Player Features and Ideas Discussion

What if there was a balance factor applied to hull production cost and time if that ship was used in PvP significantly more than its peers (i.e. within a class)?

The Problem

CCP does not have a great history when it comes to balancing overpowered ships in a timely manner. Things have to get really out of hand before they are corrected and this leads to stale, boring metas dominated by specific hulls. You all know what I mean. It would be good to increase diversity of hull use, even if this is just within classes, meaning that single hull types would be less likely to become absurdly dominant.

Assumptions

1. Diversity in ships is good.
2. Lack of diversity in ship types is bad.
3. Cost is generally a dangerous balancing tool but can be useful to shift cost/benefit balance in certain scenarios.

Solutions

1. CCP gets better, or at least faster, at balancing. This will happen Soon.
2. Something else.

CCP has usage stats for each hull and, I think, this can be broken down by PvP and PvE use. This means the distribution of use within each ship class can be determined. For example, assume that the usage distribution in the Attack Frigates class in PvP is:

Atron = 29%
Condor = 50%
Executioner = 16%
Slasher = 5% (note that I don’t know/care what the actual figures are)

The poor Slasher is clearly rubbish relative to the other frigates whereas the Condor is overused for disgraceful kite-scrubbing. While such a usage pattern would be a clear indication to CCP that a balance pass was needed it will probably take them another three years to get around to it. Until then, enter the Balance Factor to keep the Condor menace in check.

The Balance Factor is a ME and/or TE multiplier based on the PvP usage stats within a class. If a ship is consistently used much more in PvP than an average distribution within the class would predict then the ME and/or TE stats will be nerfed automagically during production. Such usage stats could be calculated as a weekly average or whatever makes most sense.

Using the above example, an average distribution across the class of four ships would obviously be 25% each. By the simplest, linear approach the Atron at 29% is given a Balance Factor of 16% (29/25 = 1.16), while the Condor at 50% is given a Balance Factor of 2.00 (50/25 = 2). This means that their ME and/or TE are multiplied by the current Balance Factor at the time the production run is submitted. The Atron base materials could multiplied by 1.16 (16% more minerals to build) while the Condor would multiplied by 2 (double the minerals).

In the above example the maximum multiplier would be 4. This could be tweaked. The shape of the curve to the maximum multiplier could be logarithmic rather than linear such that minor distribution biases would be virtually unnoticeable but be punished increasingly heavily as bias increases.

Ships below the line (Executioner and Slasher above) do not get a ME discount because reprocessing could start to create minerals. Which is bad. Reprocessing for all hulls would be unaffected so even though the overused ships require more materials they do not return more materials when reprocessed.

Objections

Objection 1: Just nerf the Ishtar already and everything will be fine. Everything will be fine until the new dominant ship becomes clear and everyone trains into it. This will take a few months and then the Gila or Eos or Velator will be the new Ishtar.

Objection 2: Only goons and PL will be able to afford the Ishtar and I won’t be able to fight them and they will take over the world and I will cry. Let’s assume the Ishtar accounts for 30% of the PvP use of the HAC class. This means the other seven have 10% each. They would cost the same to produce while the Ishtar would cost 384m instead of 160m. The cost/benefit analysis for the Ishtar is now considerably different. Remember the purpose is only to increase diversity.

Objection 3: This is not a substitute for good balancing. I agree. This is designed only to minimise the impact of imbalance and hopefully avoid repetitions of Hurricane, Drake, Tengu, Ishtar etc dominant metas. This would also allow the metas to shift more, as fleets avoid certain hulls due to cost but then move back as the price again becomes reasonable. There could be some interesting game play around strategic stockpiling.

Objection 4: This doesn’t help battleships because this would only be within a class. No, maybe it doesn’t. Get your own solution. Or maybe it does because the next best ship is up a class or two.

Objection 5: People would still just fly that ship because price is not a good deterrent. Generally true but you could sure have a lot more viable ships to choose from with significant production cost increases.

Objection 6: But, ma sandbox! This is about ship balance, the most un-sandboxy part of the game.

Any others?

Balancing around cost/price is utterly stupid. See titans for a good example.

Then I can re-process my ships I already own since you change the mat cost of the ship itself and inflate it as big as needed for people to reduce the usage? Remember there is no way to know a ship was produced before the price was scaled since repackaging it reset it's item id in the database.

