Default Market Prices Need Serious Rebalancing

Hello,

The standard set of prices in the Invader vs Defender scenario, and possibly the vanilla scenario as well, are vastly out of balance, allowing players to become exceedingly rich very early on, and completely defeating the purpose of mining, farming, and raiding POIs for all but the rarest items. I base this claim on the Eleon Studios Official US MP server which runs the IvD scenario; Taelyn tells me this server is using the stock prices.

It's one thing to bake in a lot of opportunity for players to play the market if that's the sort of thing they're in to, but it's another entirely if a player can make a 30% profit margin and amass 30 mil credits in an hour or two ferrying goods back and forth between two nearby trading stations.

To that end, I have a short list of suggested changes which I believe would resolve this in as few changes as possible, so that being a pure NPC market trader is not so insanely overpowered anymore.

Here's a summary of my proposed changes to the default prices, and the buy/sell quantities of various POIs:

Polaris Alloy Synthesis and Supply Station POIs:

- Reduce buy/sell quantity of Small/Large Optronic Bridge/Matrix by 90% (arbitraging these two station is the single biggest moneymaker by far, ~30% profit margin on 140 mil credits in a single trip is possible, and there's at least one system with both stations in IvD scenario!)

Polaris Mining Facility:

- Reduce buy/sell quantity of Light Armor and all ores by 90%, either that or increase ore base price by +900%

Global price changes:

- All weapons, tools, and armor that players can create in Large Constructor such as Light Armor and Ore Detector: Reduce base price to 50% of current
- All Armor boost modules: Increase base price by +100%
- Red Health pack, Trauma kit, Ration pack: Reduce buy/sell quantity to 5, and increase base price by +400%
- Canned Vegetables, Canned Meat, Meat Burger, Veggie Burger: increase base price by +200%
- All medical pills/injections/packs which only cure ailments: increase base price by +200%
- Adrenaline shot: Reduce time length from 60s to 30s, increase base price by +200%
- All other food and medical goods sold by Oky Medical, Market Cafe, etc: Reduce buy/sell quantity to ~10 of each, and increase base price by +100%


And if possible, to greatly increase the viability of the player-trade economy:

- Cut transport fee in half
- Change max offer duration from 7d to 30d
- Set default offer duration for sell offers to the max, unless user specifies shorter period

 

Did you ask why things were left that way, and if it caused problems or if it was deliberately left that way to help new players getting up and running as fast as possible, for example ?

Or let me ask this the other way around : what are the consequences of changing the prices like you proposed ?

 

I feel that your question necessitates that I reiterate:

The problem is that those prices do not merely "help new players getting up and running as fast as possible", they completely break the in-game economy the moment someone on an MP server figures out how to exploit them.

It's rather...lets say bold...to immediately assume that I'm wrong given that my assertion is testable, and that my commentary implies that I have already tested it, but sure let's go with that. Consider that I as a competitive player of MP servers would normally be motivated to keep it a secret if I figured out a way to exploit these default market prices and shop quantities, and use this knowledge to reliably dominate almost any multiplayer server that uses these defaults. Consider also that on the Eleon Studios Official US Multiplayer Server, my rank in the Trade Volume category is #1. Consider also that my score is about 300% of the #2 position, that it singlehandedly propels my faction to the top in the faction rankings in this category, that I achieved the majority of this high score in a single day, and that I remain in first place despite the server having been reset back in December. Does it make sense that I as a competitive player of MP servers would tell you how to make it so that I can no longer so effortlessly dominate this category of the high scores on MP servers if my motives and knowledge are as suspect as your question implies?

Instead of simply exploiting this advantageous knowledge that I claim to have, I am offering a solution which removes my own advantage, despite the fact that it very much goes against my interests as a competitive player on multiplayer servers. If my motives and knowledge are as suspect as your question implies, I think the most sensible question one should probably ask first is why would I do that? Could it be that my primary motives here are to call whoever set up those prices wrong or stupid? If so, why didn't I do that, why did I instead only explain that I believe there to be a problem and suggest a change? Perhaps my primary motive was actually to help make the game better. Would that be hard to believe? I don't think so.

