrote except this. Now I have also spent a lot of time with newcomers, not only directly in my corp, but also indirectly, by looking at the population, how they play, how they evolve, for years. It came also with my own development - how do you explain to someone who is new to the game, and wants to quickly reach up and feels strong already, that there will be that humbling moment, where you realize, it does make a difference whether you know ships? Giving tipps on fits, what works and what not, and at the same time encourage to try out, exercise, watch and learn - an endless process, even amongst old players - so excuse me if I say, altough you have spent time with this, if you did, you possibly realized, anything you do to help them easier progress will also hurt them in spending enough time in a certain meta. Never think you know what is best for everybody, you ignore your own pain, want to ease others, but then, see what happened to the population, when T3 had been cleared out of vets, and nobody actually saw how strong gunships can be in coordinated fights…

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for faster rewards, more progression, but only to actually prevent people from immediately going highest rank, and spend some time in some meta, because they are not lured by higher rank rewards only, and spend times with ships even after they reach max synergy (which is where it actually BEGINS to understand a ship). Because, again, if you synergize all ships R1-R9 to max, unlocking all the rest of the ships (R10-R15) takes just a few weeks, so in T4 the only reason for slow progression is, if the tier is inbetween hard and medium, and nobody plays there except a few who like to farm the less convoluted tiers.

Mixing R9 with R11, or even R7 and R8 sounds terrible. R9 has a huge amount of ships, with a very old meta, and it just about works with R10 together. True, in R15, a R9 with bonuses can compete, but on their own, they just get outclassed. Why take a Styx, if you can have the Minotaur?

On the other hand, R11 ships are strong enough, that they still work in R15, and give the same “weaker but more useful for a task” mentality, that R8 ships have in R9 meta.

So basicly, R15 should be R11-R15 on any case. I assume I know, why you want R11 in mid tier  - you want to use Gargoyles and Darts to their maximum efficiency, you want R11 destros to have some playtime, but how does that help newcomers, to have to fight against such ships, that even R15s fear? I mean R7, R8 are really weak, and only make a lot of sense, because they have a few niche ships that R9 doesnt have, or only as DLC ships. Instead, R15 should concentrate on balancing in the R14 destros, that R11 vs. R14 makes sense.

The best tier system yet was R10-R15 for hard, and R10 being a double rank. All the R10 ships I tried, and I tried nearly all of them, worked well in hard, with the bonuses, and were still strong enough in T3 (where they had none). I do agree tho, that clearer rank divides, as you say, would allow for some more stable meta, as you can better expect ships.

I am less sure about low ranks, so R1-R7. I think, having two tiers there seems useful, especially, since R1-3 is really just a tutorial tier. I think even if speak about 3-tier systems, R1-3 should probably form their own rank, based on playtime and skill, while R1-R6 basicly is mainly R4-R6. Also, again, R7 might be usable as a double rank, like R10.

Only looking at the ships, and the meta they build if thrown together. But definitely, R11 should not be the highest rank in mid tier. If you talk about developing players, R10 is not the place, where someone should not have a grasp of the game, and know how to develop on his own. There should be no talk about “newcomers” in R10+. They both (R9&R11) are ranks with a high ship count, which is why they should not be mixed together.

I am missing one thing tho in this: rank restrictions in squads, or equipping ships, with a clear predefined rank system should cease to exist. only two ranks below the theoretical maximum rank of a hardness level should be allowed (so R9, R10 in R11-R15 for example), but otherwise, people should be able to freely choose between available ships, and even if you go R10+R15, all of those ships should be usable in battle. It would increase diversity a lot. And it worked wonderfully, before Ellydium ships came - and they broke all tiers in a way anyway.

[3487991]

1 hour ago, g4borg said:

I can live with everything you wrote except this. Now I have also spent a lot of time with newcomers, not only directly in my corp, but also indirectly, by looking at the population, how they play, how they evolve, for years. It came also with my own development - how do you explain to someone who is new to the game, and wants to quickly reach up and feels strong already, that there will be that humbling moment, where you realize, it does make a difference whether you know ships? Giving tipps on fits, what works and what not, and at the same time encourage to try out, exercise, watch and learn - an endless process, even amongst old players - so excuse me if I say, altough you have spent time with this, if you did, you possibly realized, anything you do to help them easier progress will also hurt them in spending enough time in a certain meta. Never think you know what is best for everybody, you ignore your own pain, want to ease others, but then, see what happened to the population, when T3 had been cleared out of vets, and nobody actually saw how strong gunships can be in coordinated fights…

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for faster rewards, more progression, but only to actually prevent people from immediately going highest rank, and spend some time in some meta, because they are not lured by higher rank rewards only, and spend times with ships even after they reach max synergy (which is where it actually BEGINS to understand a ship). Because, again, if you synergize all ships R1-R9 to max, unlocking all the rest of the ships (R10-R15) takes just a few weeks, so in T4 the only reason for slow progression is, if the tier is inbetween hard and medium, and nobody plays there except a few who like to farm the less convoluted tiers.