The real world parallel is nonexistant because in a case where the vast majority of possible user want a specific type of vehicle, the company producing them don't jack up prices but ramp up production. See SUV craze a few years ago when everybody and their mother wanted one.

Everybody and their mother want Ishtars? Then ramp up production of Ishtars.

If ship are not being used, their parameters are bad and need to be changed. If a ship is ******, no amount of extra prices on the most powerful one will make others use the bad one. They will all flip down the the next big thing until the "top" one comes back to non stupid market prices.

Except any corp starting alter is a a huge disadvantage just because he started later. There is already enough advantage to being a long established group. We don't need to give a bigger edge to it.

CCP tried balance by bp needs. It was called tiericide. And it did not work imo. Long ago It wasn't the bp costs of lolrox vs. drake that made 14 inch penis suck. It was the hull and medium hybrids.


In the days before tiericide....people also paid more for the "good" ships. This was tried and failed too.

Why I am not a fan of tiericide. It made scorpions which I liked as cheap mess with your head rides (they used to be like 70-80 mil base hull) into the higher priced they are now (rats ass out about added low I can give....stacking penalty on ecm boost mods or the fact I am not there to be dps so 1 more BCU means crap to me really).

Even back in these days though...I shelled out way more isk for rokh for more general fleet bs use. It be the same here....ship is known good, whats 20 mil more for it. Its 2015 not 2009.....way more isk making ways than when I started 6 and change years ago.

You also run the risk of market havoc. Make 100's of ships ships pre change you know are fotm....sell them after. Same ship, higher price...isk for nothing really. As until ccp works out the secret sauce to some ships they would still be spammed after as it was before this change. Ishtar 30 mil more....is still a drop/assist sentry and fly way ride. It will die less than an in your face brawler. 30 mil more (or more) justified by the fact it dies less as result of this. CCP has been here too. I sold exhumers for way more what I paid for them and my charon made me some good isk too. How? Exhumers were bought before moon goo realignment many patches back that shot them upwards from pre change price. Charon also shot up in price in some other change as well.

Thanks for the replies everyone. Interesting comments.


I knew this would be one of the first comments. This is not intended as a balancing tool in itself but rather one way to help limit the dominance of specific hulls. Would Ishtar be as dominant as it is if it were 3x the price? 5x the price? 10x the price? Usage would fall away somewhere along that progression. Also, titans are a little different to subcaps in that there are no direct functional alternatives. Titans vs all other ships is a different scenario to Ishtar vs Deimos, Eagle etc.



I covered this in the OP. Reprocessing would not change at all and be based on the base material cost. The Balance Factor is applied at time of production and not tied to a particular hull or bp. Think of it as a surcharge at time of production which is not 'remembered'.



The Deimos and Eagle (for example) are solid HACs which are overshadowed by the OP Ishtar. The problem is not that all the other ships are bad but rather that one particular ship is OP. I disagree that “no amount of extra prices” will discourage Ishtar use.




True but this would be at a different scale of cost increase. Also, bp costs were one-off and could be ignored by established industrialists. There was no ongoing pain for using fotm. This was not a major disincentive.

that would be great if ccp didn't just change industry with the goal to be more new player friendly


you wan't to make industry better remove region buy orders

This is exactly what the idea is supposed to help. This would encourage shifting metas, or at least creative use of a dominant ship's peers to counter it rather than relying on CCP alone.

The the problem with this reasoning is the assumption that a moderate increase in price would prevent people from flying the most effective ship for a situation.

If a ship is expensive but makes you have lower losses than you would otherwise, it's still the best ship the job because between requiring fewer people for the same punch and lower actual losses due to increased combat effectiveness leading to faster victory, it's still better to fly the more effective ship.

Plus the whole idea of scaling material costs is stupid from the start. Mass production inevitably results in greater efficiency through routine, automation, and established efficient procedures.

What you have here is a ham handed hack that attempts unsuccessfully to force people to use inefficient choices through making the more efficent ones more expensive.

What actually happens is that one side pays 30% more for the efficient fleet setup, the other side brings an inefficient fleet setup, and the first side wrecks the second, taking far fewer overall losses.


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