Rebalancing The Economy

EVE Technology and Research Center Player Features & Ideas
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I know this gets brought up a lot. And for a long time I’ve thought the solution was simple but after talking to pretty much everyone I know in industry we all agree that the main issue is module drops. These polute the market with low level modules and can be reprocessed for minerals if they are worth more. Then there’s meta level modules and officer modules that drop that onbsolete everything that is made via production.

All goods should come from manufacturing, without exception. And the only way of obtaining minerals should be through mining (and of course PI etc for the various other base materials). Obviously if we remove all modules from drops they have to be replaced by other things, well it seems obvious that the slavage system holds the key here. When you kill a npc it doesn’t drop modules. It drops ruined modules, which then have to be repaired with minerals and BPCs to make faction modules. Faction BPCs should come from LP store and hacking.

EveEconomyFlow
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I know this chart is very rudementary and misses some things out like tech 3, it’s suppose dot be a general guide how the flow of goods should work to make industry and mining more balanced income wise. Loot from enemy ships become limited to ruined faction modules and ruined officer modules, plus some trash drops such as tags or logs that can be turned in to agent for extra lp or isk. All these thinsg then have to go trhough an industrialist, and add minerals, to become faction/officer modules, no more simply getting the upgraded varients directly off the LP stores, but LP tores remain valuable for the bpcs to make faction modules which can’t be acquired any other way. All minerals come from miners. And with a little common sense (ie people losing the because i mine it it’s free mentality) everyone starts making a nice profit, with mission runners seeding all the isk into the economy.

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There is an idea somewhere on a post it note to change how meta modules are created. Rather than dropping, they would be built from t1 mods plus some other materials. (i think this may already be the case for some xl weapons).

But the drops (supply) are not the main problem. It is more the lack of destruction (demand). If you check out the economic reports, destruction is a third of production and production does not include item drops (so even if items didn’t drop, we’d still have a lop sided economy).

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I would say modules take more damage based on whatever criteria, and could not be repaired, if damage below 30%, it is rended inactive for good. then it can be scraped for some materials ( maybe rng or not) that would increase the demand for modules, and not change the rest of gameplay much

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Yes, rebalancing the industry so all items are player made could definitely be interesting.

But as Daichi said, the main reason why so many items have little to no profit margins, is simply because there is not enough demand i.e. not enough stuff is getting blown up.

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Just NPCs, or drops from player ships too? Anyway, I believe it would be simpler if NPCs just drop prints for faction/officer modules.

And, to “fix” mutaplasmids, make them increase meta level of modules. Decayed would improve just T1 meta with low chance (to keep some luck), gravid and unstable would improve T1 and T2 ones (with anything with meta>5 to become T2) - then, any simple T1 would be able to be upgraded to higher meta T1, where meta2+ could be possible, say “compact scoped web”. Keep it luck based to prevent withdrawal syndromes.

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Basically this. Too much supply, not enough demand. It takes maybe a week to train up necessary indy skills for t1 production, if there was profit to be made then everyone would just make new alts, train indy and make a nice passive profit off indy. There’s basically zero opportunity cost doing indy.

If you want indy to be profitable again, you’d have to change the core mechanics of industry. Maybe make it so if you have stuff in the que you need to be docked in the station AND logged on at the same time. That way, there’s actually an opportunity cost and a reason for people to quit indy and allow it to become profitable again.

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CCP has been working on module tiercide for about 4 years - it’s a prerequisite for player built meta modules. Look at the capital meta modules to see how it will work when they are done - named components to build meta modules are already on the market, though not in the quantities that would be needed for subcap modules.

This doesn’t seem to be very high on the priority list, I suspect the industrial community doesn’t make enough noise to keep it top of mind. Write your friendly neighborhood CSM member ( @Steve_Ronuken ) and push to get the tiercide project moving again!

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I appreciate the feedback and this reminds me about other ideas that I had about supply vs destruction. The simple fact is players do not risk ships because they simply can’t afford to replace them most of the time. I’ve always thought if insurance was fixed to cover the value 100% and the price was more reasonable then players would treat their ships as disposable and take greater risks. And lets face it it’s not really a game breaking change since ships right now the vast majority of people don’t invest in insurance and take little risk to preserve their ship. I also feel the game would just be generally more fun. There’s a FoB in the system I operate out of at the moment, and it has been there for a few days. I’d really like to take a stab at with some corp mates but right now I’m saving the isk towards something else and can’t afford to go dropping it on a scorpion with a rediculous amount of officer modules, nor do I want to be paying out to replace ships I’m not sure can tank the damage. If insurance wasn’t so terrible I’d happily insure a ship and try. I think things like Dreads, Carriers, Titans, etc should be excluded from being insurable so that large alliances can’t just continually roll them out with no associated cost. Perhaps pirate faction ships also beocming uninsurable to increase the risk associated with thier use over regular T1 and 2 ships. Perhaps change insurance so that it auto-buys what you lost instead of offering a payout so you can’t just use the money from insurance on something different? Perhaps also change insurance so that it pays out 1 or 2 weeks after the ship is actually destroyed, so you get your money back but have to replace the ship in the mean time? I don’t know.

