Ship Pricing And Earnings Discussion

ZettaBytes

Just seen this video based on an interview that Chris Roberts gave at Gamescom. It centres around the ship pricing structure after launch and how the disparity between ship pricing is looking to increase anywhere from 100% to 300%. This gives a huge boost to anyone who buys a ship before release.

Another thing touched on is how backers with bigger ships will have access to higher earnings right off the bat, they are actually going to be rewarded for having a bigger ship. While this might not be P2W I can't help but feel it is entering sketchy ground.



Does balance concern you? Do you feel CIG are making the right decision? Do you feel that CIG will get it right?

Erillion

Watched it. The narrator in this video is reading A LOT of stuff into what Chris Roberts has talked about in another interview. Almost none of the things the narrator now assumes as given or "facts" were said by Chris in the Crash interview. Chris discussed it in very high level terms, giving real world examples. But we do not know yet if they apply 1:1 to the in game world.

So ... we still do not know the price of ships after launch day and how long it takes to get one.

The narrator has stated his personal opinion - of which there are many.

W.r.t. to backers with bigger ships having higher earnings right from the start. That may be true for larger cargo haulers ... although we know from the devs that they expect players to NOT have enough in game cash at the beginning to buy enough cargo to fill up a Cargo-D or -E hauler (unless they pool resources). However, other bigger ships like the Javelin will be only marginally operational at the beginnung - because players only bought a hull with a few small civilian weapons and functional engines. They first have to obtain military and/or capital class weaponry for the Javelin. 
Starfarer class fuel tankers may not be exactly money printing machines at first. Orion class mining ships first need to find an interesting place to mine .. and THEN make it back alive to sell the ore. 
Bigger ships have longer trip times as they can only use big jump points.

So again ... at this time we have insufficient knowledge to know if owners of big ships have advantages over other pilots.

Balance ... is a very important topic. That is why i think and extended Alpha and Beta test is important.

Will CIG get it right ? In Multiplayer games they "never get it right" ... in any game ... its a constant adjustment and swinging of the nerf-bat. They can try to get it right. They will never 100 % achieve that goal.


Have fun

Talonsin

Wait, I thought that ships would no longer be sold for real world money after release?

MaxBacon

From the start it is pretty obvious who buys the ship as the advantage of having that ship from day 1, meaning the "skip" of the grind that otherwise you would have to play through get it. So it has to be a progression indeed, if there is a big jump in-between the lower and higher tiers of ship the ships on those tiers will access that content that provides higher earnings, providing scale-ability.

Though what i like on this is that Capital Ships for example are set to be things to achieve on group play, your Organization has to play together to get an Capital Ship that will all make use of, so it is not meant to be a single player getting the biggest ships on the game just because.

If a player plays the game months after it releases he will be also on a disadvantage as all other players already are spread on all the different tiers of gameplay? Sure would, the Day-1 of SC going to have players already spread across several gameplay tiers.


It doesn't concern me because: This is a discussed topic over years already and it's overall known what to expect. There will be a grind bar to reach the higher end, as there is on MMO's the grind to reach the best gear and weapons and stuff. And group play is set to give you the alternative to not needing shiny big ships once day-1, remember the highest tiers of ships will require group play.

Talonsin said:

Wait, I thought that ships would no longer be sold for real world money after release? 

They will not, the game shall continue being sold on Starter Packages.

This is about the balance that will happen towards who bought the ships before release when the game releases, and the balance on earning them in-game.

Talonsin

Erillion said:

So again ... at this time we have insufficient knowledge to know if owners of big ships have advantages over other pilots.

I'm 100% sure that the Constellation you purchased for over $200 with 10 weapon hardpoints and its own fighter will have a huge advantage over any other ship costing less. 

The thing is, CIG has painted itself into quite a jam over this.  If those $200+ are not better than the cheaper ships, the whales will feel like they were taken advantage of and move on.  If they do dominate in PvP then the game will earn a quick P2W reputation and lose much of its player base in the same fashion that Archeage did and BlackDesert is experiencing.

