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Thread Statistics | Show CCP posts - 9 post(s) |
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CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
654
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Posted - 2013.05.03 16:15:00 -
[1] - Quote
Hello everyone!
The purpose of this post is to explain the last element of the battleship rebalance: build costs. We found that even internally this was a very sensitive subject, one which people had very strong feelings about, and so we spent a lot of time making sure that we went ahead with a good plan. We feel confident that we have that plan, and while we do appreciate feedback (as always), this proposal is very likely the way we will be proceeding at release.
Let me give you the 'what' first, then the 'why':
The AVERAGE build cost of a battleship is going up by around 40mil
Former tier 3 prices will not change substantially, and so the majority of the change in cost is carried by the former tier 1 and 2s.
Prices will be differentiated slightly by role ('attack' and 'disruption' being a bit cheaper than 'combat')
The reasons for the change are as follows:
The primary goal of tiericide is to eliminate any explicit power difference between ships within a class. If the power within a class is more or less level across all ships (which it is after the rebalance), the price should also be level.
So then, if prices are to be more level, where should this new price line be set? The obvious answer would be to just average the cost of all battleships and then set the prices at that average - top tier prices would come down, and bottom would go up. Unfortunately, with battleships, this was not possible. Top tier battleships represent an enormous amount of mineral consumption in EVE at their current costs. That means that lowering the cost of tier 3 battleships would have a recessionary effect on EVE's economy as mineral prices suffered.
That means we are to have prices more equal, but also, we can't lower the prices of the top tier ships significantly. This felt a bit uncomfortable at first, causing certain Devs to say "OMGWTFZFBFBFBB!!" when they saw the proposal, but we looked into some metrics around player wealth and income and found that EVE players are making money faster and faster, and even new players should have no trouble enduring the bump in cost. On top of this, inflation provides room for cost increase as well.
The result is that we all agree that this price increase should not hurt demand substantially, and reflects a more healthy overall design philosophy than the old tier system.
Special Note: You will NOT be able to buy battleships now and then refine them for the increased cost after the changes go live. Like all previous tiericide changes we will use extra materials to implement this cost change.
We hope you agree, and look forward to your feedback.
CCP Rise |
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CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
658
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Posted - 2013.05.03 16:38:00 -
[2] - Quote
mynnna wrote:Current Tier 3 prices have a range of approximately 200-240m depending on hull. In the past you've smoothed that kind of variation out, will you be doing that here too?
Somewhat, but it won't be completely smooth.
Quote:Is there intention to ever roll these minerals back into the overall ship cost, so that ships have a price floor tied to the mineral price again?
It would be nice, but aren't willing to underestimate the extreme patience of the player base and so its hard to imagine how we could do it in the forseeable future. |
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CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
658
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Posted - 2013.05.03 16:40:00 -
[3] - Quote
Quote:Well this is going to be an interesting way to pass the next 5 hours at work.
Hey man, nice to talk with you at fanfest  |
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CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
659
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Posted - 2013.05.03 16:51:00 -
[4] - Quote
Quote:I don't like this kind of logic dictating balance. It sounds like your pricing decision has nothing to do with whether a 220mil isk battleship is balanced compared to a 40-50 mil isk battlecruiser, but instead is entirely based in not wanting to mess with any of the mineral consumption numbers, even though you are about to give mining a major boost anyway, which is sure to have the same effect.
This is supposed to be a re-balance of all the ships, they should not be priced based on whether the economy might react slightly or not. It's lazy logic anyway, as their is no guarantee that a reduction in price would result in a reduction in consumption. Even simple economics states that if you reduce price, demand and consumption will go up, and that should balance out your mineral consumption that you lost initially.
I can remember numerous times when alliances in 0.0 have stopped using battleship fleets temporarily because of the costs of losing them, so it's not crazy to think that a price reduction would lead to a usage increase.
Hey progod
In some ways I agree with you. I think you're right that price will influence consumption and it may not be terrible to have the price go down from a consumption stand point. We ended up going with this largely because no one could make a good case that there was a need for them to be cheaper. The tier 3s worked as a good bar because they show that if battleships are balanced well they are perfectly consumable at the tier 3 price.
Basically we feel that BS are worth the tier 3 price and that having people budget within the class is not as good as having them do it class to class. In-class price tiering creates a lot of weird balance problems and sends very strange messages about how the ships ought to perform, and we want to tone that down as much as we can. |
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CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
661
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Posted - 2013.05.03 17:12:00 -
[5] - Quote
Quote:How balanced is the cost and effectiveness of a BS compared to a BC? Is a BS really worth 4 BCs?
Its very consistent across EVE to get linear power increase for exponential cost increase. Is a Cruiser worth 10 frigates? Is a Machariel better than 5 battleships? I think BS happened to be at a point in the curve which is extremely important because the price point is right where it starts to hurt people, but BC are right there reminding you of how small your performance increase is.
We think it fits though. PVEers are making their first long-term investment on a BS usually and we don't want that to be available too quickly, and for large scale PVP BS are the last step before moving to extremely end-game ships and so it needs to feel significant. |
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CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
661
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Posted - 2013.05.03 17:14:00 -
[6] - Quote
Quote:This makes a lot more sense than the original post
Cool. Maybe I should switch them!
Also good meeting you at fanfest, when we were talking I didn't realize that you were on your way to CSM and that I would be talking to you much more! |
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CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
680
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Posted - 2013.05.04 12:16:00 -
[7] - Quote
Hey guys - will try to get caught up on this today...
Quote:So , in other words, "we don't care what you think, but go ahead and post anyway. We won't change our mind".
What I mean by this is more that - we had a good idea of what you would think, because many people internally felt the same way. We spent a lot of time talking with those people and trying to figure out if there was a different solution that fit our goals and also made them more comfortable. This is where we arrived. |
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CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
680
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Posted - 2013.05.04 12:25:00 -
[8] - Quote
No, but SOME devs were concerned that it was going to be too hard on players with less income.
As a result we spent quite a bit of time talking about how quickly we wanted BS to be accessible, and we also looked into metrics around player income in as much detail as possible. It was easy to establish that people simply have higher income than they used to across all character ages. With that information, everyone agreed this was the best way to move forward. |
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CCP Rise
C C P
C C P Alliance
680
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Posted - 2013.05.04 12:41:00 -
[9] - Quote
Quote:okay makes sense but do you also feel like most of the players that the battleships still aren't up to scratch for the price compared to how well the ABC's and bc's/navy bc's perform?
I really don't feel this way. As I said before, I think its really dangerous to think about performance relative to price. I can ask you maybe - if all ships cost the same amount, would BS be okay?
I know a lot of people feel ABC are too strong still, but that's its own issue which we are still watching. |
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