Mixing R9 with R11, or even R7 and R8 sounds terrible. R9 has a huge amount of ships, with a very old meta, and it just about works with R10 together. True, in R15, a R9 with bonuses can compete, but on their own, they just get outclassed. Why take a Styx, if you can have the Minotaur?

On the other hand, R11 ships are strong enough, that they still work in R15, and give the same “weaker but more useful for a task” mentality, that R8 ships have in R9 meta.

So basicly, R15 should be R11-R15 on any case. I assume I know, why you want R11 in mid tier  - you want to use Gargoyles and Darts to their maximum efficiency, you want R11 destros to have some playtime, but how does that help newcomers, to have to fight against such ships, that even R15s fear? I mean R7, R8 are really weak, and only make a lot of sense, because they have a few niche ships that R9 doesnt have, or only as DLC ships. Instead, R15 should concentrate on balancing in the R14 destros, that R11 vs. R14 makes sense.

The best tier system yet was R10-R15 for hard, and R10 being a double rank. All the R10 ships I tried, and I tried nearly all of them, worked well in hard, with the bonuses, and were still strong enough in T3 (where they had none). I do agree tho, that clearer rank divides, as you say, would allow for some more stable meta, as you can better expect ships.

I am less sure about low ranks, so R1-R7. I think, having two tiers there seems useful, especially, since R1-3 is really just a tutorial tier. I think even if speak about 3-tier systems, R1-3 should probably form their own rank, based on playtime and skill, while R1-R6 basicly is mainly R4-R6. Also, again, R7 might be usable as a double rank, like R10.

Only looking at the ships, and the meta they build if thrown together. But definitely, R11 should not be the highest rank in mid tier. If you talk about developing players, R10 is not the place, where someone should not have a grasp of the game, and know how to develop on his own. There should be no talk about “newcomers” in R10+. They both (R9&R11) are ranks with a high ship count, which is why they should not be mixed together.

I am missing one thing tho in this: rank restrictions in squads, or equipping ships, with a clear predefined rank system should cease to exist. only two ranks below the theoretical maximum rank of a hardness level should be allowed (so R9, R10 in R11-R15 for example), but otherwise, people should be able to freely choose between available ships, and even if you go R10+R15, all of those ships should be usable in battle. It would increase diversity a lot. And it worked wonderfully, before Ellydium ships came - and they broke all tiers in a way anyway.

[3522870]

On 1.5.2017 at 1:56 AM, ORCA1911 said:

The older players could sell their excess materials to newer players, the veterans would earn GS and new players would get the much needed materials instantly and all would sort itself out by that point where limiting resources is not even needed but everyone would be satisfied because they got what they needed in a very simple way.

my only problem with this is, that actually, the revamp made sure, older players have not that much of excess materials, that really count, and the ones that have, are really a minority imho. This would basicly only work for a while. It might also cripple progressing players if they try to sell those resources on such a market. So all I say is, for a longterm solution, the “older player has this and that” doesnt really work, so it should not be “planned in”. Even as I sit on thousands of metal blanks, it’s a one-time-fortune. Generally as said, I do agree to more market liberties. also the stack idea, albeit, stacks of 50 would be fine.

I actually thought, they are going to use iridium as secondary currency for base materials eventually.

[ORCA1911]

Your comment is bigger than the concept…

Ships from rank 1 to 6, if a player wants to learn the game, teach the very basic mechanics of the game itself necessary to develop some sort of playstyle of your own. With rank 7 to 9 you begin to reach that passive modifier max slot number and with rank 11 you get to use and learn the advanced actives and passives for most of the subclasses before hitting the end tier. One of the most important things, a player should max out the first 6 ranks of each faction to be able to progress normally in terms of synergy gains, they are the easiest ships to max out but the benefit is far greater than effort put into it.

There is not much difference between a rank 11 and 9 apart from crew implants and similar minor extras, but the other reasons why i chose the ranks i did, rank 6 unlocks open space, rank 11 is packed with a ton of different ships like no other rank which gives diversity and on rank 12 you unlock the forth combat slot, which is convenient for reaching end tier content. Then there’s the destroyers which are also rank 11 while the rank 8s serve more as a destroyer learning curve than anything else, being limited to 6 modifier slots doesnt really make them of much value unless they get one extra meanwhile. I always forget about gargoyle and dart since i always knew they will get nerfed to the ground so whatever the rank they occupy makes no difference to the idea.

