Star Citizen Online - The search for more money

The way I've heard it explained is that if you focus on one role for your skills you can be up to speed relatively quickly and as long as you are playing that role you aren't at a disadvantage to the people who have every kind of role maxed out because they can only do one thing at a time?

Carl_sl said:

The way I've heard it explained is that if you focus on one role for your skills you can be up to speed relatively quickly and as long as you are playing that role you aren't at a disadvantage to the people who have every kind of role maxed out because they can only do one thing at a time?

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If you are talking about EvE that's partly true and I said so. You can do a single very specific role "relatively" quickly but to get all of the supporting skills that basically boost every other combat, and some none combat, roles takes a significant amount of time invested.

Ok put it this way. If you want the bare bones jump into a ship and go? Yeah you can do that relatively quickly. Maxing everything out so you are actually, at least skill points wise, comparable to someone else in that same role will take some time. A lot of time depending on what ship you want to fly.

I specifically left out gear because naturally the more people play the better gear they will have. Someone in EVE that has 5+ years invested can easily afford and/or obtain some of the best gear in the game while someone starting out even with the same skills is going to get curb stomped.

SC is thankfully not like that. You can see some really good pilots using Aurora LNs stomping every type of combat fighter currently playable in AC. That's virtually impossible to do in EVE as it has more to do with engagement distance, mounted weapons and your skills (skill points) with them as well as various supporting skills. So SC is more twitch based obviously while EVE is more I dunno RPG based? Something like that.

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

Umm isk isn't hard to make in that game and getting $600 of isk is very doable with minimal investment.

You can't just put hate on EVE because of the Plex to dollar conversion.

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Maybe EVE is different now then when I last logged in which was a few years back but as a noob starting out you basically have no fucking idea what you should be doing to make enough money quickly to buy a character. I admit I was never successful at farming ISK so I'm not the authority on it. I do have friends who make insane amount of ISK and they do wormhole runs as it's the most efficient way to make ISK despite the high risk.

I just can't see a noob going there without someone showing them the ropes. The game is not user friendly enough to allow that sort of exploration and even if they somehow made it and didn't get ganked as soon as they went through by cloaked ships they still wouldn't have any idea what to do once they are there. Basically you need someone to show them how to exploit the game mechanics to allow a noob to obtain rare materials that they can then sell on the market for a hefty profit without ever getting into a fight since they would never survive it.

That means they need to join a very friendly corp that does regular wormhole runs and trains up noobs. Yes I know they exist but I'm talking about the average noob and not necessarily a smart one or one motivated enough to do those things. They might just want to rat in which case it's going to take them weeks or months to equip their ship let alone start exploring null space and lose that ship and gear.

So to sum it up IMO you are talking about edge cases which doesn't seem realistic.

I am not leaving the ships out of the equation - which are the major factor of the cost on the SC side. Sure if you disregard that factor SC would do well in a comparison, and if that's your point we can agree to just have different view points on the matter.

Agreed that EVE is in no way newbie friendly <insert learning cliff.jpg> ... that's a different topic though. As a noob in EVE I went mining worthless amounts of common ore and did missions for pittance. SC will likely be the same. You kill kobolds until you can buy or loot a new sword that can kill bigger kobolds. That is, unless you threw down for varios triple-digit vessels already to skip that part. Which brings you to buying a skilled char in EVE, and the cost isnt so different anymore.

One interesting tangent of this is, how much skill and knowledge will SC require to perform ok or better? Most MMOs are pretty much mental autopilot

I believe EVE with their destructable assets and fairly difficult mechanics for a newbie (fitting, weapon types and ranges, transversial) would do you a disservice by getting you into big ships faster then the current couple of weeks. I do hope that SC will challenge a player in both these regards, unlike the standard fare fantasy MMO where most of the weight is on your level vs the mob level.

I'm sure for those of us who haven't spent rent payments on ships, there will be a satisfying curve to climb ship wise, and probably a decent curve to climb with the pvp slider as well. I don't imagine that this game is going to feel anywhere near as good as eve does from a player run galaxy setting though, as always being in some form of instance and being able to hide from players definitely defeats that.