This is the most interesting design aspect of this game to me, where will they draw the line between those $200+ ships in terms of performance. 

Erillion

Talonsin said:

Wait, I thought that ships would no longer be sold for real world money after release?

According to our current level of knowledge CIG is only planning to sell starter ships post launch. That would be Auroras or Mustangs.

However, there are plenty of grey market traders just waiting to jump in and offera  supply to a certain demand.

Black market traders may offer LTI ships for real world cash and at highly inflated prices.

But they only have a small window of opportunity. After a few weeks - when more than enough in game money is in play - those grey/black markets will IMHO be significantly reduced. In every space game i have played (and those were quite a lot) there was millions, billions and trillions of in game money available after a comparatively short amount of time. You will find stories and articles about this effect in e.g. Elite Dangerous, EVE or Star Wars Galaxies.


Have fun

Erillion

Talonsin said:

I'm 100% sure that the Constellation you purchased for over $200 with 10 weapon hardpoints and its own fighter will have a huge advantage over any other ship costing less. 

I doubt me spending months in obscure places scanning for new jump points and new systems with my Connie will make me very rich ;-)

Many people are not in this game to "win" or to make a lot of money.


Have fun 

MaxBacon

Talonsin said:

I'm 100% sure that the Constellation you purchased for over $200 with 10 weapon hardpoints and its own fighter will have a huge advantage over any other ship costing less.  

The thing is, CIG has painted itself into quite a jam over this.  If those $200+ are not better than the cheaper ships, the whales will feel like they were taken advantage of and move on.  If they do dominate in PvP then the game will earn a quick P2W reputation and lose much of its player base in the same fashion that Archeage did and BlackDesert is experiencing.

This is the most interesting design aspect of this game to me, where will they draw the line between those $200+ ships in terms of performance.  

1) Both the player who paid for the Constellation before release, and the Player who would earn the constellation in-game would have an advantage vs Lower Tier Ships (even though the constellation is no particularly good at anything and can be beaten by smaller ships), they are simply better ships there's no way around it.

2) For the game to earn that reputation it would imply they selling that same Constellation or +$200 after release, so what we have is that first impact the game will have on release with players on higher level ships and others on lower level, it's not going to be obviously all players starting the game on a starter ship.

Is it a race? Is there a win?

Talonsin

In all honestly, I think you guys are being very naive when you say that will not be selling ships after release.  They might be saying that now but think about this, If over 1 million people have already purchased the game and are getting it for free with no required sub fee, what will happen to the cash flow once the game launches?

Sci-Fi/Space games have always been on the niche side and selling one million for PC is already a big chunk of the market that would be interested.  Mass Effect was a huge game and only sold 4 to 5 million copies with the majority of those being on consoles.  Source: http://www.vgchartz.com/article/250066/mass-effect-a-sales-history/

I predict that they will either continue the selling of ships for real world money, allow some way to convert real world money into in-game currently to buy ships that way like Eve does with Plex OR implement some kind of sub fee that allows for more content and other features to be accessed. 

Sean Murray publically stated that DLC would be free right before launch day and then less than 10 days  after launch said he was being naive and could not rule the selling of DLC out.  Software is unlike any other product, designers and coders can say anything about their product and get away with it.  Just because Chris has said something on the official site really carries no weight in the grand scheme of things.  The monitization model for this game is coming, they are doing a great job of avoiding it but eventually they will have to address it. 

MaxBacon

Talonsin said:

In all honestly, I think you guys are being very naive when you say that will not be selling ships after release.  They might be saying that now but think about this, If over 1 million people have already purchased the game and are getting it for free with no required sub fee, what will happen to the cash flow once the game launches?

You can feel free to speculate all your want but that's all you can do really.