The thought is too crude to talk in detail but i do appreciate your details on this one, as for the excess materials, not everyone is a ship collector making SP ships or similar so why not earn some extra GS, trade is not a trade if all the games items are not included.

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3 hours ago, ORCA1911 said:

The thought is too crude to talk in detail but i do appreciate your details on this one

yeah well, i see how you saw it, but for me that is an important edge we have reached here, progressively, the r9 / t3 meta has been tried to “get broken up” - because for the first 3 years, most ppl played t3 actually. no matter if they were actually already in higher tiers from their equipment. much of the balancing of ships has been on this data. Thats why i reacted so strongly, and with much text. I’d love to preserve the good aspects of SC in the future decisions

r9 is also a very diverse rank, if you look close. Especially because it has a lot of DLC / GS ships, that do really make a difference. And nearly every R9 ship has its use - I think by now even the Dragonfly.

R12 is different, as most of the GS ships there are less special, and kinda interchangeable with the standard ships.

Most of the R11 ships also are very much capable of bringing some “T3 meta” (slow, tanky, specialized fits, lots of defense) into R15 (fast, cookie cutting allrounder ships, with less diversity in tank)

especially because R11 is so diverse, it belongs to the R15 meta imho. It opens up a lot of choices, that complement each other. Especially also since ships like Sawtooth e.g. totally fill the niche of long range jerri tackling, something the katana ae does well.

I could have written a lot more believe me, it was just excerpts of why I think, this is something you should question a lot, especially, in the sight, how the game feels if you play R15 mainly, as one day you might miss to equip a bit of the r11 and still face r15s yourself.

But I think we both agree, the worst solution is the current re-established T4 as an inbetween. No matter which way to go, I think we both see that. It’s also historical, that it never actually worked.

I do also think, that you e.g. were in a generation of pilots, who did not have enough T3, and you were denied the beauty of it, maybe i got it wrong, but i think you joined in the era of tier mixing - i mean, over years, the only game mode that still had lots of players, was tournaments, partly because of GS, partly, because it was straight forward t3. So maybe you missed how diverse and balanced they are - at least around the standard ship choices - putting them into an arena with r11 and r10 basicly would end up in high rankers coming down to “snipe a few” with their gargs, and kinda remove the large learning effect of r9 - where you have as you say all active slots but at the same time, most ships have only 1-2 viable fits, as they still do not possess a lot of passives.

On the other hand, many R10 are almost weaker than their R9 counterparts (Garm vs. Styx, Anaconda-M vs. Mk2, Black Bomber vs. Sai, etc.), where the R10 shines, is getting all those nice bonuses in R15. PArt of that is that e.g. cloaking field for guards is a R11 item, as are many other modules. They would also make it kinda unfair. The beauty of R10 being able to sometimes play in mid and high ends up in “bringing some high tier gameplay” into mid by having a few offensively stronger ships, that still do not dominate the existing r9 ecosystem. Only mentioning this because well, it is the point where i got a bit “friendly” with the “slight tier mix” going on there. Back in the day, I was old guard and against any tier mixing whatsoever.

For the destros, i did like the idea of making R11 more destro-destro capable; also the rank bonuses kinda allow r11 to be tankier, than a r14 dessie (but nothing can beat the vigilante vacuum cleaning the map anyway, its not even en par with the other r14 destros so wtf)

anyway, thx for listening up, sry for wall of text. for me, this was actually short  and yes, it is kinda just a part of your proposal, as most of it is about something else, so sry again. But it needed to be written down.

[3522870]

oh yeah and btw. i would also change the anaconda to r10 while at it.

totally off topic, but yeah. it just bugs me, how much the valor has an edge, even being my most beloved craft.

well okay, lets see the new ships first anyway.

[ORCA1911]

I was actually a fan of t4 ships, my first line of ships were tacklers due to open space, hyena models and wolfs, jaguar was my first SP ship. I cant see a difference between rank 9 10 but 11 is slightly better but not all that much better. 7 and 8 are like the first baby steps of an actual challenging gameplay due to their stat limits and crew limits. 

How would you suggest to handle tiers, old-school 5 tiers or 3 tier a bit differently rearranged and why?

[39939376]

So, next things are on discussion at the moment: final version of trade interface, basic resources in stacks, increasing iridium income (possible with corporations will be more integrated into the main gameplay). 

The tiers/ranks system rework is in progress already, but I can’t speak much about it for now, let’s just say it’s pretty ambitious and gamechanging. And about customization - we’re trying to do our best here and add as many skins and special unique elements as possible. The bat on Tai’kin is our first attempt to make new custom elements on ships, more of this is expected ”)