You could argue players would be spending less on the economy, but at the moment their ship isn’t getting destroyed anyway so they’re not spending on it. At least with the insurance auto buys you’d be stimulating the market. There needs to be a major shift in mentality towards ship attrition being not only acceptable but expected. And for that to happen ship loss needs to be a lot less crippling to your wallet than it currently is. I don’t know how to solves things so that that sort of mentality becomes prevailant but I really think it needs to be to stimulate the market, also to allow people to have more fun.

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We’re all sitting on buckets of isk. Were just not spending it because it’s too easy to go about your day and avoid pvp. The people losing their ships are those deliberately seeking pvp.

The mentality isn’t ‘i can’t afford to replace my ship so I’m not going to risk it’, if it was people would risk t1 ships all the time and there would be a market for it. But there’s not, because the mentality is more ‘why risk my ship when it’s so easy not to?’

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Um no, this problem isn’t about supply and demand of ships. Most people can afford to whelp at least hundreds of t1 cruisers (assuming 10m insurance and 20m fit). The problem is, everyone can do industry in a week and basically everyone does indy to a certain extent. Got a pirate bpc that takes indy 1 to make? Why let someone else make profit off it when you can just click a button and collect it a couple of hours later. If you want to make profit off industry, you need to do some form of industry that alphas can’t do, like t2 industry or making storyline modules.

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I’m not talking about the ocasional loss of a ship. I’m talking about a constant attrition of ships. I’m talking about the difference between taking on something in a ship that DOES work as opposed to a ship that MIGHT work. Everyone knows a solo player can take a 4-5bil fit rattle and with a little skill can beat an FoB. What I’m talking about is taking a gang of ships that are untested and trying it out. Finding new ways to do things. Finding the minimum boundaries for getting new corp memeber into activities. Having the thrill of risk rather than the tedium of a garaunteed victory if you don’t screw up. Experimenting. The sort of things that can lead to 2-3 ship losses a day but immense amounts of fun.

It’s not just t1 ships where the problems lie. I probably spend 90% of the time playign this game actually doing research, spreadsheets and calculations on manufacturing. If you actually run the numbers on many t2 ships taking into account the invention costs, even with “average” success many tech 2 ships sell for less than minerals + invention costs. Many more have such small margins that once you take into account the 1% tax and 2.5% brokers fee it sells at a loss. I’m not saying there aren’t niches to crawl in to but the vast majority of industry is just a loss (I have no idea why industrialists actually produce and sell at a loss, come on people, common sense). But now we’re going back into the fact that the flow of goods is too poluted. There’s no one issue and they all need addressing. Better more niche flow of components, better ship expendebility, things to encourage changes of various mentalities which contribute to the devalue of goods, many things.

You can find as many faults as you like, and the ideas I presented may not be a complete cure, but I feel they would be a step in the right direction. And constructive criticism is always welcome but if we don’t all put ideas forward and discuss it then it will never get fixed. CCP may design the game but when it comes to dealing with these imbalances between the entire playerbase we have a much better view of where the weaknessess lie. And each player is dealing with each aspect of the game in greater detail than another player will in that area, but the player base has a rather hostile attitude to people who say “I see this as a problem and maybe we can fix this” (I want to be clear I’m not saying anybody here is doing that), so instead of dismissing ideas outright perhaps try thinking that maybe they see something you don’t, and that you see something that they don’t, and that both problems are contributing to the greater problem presented and that touching each area up just a little could lead to sweeping changes that make the game a better place for everyone.

As a community we need to step back a little and think instead of spending my time simply dismantling this idea and calling this person an idiot I can examine what they are saying, try to understand why they are saying it, politely suggest a few corrections. Whilst everyone in this thread is being civil and polite I do feel like we’re falling into a “that’s not the issue” cycle. Perhaps all of these things are contributing to the issue?

When I step back whilst I may not agree 100% with everyone here I can understand where their concerns are coming from.

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Have you thought about why they sell at a loss? If they produce stuff and don’t sell at all, they would take an even greater loss by having useless stock.
Basically, too many people are doing industry so of course you won’t make a profit off of it. If everyone does industry, why would anyone buy from you when they could make it themselves?

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Changing industry to consume more items or ISK would maybe help a little, but I still believe that the lack of destruction is the main contributor. I’m not saying this in spite or just to brush off the issue. This is my argument and opinion. It is an opinion that is based on the monthly economic reports and personal experience playing the game.

It is also my opinion, that it is not hard to make ISK in the game. So I disagree with you on that point. In fact, I feel that we are getting ISK thrown in our faces. I agree that people are reluctant to undock ships, but I don’t think it’s cause their lack of money. It’s mostly because of a risk averse attitude. In some ways, eve is actually rather counter intuitive. Most games have loss conditions and these are obviously avoided in order to progress the game. Ship losses can be felt as loss conditions and thus people avoid losing ships in eve. However, ship losses are more akin to a calculated bet. You can lose your ship for going into the abyss, but you can also gain profits if you succeed. You need to “bet” your assets in order to gain progress in eve. Because of this counter intuitiveness, eve will always be a niche product since people are often uncomfortable with the feeling of loss.

