Valelle Riannette
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Posted - 2010.05.22 14:49:00 -
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Edited by: Valelle Riannette on 22/05/2010 14:51:53
This response is way too late, but what the heck, I hope somebody reads this.
Insurance:
Did you know? There are actually two kinds of insurance in EvE.
- There's the kind you pay for and players gamble with (or not), that is exploitable, that requires a complicated balancing mechanism, that is a blatant market stabilizer.
- There's the kind where you lose a ship and fly to a station, and, WOW! New noob ship! Phew, I thought I was going to start a new trial.
Why does the first kind of insurance exist? There are subtler ways to stabilize mineral markets, and the other changes you've talked about make great sense. And the cost of the ship is already balanced by its capabilities. If you want to incentivize a particular ship, that can be accomplished using a minor tweak to the ship itself -- preferably increasing reward, not reducing risk. EVE is all about risk, and nobody should have their hand held just for choosing to adopt a particular role. It's the reward that hooks us, not the mitigation of risk.
A lot of successful players in EVE get themselves set up economically and they never get knocked down. It makes new players nearly worthless and oligarchies are perpetuated until only shenanigans (awesome BTW) can upset the status quo. And that perpetual power calls for things like suicide ganking and buffers for the little guys who are expected to throw their money away to fight the power. But none of this is necessary if you make everybody climb the economic ladder once in a while. Old players don't need an economic security blanket of any sort. Their skill points and corp mates (and standings, for PVE) are their security blanket, and only a stupid medical clone mistake can take any of that away. If everybody got knocked to the bottom of the economic heap regularly, it wouldn't be such a big deal, and the whole universe would be more dynamic.
In short, I think that your proposed changes to the mineral markets, plus abolishing insurance, plus the regular ship tweaking that everybody expects, would begin to make EVE a far more exciting place to live.
Posting with my alt 'cause that's how I roll.
edit: I don't mean that abolishing insurance will fix everything.
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