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

Mining is easy and cheap and make you a lot. It's just boring.

You are making these into fringe cases where someone can make a lot of money to say that it can't be done. I counter with the fact that anyone who wants to buy a character that way is going to take the ten minutes to research an isk making method to support his goal.

Your whole argument is that it's too hard for a new character to get in the game because of the way the XP system to work but you aren't thinking about the fact that buying characters like this is a ladder system. You make a newb, train it to make some money, spend as much as you can on a better character, that one makes more money, this allows you to buy a better character and on and on. Someone with half a brain can get into EVE and keep laddering characters to the top and never pay for a subscription ever.

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Nobody and I mean nobody I know has ever done this in EVE. I'm not saying it isn't brilliant because it is but this is something that was introduced when? 2011? I quit in 2011. Maybe that's what new folks joining the game do now I don't know. I only know about EVE since 2011 from my friends who still play and they don't do this and nobody they play with does this. Who knows maybe they are happy with what they got and those they play with just don't know about this or don't do well earning money. I can't answer for that since I'm not wired into the game anymore. I just find it hard to believe it's common enough that, as you suggest, newbies commonly do this. On what basis do you make this claim? Has there been any polls done in the community because it sounds like an interesting aspect of gaming to poll. The SC community does polling all the time about expected gameplay mechanics so I figure the EVE community must do the same. I was never much for the EVE forums so I honestly don't know how things play out there.

Mr Creed_sl said:

I am not leaving the ships out of the equation - which are the major factor of the cost on the SC side. Sure if you disregard that factor SC would do well in a comparison, and if that's your point we can agree to just have different view points on the matter.

Agreed that EVE is in no way newbie friendly <insert learning cliff.jpg> ... that's a different topic though. As a noob in EVE I went mining worthless amounts of common ore and did missions for pittance. SC will likely be the same. You kill kobolds until you can buy or loot a new sword that can kill bigger kobolds. That is, unless you threw down for varios triple-digit vessels already to skip that part. Which brings you to buying a skilled char in EVE, and the cost isnt so different anymore.

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This is apples and oranges. One game allows for multi-crew and has gameplay mechanics, and costs, built into that playstyle and the other lets you pilot a fucking Titan by yourself.

You would have to go down to a starting ship to be comparable and lets not forget the scale differences. You can't compare an Aurora to a EVE noob ship. You would literally have to compare the EVE noob ship in terms of capability to the Idris from SC since they are the same class. This is a fucked debate from the start.

That's why I rather wanted to stick to the gameplay mechanic of gating access to general gameplay and the costs directly associated with that. EVE gates you with skills and there are associated costs to moving up as a_skeleton_03 suggested you can do. Technically while that's being allowed by CCP it wasn't until a few years ago and only because of the sheer volume of scams and SC tickets associated with it. It's not technically a built in game mechanic to hop scotch from one toon to the next. It would be more accurate, if you go by CCP's intention, to have multiple accounts with different specializations on each. Almost everyone I know does this and many commonly have 3 accounts.

So how do you even begin to try to compare this mess? The only gating in SC is literally the ships because there is no skill cost involved but the same can be said for EVE except now you also have to account for multiple accounts or one very old account and the cost associated with that when trading characters and then the monthly maintenance (subscription) for those accounts.

I can't think of an intelligent way to come to an accounting of this. This debate is a looser. Now if you can come up with a way to sort the gameplay mechanics and costs associated that is comparable you will have my ear. Until then this is pointless.

Mr Creed_sl said:

One interesting tangent of this is, how much skill and knowledge will SC require to perform ok or better? Most MMOs are pretty much mental autopilot

I believe EVE with their destructable assets and fairly difficult mechanics for a newbie (fitting, weapon types and ranges, transversial) would do you a disservice by getting you into big ships faster then the current couple of weeks. I do hope that SC will challenge a player in both these regards, unlike the standard fare fantasy MMO where most of the weight is on your level vs the mob level.