This is a much more productive question to be asking. The consequences of rebalancing these prices as I suggest is that it takes the NPC market from a big button that you can essentially repeatedly mash to skip from early game to late game, to still a fairly lucrative pathway for to those who have the patience to sniff out a good deal to supplement their odds for success in the game, but not insanely so. For example, I suggested raising the prices of the red health packs, trauma kits, and the ration packs a lot, but did not suggest raising the prices of the lower tier health item "bandages" by as much. This particular suggested change means that the prices of the lower tier items like bandages, ham, bread, etc, remain accessible to buy in large quantities if desired, but makes the higher tier ones a lot harder to buy in large quantities. Pushing back the accessibility of higher tier items is actually a common sort of balancing, as it does not render an entire category of items inaccessible by its nature.

I understand that balance is a tough thing, and so I made sure that I considered every change that I proposed carefully, because while I wanted my suggestions to fix the brokenness of these prices, I also wanted to ensure my suggestions do not simply break it in the other direction.

 

No, but just answering "No I did not ask" is ok, you know.

 

I think trading is not a significant part of the game yet. Aside of that "ranking" thing it affects nothing. All the endgame stuff like epic weaponry, quantum cores, etc. only obtainable by exploration. There are ton of things needed to be fixed first.

Great example for this insignificancy - is Reforged Eden mod. The economy in Reforged part balanced pretty well, but the Eden part has so much endgame content, which pushes economy aspect even further back to almost pointless to be bothered with.

 

Thanks,

Next time, I will not report an obvious issue and offer a suggestion on how to fix it, I will just say to myself "Remember what Kassonnade said, they might have put a lot of thought into whether they should try to balance the prices, and decided instead to deliberately screw it up" and leave it at that. I will also strive to immediately answer all loaded questions I encounter as directly as possible, so as to ensure that all productive conversation can be ended as quickly as possible.

You are a bold fellow. Bless your heart.

 

lol... Don't even waste that time. Short answers like these are easy to repeat. It's just that it could have given you another perspective, and maybe you would have come to some conclusions not even worth putting on a forum...

 

Thanks, but I already considered that perspective and then discarded it in about 30 milliseconds later because it was obviously not a valid one in this instance. Based on this and almost every other interaction I have had with you on this forum, it is undoubtedly you who could most benefit from a perspective shift, and I am not interested in hearing from you again until you do so.

 

I would agree that if the market did not have the sorts of examples I mentioned where it was incredibly lopsided, trading would not have a big impact on anything, other than adding a bit of convenience for players who are a bit short on a few resources here and there.

But because it has at least a few trades that are so lopsided, the markets allow players to achieve ludicrous amounts of wealth, buy ludicrous amounts of ores from other NPC shops, and skip from early game to very late game. It's a bit like turning on god mode; it's fun for a while, until you realize it ruins all game progression and then you are likely to get bored and quit.

 

So this is the "short" answer I was expecting but you somewhat preferred to go down the paranoid and zigzag around the point.

By asking the guys who run the server you would have gotten a clear answer and spared yourself lots of efforts that, in the end, are only speculative.

On servers doing regular wipes and expecting players to leave the starter playfield sooner than later, such questions might be relevant, but you're perfectly entitled to discard them as you did. I think you did the right thing there, and should go on investigating server owner's decisions all by yourself without asking futile questions.

 

See the first paragraph of my first post where I did exactly that:

See the above first paragraph of my first comment in this thread where it indicates that I already asked Taelyn about the server, and he indicated that the server uses the default prices, so it's not even a little bit speculative. You can claim that my assertion that the default prices for a few things are bad is speculative, or you could test what I claim and confirm that it's true for yourself.

See the above first paragraph of my first comment in this thread where I indicated that I play on exactly that sort of server, the Eleon Official US MP server, which uses default prices and which has a starter planet with one-way warp where all player created ships and structures are wiped every 7 days.