It doesn’t help that the game mechanics offer a lot of safety on top of that. Even in conflict drivers like for example faction warfare, it is extremely easy to safely farm plexes, or nullsec where most people either sit on citadels or dock up as soon as a solo neutral enters local. But then again, this is just my opinion based on having roamed low, null and wh space.

My opinion is rather flexible though, in the sense that if someone gives a compelling counter argument, I am willing to re-evaluate my stance. However, so far I have encountered little amount of people actually willing to have a proper discussion on these forums. Maybe I spend too much time in “General Discussion”.

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There is no question that players produce a lot more than they consume and that has been true since day 1.
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I do not believe insurance should be a net ISK faucet - there is already too much ISK entering the game. Insurance companies are supposed to be profitable, set the premiums so insurance is a net sink.

Most PVP corporations have a ship replacement program so cost should not be a major issue. Likewise, T1 hulls are dirt cheap with Rorquals flooding the mineral market.

If you want to fly officer fit pirate hulls, no sane insurer will talk to you. Even in highsec those will be gank magnets!

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People may appear to sell at a loss because they are building at a structure in low/null where the material modifier is bigger.

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I mined it so its free…

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Holy Crap look at that chart.

I was just going to have Jita go supernova. Simple, with loads of content.

Imagine the days leading up to the supernova, as fleets of freighters disgorge the contents of Jita 4.4 while the wolves feast like never before!!

And then the epic tears of those who didn’t evacuate for <insert reason here> and claim to have lost billions.

It would be glorious :skull_and_crossbones:

and it doesn’t need a chart :wink:

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ok, here is a question…
Whether it is Crystals from trees in FFXIV, or herbs/fur in WoW(and even ore), or fishing in Archage(if that is still a thing)…how is the actual “gathering” of resources not free?

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I partially agree with you. The big issue is that supply far exceeds the demand. However, changing modules to, ultimately, increase the mineral demand can be part of the solution.

I do think that a drastic increase in minerals is needed, on a level that makes the demand meet the supply. That would require a balance pass on the income sources too (so people can afford ships 3-5x the price they have now).

This would require a drastic increase in ISK sinks.

This is absolutely true. People throw stuff at you when they can easily afford it. SRP is proof for that, that’s one of the key’s of the Goon mentality. Krab hard so you can bash hard. It works brilliantly.

However, if you look at goons, you can see that only a fraction of their income is spent on ships that blow up in the end. Olmeca made some statistics indicating it’s around 5% in the end (check out the reddit, recent post).

The reality from this is probably that supply will never meet destruction, ever, unless forced ofc. All you can do is to apply medium to long term fixes to bandaid the symptoms.

So, key things to happen are imho:

  • FIX ISK SINKS, we desperately need more of them on a massive scale
  • Increase mineral demand drastically (300-500%, do not hesitate to increase the demand way over the supply as people will pick up mining if a single rorqual is now 300mil per hour instead of the 100 on average it is now).

Get people into the activities and for gods sake, make mining worth it in comparison. Yes, it is very scalable but the fact that a rorqual with it’s 7b++ pricetag and month’s of training can’t even earn the money someone makes in a freaking Alpha-Rattle worth 500mil in anything other than a -0.85 and below system is: SAD.

With that said: Removing all loot drops (and replacing them with blue loot for pure isk) in favor of LP-store Blueprints would be a decent short term thing. It could fix LP stores (If done right) and it could be a small step to a more robust industry that can cope with the problems of the current gameplay.

You could have spent the time Gathering on doing things that reward actual gold. It’s called opportunity cost. Google it up please.

The idea that “Minerals are free cause I mined them” just doesn’t apply when “you’ve mined the minerals you could have sold for 100 mil but you chose to build them into a Cruiser that sells for 80 mil”. That’s why minerals aren’t free and if you can’t grasp that, you should stay away from industry until you realized this. Believe me, it’s for your own benefit.

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really?
to be fair…opportunity costs in the way many try to use it has no place in a universe with Infinite Resources…

so that leaves what? actually doing the activity…
A newbro in EvE can mine in an ibis, a cpl of hours into game he/she has a free venture and all the gear to go with it to mine…guess what? For Free…

so the only real opportunity costs…is Effort, the will to want to do anything at all and actually do any other activity…

a miner for example can mine up the mats he needs to build 100 t1 dessies in an hour or so, whenthey are finished he can sell half and still go ganking for a long while…as opposed to the person who had to rat all their stuff up…the indy ganker will make more profit and have more disposable income in the long…and therefore more fun…cause ore is free and infinite.

so no your definition of opportunity costs applied to EvE is wrong.