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You won't be able to survive on autopilot in SC. Those people in EVE mining and rating with spreadsheets up on top doing various factory and market stuff while doing their day jobs will find it impossible in SC. Every single action station will have its own unique game mechanic that you will simply have to learn and get good at and shockingly you will need to actively monitor and interact with. Many gameplay elements, such as loading missiles, salvaging, mining will require that you do various mini-games not only to be efficient but also so that you don't fucking blow yourself and half your ship into little chunks. NPCs will be able to handle all of those positions but not to the degree of a Human. Trusting drilling to an NPC on a mining barge will be very risky indeed.

Being good at what you do will actually fucking matter and not just your ability to fit a ship properly, that's only one aspect of SC, and knowing when to enable certain abilities during a fight (countermeasures for example) which are all just parts of the overall gameplay mechanic players are required to take part.

This is why the two games are apples and oranges. There is literally no game in existence you can name that can compare because nobody has done this. EVE in its entirety has like a couple of the aspects that exists in SC. Assuming they actually complete all aspects of it as currently planned. But that's a debate we already had.

Carl_sl said:

I'm sure for those of us who haven't spent rent payments on ships, there will be a satisfying curve to climb ship wise, and probably a decent curve to climb with the pvp slider as well. I don't imagine that this game is going to feel anywhere near as good as eve does from a player run galaxy setting though, as always being in some form of instance and being able to hide from players definitely defeats that.

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Ok let me set you straight on instancing. You could watch some videos but I'll sum it up super quick.

The PVP slider cannot be turned off it goes from a factor of 1 to 100 not 0 to 100. Furthermore it's a suggestion to the instance manager not a requirement. If you are mostly mining and minding your own business in a very busy area with dozens of instancing spinning up yes it's possible you may not run into another player intending to pvp but you still might. It can happen and the instance manager can decide to do that instead of sending NPC pirates into your instance. This is done on purpose both in space and on the ground to always have an air of danger lingering just there. It's a designed gameplay mechanic to get you immersed but not flooded with short bus kids. Despite your passivity you may do something the game decides a pirate may wish to interact with and guess what? You go on top of the list to have a pvp player enter your instance. It's not random but geared more toward your actions. As actions should have consequence. A quick example could be you agreeing to smuggle drugs off world in your mining barge in a secret hold. Well there is a good chance someone leaked that and yes that's going to be an actual gameplay mechanic and that pvp player will get a job to hunt your dumb ass down. The intent is to have that happen. Not always but there is a chance. High risk high reward.

As for the actual way instances are generated they are generated as containers in conjunction with the zone system. One zone can be a planet. That planet may have a moon and an orbiting station. The moon can be it's own zone and the station its zone inside that zone. Inside the station zone are multiple zones that comprise of the hangar and other rooms inside the station. The hangar may have yet multiple entrances and rooms which all have their own zones.

Zones can spin up instances as players approach and begin to stream data to the players so you don't have loading screens. It's still in R&D but if it works you shouldn't be able to tell where a zone starts and where one ends as all data you require to see in your immediate area inside the next zone you enter is already streamed to you. The zones only interact between each other. For example the hangar zone will interact with the rooms inside it or the hallway just off it as well as the space directly around the space station but no more.

Ships are also using the zone system in conjunction with a physics grid system to allow you and your crew to move around your ship independent of the zone/instance you are in. Anyone outside of your ship won't have the inner parts streamed to them thereby reducing the memory required for each ship. Same for large objects like a Bengal-class Carrier. To anyone from the outside not intending to land or fire into the inside of the ship won't know what's inside of it and only the outer 3D model will load.

There is another system in place that allows interaction between zones which is most obvious when one ship strikes another ship. This is currently not in game but once it is, and is required for multi-crew, will allow streaming of internal damage as it is taken if required by you to see it.

So inside a single planet zone there could be literally dozens and dozens of zones and they spin up instances as players go through them.