As you mentioned, they have a way to buy in-game currency like EvE and that's really what defeats the purpose of selling them directly, because even with limitations you will be able to put real cash into buying the ship in-game with currency at the end (or anything else the in-game currency can buy).

So they do have cash flow at release side of game sales and without the ship sales. They are not avoiding the revenue model the MMO will have, in fact that's known for several years already....

azarhal

Talonsin said:

Erillion said:

So again ... at this time we have insufficient knowledge to know if owners of big ships have advantages over other pilots.

I'm 100% sure that the Constellation you purchased for over $200 with 10 weapon hardpoints and its own fighter will have a huge advantage over any other ship costing less. 

Huge advantage at what? Fighting? The Constellation is slower than the smaller dedicated fighters and its main offense is missiles which are a pain to target at smaller fast ships, can be avoided rather easily and cost a lot of $$$ to replenish. Macross Missiles Massacre is cool to look at though. Cargo hauling? It has an awful cargo/ship size ratio compared to the other cargo haulers unless you get the Taurus variant which doesn't have the snub-fighter. Operation cost? It requires 5 players/NPCs to fully operate without automated hardware...

Herase

azarhal said:

Talonsin said:

Erillion said:

So again ... at this time we have insufficient knowledge to know if owners of big ships have advantages over other pilots.

I'm 100% sure that the Constellation you purchased for over $200 with 10 weapon hardpoints and its own fighter will have a huge advantage over any other ship costing less. 

Huge advantage at what? Fighting? The Constellation is slower than the smaller dedicated fighters and its main offense is missiles which are a pain to target at smaller fast ships, can be avoided rather easily and cost a lot of $$$ to replenish. Macross Missiles Massacre is cool to look at though. Cargo hauling? It has an awful cargo/ship size ratio compared to the other cargo haulers unless you get the Taurus variant which doesn't have the snub-fighter. Operation cost? It requires 5 players/NPCs to fully operate without automated hardware...

I think the problem is most people aren't factoring these things in, in most games it's black and white, but when you start to factor in these small details, things change. Yeah you can buy the big ass ship, but that big ass ship, like you said, has to be run by 5 people or more, has a massive upkeep, and it's slow. Can't blame them, this had been driven home by so many companies, it's expected to be the norm.

So you're not invincible, if that what people think. You want the big ship? It's gonna come with massive drawbacks.

If they take all these little things out by launch, then yeah I would agree with the P2W

Arillix

I can understand the concerns, however as @Erillion has rightfully pointed out, making money will most likely be child's play.

As I remember being able to make over 2 mill in Freelancer within a few hours of play doing missions and "mining" the wreck fields and pirates that would always be attacking and selling off all unused weapons and such.

Heck even now in 2.4 people are getting like 2500, to 3000 aUEC for the rudimentary salvaging that can be done, per ship wreck found.

Speculation on my part:

1) How much will bounties pay out, may depend on the corp/mission giver willing to pay, and the notoriety of said bounty. (could be in the millions for one bounty)
2) How much in game credits can be earned with search and rescue. (could be thousands per pilot/civilian, or maybe only hundreds)
3) How much mining will pay out would be commensurate with the ores minded and the demand for that type of ore, and most likely if processed or not. (could range from mear hundreds to multiple billions and higher)   
This list could go on to cover all the in game credit making possibilities.

filmoret

CIG is trying to sell more ships right now.  Thats no big surprise and the formula it will always follow.  This game is going to be worse then Archeage ever dreamed of when it comes to P2W.

rpmcmurphy

Interesting to see this addressed a bit. It's something that I've had quite a few discussions about in the past
Here's the actual interview with Roberts. He quite clearly states that he wants more disparity and that bigger ships will get bigger rewards.