See the above first paragraph of my first comment in this thread where it indicates that I already asked Taelyn about the server, and he indicated that the server uses the default prices, and note that the entire point of this thread is to indicate a problem with the default prices and provide a suggested solution. As for "futile questions", I asked no questions at all, I came here to indicate there's a problem and propose an easy solution, but I'd say that "futile questions" perfectly describes the very first question you asked in this thread.

 

Not at all : you decided "it's a problem", you didn't ask if it was one.

The "speculative" part is about what you didn't ask, not about what you asked, which only got you the fact that they use the default setup.

Was my question so complicated ? I didn't think so, but maybe it was ?

But I had my answer and I'm satisfied with it, thanks.

 

I'm sorry that you think I have to get your permission to make a SUGGESTION to fix big problems with game balance in the SUGGESTION FORUM! I'll be sure to remember to ask you for permission before I ever post a bug report about something that's obviously a bug in the bug forum. Not!

 

You know nothing of what others think, did you know that ? But maybe that's also how you guessed that there was a big problem with balance without even asking the question, so I see it's not a problem for you. I wish I had your "skills"...

Maybe that's also why some players "think" that developers have super-powers and "guess" the data required that players don't provide ? Surely you can bring the light to us, simple beings, on these mysteries, O enlightened one.

 

Yes the economy in the default game is unbalanced at best, and outright broken in some places.
Ideally you should have to move goods a decent distance to make the best money, but instead you can buy and sell sometimes even at the same station from what I've heard.

 

That's why I said, that there is a ton of things needed to be fixed first - playing this game without god mode ruins all the experience by itself. And that is why I am not playing on servers, which are out of my control, asking admins thousand times to teleport me out of some glitch, return my disappeared vessel or base, etc. is not my thing.

Again, I speculated on a game trading issues too, so I know what you are talking about. But for me personally it changed nothing. Vanilla is boring by itself, it is not an issue of trading. If not Reforged Eden mod, I would leave the game a long time ago.

 

True, trade is not the most imminent issue, but this is but one post on an entire forum full of suggestions and bug reports, I don't expect it to be acted on first by any means. I filed this under suggestions because it is a suggested improvement they may not have been aware of, and while it can break a player's enjoyment of the game once they realize how exploitable some of the particularly bad default item prices are, it's not a "bug" per se, such as the ships flying off or bouncing around for no good reason bug, etc.

 

Wrong, as I have consciousness, I am able to glean a subset of what others think through observing their behavior by using my sense data, past experience, and heuristics. Next irrelevant question please, we all hang on your every word, as you know. Or perhaps do you not know? Because you apparently did not know that it's even possible to know anything of what others think.

No guessing was required. I played the game and found a way to completely break the progression through mere minutes of specific market trading. If you woke up tomorrow and noticed you suddenly only had 9 of the expected usual 10 toes, would you have to ask a doctor first before knowing if it's a problem, or would it be obvious? I would think it would be obvious to most people, but it is also possible that I may have severely overestimated your intelligence.

I'm glad that the slightest criticism of the game seems to cause you great personal anguish; you deserve it and more, for being hands down the most insufferable person on this forum. You could be a core developer who introduced everyone's favorite part of the game, and yet you would still probably be a net loss on Eleon's revenue despite that, because of how many new players you've undoubtedly alienated with your constantly cynical, passive-aggressive, and disingenuous responses; not just to me, but to almost everyone here. You should try being that bitter some place else, but then again they'd probably have banned you long ago.

Okay, I'll tell you exactly how to fix it, go into Game Folder\Content\Configuration\TraderNPCConfig.ecf and adjust the prices as I suggested, except be an Eleon developer and do that on the copy that everyone downloads in the next update, boom, done.

 

No offense mate, but almost all your suggestions are already implemented in Reforged Eden. You should try it.

 

Thanks, I definitely intend to in the near future, the more I hear about it the more I like it. Just trying to first collect a few players, and make the switch at the same time as them once we all start to get bored of the vanilla experience

It just puzzles me why guys like this other guy can be so resistant to such obvious and simple improvements in the base game unless perhaps we stroke their ego to climax first or whatever it is he's after.