We don't know the player limit yet but no org will be able to fill an entire instance. An instance will always have player slots left available for other people to join. That way you can have a battle with your enemies but you won't be able to join forces with another org and stomp another org 2 vs 1 when player numbers are equal on all sides. The intent is not to allow anyone to exploit the gameplay mechanics to do something silly like that.

Basically if you have a huge org and you want to fight it out with a little one but the zone doesn't allow it because they fit into one zone and you don't you will simply have to come at them in waves. It makes it far more fair and still gives you a massive advantage in large battles.

You will literally get to see the first iteration of this at Gamescom in about 2 and a half weeks.

Sorry I couldn't simplify this but it seemed like you needed examples to understand the concept. Hope I wasn't being presumptuous.

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

Everyone I know does that. They ladder up nonstop.

I didn't say newbies do it. I said anyone who spent a few minutes with google could learn that quite easily.

I know about 5 guys at work that ladder up all the time and have billions and billions of isk.

The point isn't if it's common the point is that the game isn't dead to newbies because they are behind on the power curve because of their XP system.

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If it isn't common it's an edge case. I don't care how simple it is. That's just the way it is. I realize what you are saying but you literally have to teach people to do this. How else would they know? I had no fucking clue until you mentioned this and I had nearly 7 years of experience in EVE. Is this something that is actively encouraged and advertised by CCP? Is it part of their tutorial? I'm going to guess no because it loses them money. Their hand was forced and that's the only reason this even exists. Now if most players do this then so be it. Your experience and mine are polar opposite but as I said I haven't played recently but my friends have. I dunno man. I just don't know how common this is. But I'll tell you something. If it's common enough that newbies actively start doing this soon after joining because they are encouraged to do so and it's done on a wide scale and corps widely encourage this then I would say it's a legit game mechanic commonly in use and a perfectly valid argument. Is it? Forget your or my experience. We are slaves to our own experience. So is it?

a_skeleton_03_sl said:

You say that it will be impossible before the game is even out?

So you are saying it is too hardcore to be casual? Good luck with a game like that selling enough copies to last.

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So now we are debating what is or isn't hardcore.

This isn't fucking CoD and it isn't fucking EVE. Both have astonishingly horrible gameplay mechanics and the only thing holding the cheese strings together people call gameplay is either instant gratification (COD) or friends/community/corp/economy (EVE). I personally don't want to play either but it would be nice to get an immersive experience that neither of those games allow.

How hardcore the game is or isn't is suddenly based on how involved you have to be? What the fuck man. How low have gaming devolved that actually having to play a game is now considered hardcore by some?

No I refuse to listen to that bullshit. There is no fucking way so many people want to continue playing soulless games. I think people just got accustomed to mediocrity so games on the edges like EVE stand out when really they should be relegated to the trash bin. There should have been at least a dozen games by now that moved the entire gaming community forward instead of being stuck in the mud.

I still blame companies like MS and Sony for their bullying tactics combined with Intel vs AMD and the various conspiracies among hardware manufacturers to inflate prices of PC hardware like RAM that limited even more players to enter PC gaming, which would have helped vs consoles, and especially MS and Sony for fucking us with the console ports people think are PC games.

I'm done for today. I can only handle so much.

Variise, the bottom line is money in both games. In SC, in-game money buys you the ships and there are no additional hurdles. EVE, you have the additional skill hurdle but since in-game money can buy skills (characters actually but same thing), you end up with the actual limitation being money, again. That was my point initially. You lamented how fucked a newbie in EVE is today - I just don't think that's the case is all. Giving a player all skills in week 1 would just mean he creates battleship-sized wrecks when he gets himself killed instead of frig-sized. Because after 7 years it might seem easy to you, but starting in EVE is not difficult because of the ship limitations.

I do have high hopes for SC being as difficult and maybe just a bit as unforgiving (EVE is tough because of the people, and SC will want to prevent a good deal of abuse EVE players get away with), and most importantly requiring you to learn your shit because winging it will just get you blown up.


P.S. Multi-crew ships or being able to pilot a titan alone is a strawman. Anyone that can pilot a titan won't take it out ratting solo. It's a group ship, except your team is a fleet and not a crew on the same bridge.