Quote: "I could see a Constellation costing significantly more in in-game credits than it does right now if you're pledging and stuff"

Previously he's said about 60 hours for a Connie, which works out to be ~5000 UEC per hour, nearly 20 days to earn at 3 hours per night.
If he's on about it costing significantly more, say 3x the price, then you're looking at 60 days to earn the basic ship, excluding any mishaps a long the way. That is a huge head start to be giving people that have chosen to pay up front.
Not only that but they are getting more rewarding missions straight away which means the disparity in wealth is significantly higher significantly quicker.

Of course Erillion is going to play it down, the guy bought a Connie....

It's amazing that it takes Roberts just over 4 minutes to answer such a simple question.

azarhal

rpmcmurphy said:

Here's the actual interview with Roberts. He quite clearly states that he wants more disparity and that bigger ships will get bigger rewards.

Bigger ships get bigger rewards otherwise you'll be operating them at a lost. Doing a 5000 UEC reward missions on a Constellation Andromeda won't even pay for one missile replacement (the cheapest missile is currently 6000 UEC). Any of the starter ships will pick that 5000 UEC missions and basically make all of that in profit (remove fuel and repair costs if any) because they don't have missiles (some variant can have 4 missiles...the Constellation has x10 that).

What you don't seem to understand is that bigger ships aren't replacing the smaller ones, you buy a ship based on what you want to do in the game and I guarantee you that the majority are going to stick to the fighters and light cargo instead of going to larger multi-crew ships.

rpmcmurphy

azarhal said:

Bigger ships get bigger rewards otherwise you'll be operating them at a lost. Doing a 5000 UEC reward missions on a Constellation Andromeda won't even pay for one missile replacement (the cheapest missile is currently 6000 UEC). Any of the starter ships will pick that 5000 UEC missions and basically make all of that in profit (remove fuel and repair costs if any) because they don't have missiles (some variant can have 4 missiles...the Constellation has x10 that).

What you don't seem to understand is that bigger ships aren't replacing the smaller ones, you buy a ship based on what you want to do in the game and I guarantee you that the majority are going to stick to the fighters and light cargo instead of going to larger multi-crew ships.

Yes bigger ships get bigger rewards, that's a given otherwise it would be pointless in having them but from the way Roberts was expressing himself an Aurora owner would get a reward of 5000 UEC while a Connie owner would get a reward of 25,000 UEC.

Please don't tell me what I don't understand, I understand that in virtually every single MMO or MMO-lite people want to have a form of progression, they will view things like the larger ships as their goal, that is unavoidable, but it's also besides the point.

The only point here is that those who have paid get a lot more, a lot sooner than those who haven't paid.

azarhal

rpmcmurphy said:

azarhal said:

Bigger ships get bigger rewards otherwise you'll be operating them at a lost. Doing a 5000 UEC reward missions on a Constellation Andromeda won't even pay for one missile replacement (the cheapest missile is currently 6000 UEC). Any of the starter ships will pick that 5000 UEC missions and basically make all of that in profit (remove fuel and repair costs if any) because they don't have missiles (some variant can have 4 missiles...the Constellation has x10 that).

What you don't seem to understand is that bigger ships aren't replacing the smaller ones, you buy a ship based on what you want to do in the game and I guarantee you that the majority are going to stick to the fighters and light cargo instead of going to larger multi-crew ships.

Yes bigger ships get bigger rewards, that's a given otherwise it would be pointless in having them but from the way Roberts was expressing himself an Aurora owner would get a reward of 5000 UEC while a Connie owner would get a reward of 25,000 UEC.

Not from the same mission dude and it is doubtful the Aurora would be able to do the 25k UEC mission (Aurora probably doesn't have the jump engine or the cargo space to do it).

Erillion

As you can see from the ARGO description ... not all ships are made in an ever upward curving spiral of progression. Some are deliberately basic, easy to fly, small. NOT made to create billionaires.

"....In a galaxy full of badass starfighters, impossibly complex explorers, massive cargo ships and rough-and-ready miners, is there room for some simplicity? The team at ARGO Astronautics says: YES. The ARGO may not be any kind of warship and it’s unlikely an ARGO will ever be the first to set down on an alien world… but they are an essential part of human commerce, which makes them a valuable tool for anyone interested in building a mercantile empire.

The MPUV platform, generally called the ARGO after the company that designs and produces the ship, consists of a universal cab attached to a variety of different role-specific modules. The United Empire of Earth’s military forces use ARGO variants extensively for everything from search and rescue to personnel transport to munitions loading. The ARGO is, by all accounts, easy to pick up and fly (many new pilots train on them) and especially effective in its particular roles. Today, two variants are available for service in the Stanton System....."

Have fun

azarhal

Erillion said:

As you can see from the ARGO description ... not all ships are made in an ever upward curving spiral of progression. Some are deliberately basic, easy to fly, small. NOT made to create billionaires.

I'm not sure about "NOT create billionaires", it's just going to take a long time with the ARGO, but I'm sure that cargo hauling business is thriving in most star systems.

rpmcmurphy

Erillion said:

As you can see from the ARGO description ... not all ships are made in an ever upward curving spiral of progression. Some are deliberately basic, easy to fly, small. NOT made to create billionaires.

"....In a galaxy full of badass starfighters, impossibly complex explorers, massive cargo ships and rough-and-ready miners, is there room for some simplicity? The team at ARGO Astronautics says: YES. The ARGO may not be any kind of warship and it’s unlikely an ARGO will ever be the first to set down on an alien world… but they are an essential part of human commerce, which makes them a valuable tool for anyone interested in building a mercantile empire.

The MPUV platform, generally called the ARGO after the company that designs and produces the ship, consists of a universal cab attached to a variety of different role-specific modules. The United Empire of Earth’s military forces use ARGO variants extensively for everything from search and rescue to personnel transport to munitions loading. The ARGO is, by all accounts, easy to pick up and fly (many new pilots train on them) and especially effective in its particular roles. Today, two variants are available for service in the Stanton System....."

Have fun

All well and true but this is the exception rather than the rule.

Gdemami

They do not have any relevant game content(making money) in yet and they are already thinking about ship prices...?

Development of this game is the weirdest I have ever seen...

Erillion

Gdemami said:

They do not have any relevant game content(making money) in yet and they are already thinking about ship prices...?

Development of this game is the weirdest I have ever seen...

They already have various missions in the game for making money.


Have fun

PS:
As @azarhal said one can also salvage wrecks (after killing some pirate ships) in the dusty dark clusters in the Yela asteroid belt.

Shodanas

Games like SC can never be balanced and offer even ground to everyone. The reason is as simple as it gets: time.

No lifers, people playing 10 or 12+ hours per day will always have an advantage over others and there is no way around it.

azarhal

Gdemami said:

They do not have any relevant game content(making money) in yet and they are already thinking about ship prices...?

Development of this game is the weirdest I have ever seen...

Since PTU 2.4 and persistence was added there are paying missions and you can salvage wrecks to make money. You can then spend that money in ArcCorp and Port Olisar (and now GrimHex in 2.5) stores to buy a few things like clothes and weapons. They expended that a bit in 2.5 which just released (which also meant that 2.4 progress was wiped...welcome to alpha development)...

rodarin

I usually dont comment on stuff that may or may not even happen in this project but there were so many follow up questions there its ridiculous. 

There would be three I would have asked right off the bat.

1) Isnt selling these ships obvious pay to win?
2) Youre selling (giving for pledges) very advanced ships are you selling progression?
3) Can people fly every ship they bought day one with no skill requirements?

Then depending on responses to those questions would be more follow up questions.

As I said no matter what happens with this project, its made, it doesnt get made, its what they say it will be, its not what they say it will be. One constant is that it will be monetized to the max. And anyone who doesnt think that the more money you spend the more advantage you will have are...well there is no definition for it.