Beren Hurin wrote:Lets say this magically solves all of the 'balance' problems as you see them, after tiericide how does the economics of suits work?
Will light suit v.1 be as cheap/expensive as light suit v.3?
If I'm accumulating larger piles of isk, what am I generally spending it on? If the grade of equipment doesn't exponentially increase my isk cost to field it, where does my isk go? Does it just pile up? When I can choose a 1k isk suit, a 10k isk suit, and a 100k isk suit, then a 200k isk payout means something substantial.
When/if all suits are similarly only specifically useful and similarly priced:
1) How does that effect the entry cost of suits-the price new players are paying to be competitive in them?
2) Are you going to assume that most of the cost of fits will lie in module fitting now?
3) Proponents of tiericide propose that suit bonuses rather than module fits will determine the uniqueness of different suit types/roles...what does this mean for the uniqueness of how each one is fit?
What I haven't heard from the tiericide folks is the approach tiericide will take toward the faucet:sink relationship that current STD>ADV>PRO gear has set up. The current tiers forces a significant relationship between cost and profit per match based on how strong of a suit you field.
The reason there is so much isk in the game at the moment has much less to do with tier/dropsuit balance and much more to do with the design of PC and the salvage rebates with Chromosome/Uprising. It is statistically impossible for everyone to eventually be running proto AND profit unless they all are just walking around in the game and not shooting each other.
Tl;DR: please also explain the micro/macro economic/cost/profit/incentive side of tiericide. Otherwise, I think this idea leads to an unsustainable and ultimately boring system.
Costs move over the modules instead.
Tech 1 suit with basic modules and guns will be in similar price to current base suits and base modules in pricing.
A tech 2 suit with mostly proto modules and guns will be slightly more expensive than current proto layouts.
A tech 1 suit with advanced/proto mix or tech 2 suit with basic advanced should be around the same cost as todays proto to advanced fit prices being costs effective for performance.
Thus its going to be up to the player to determine (and it is currently like this) how expensive his fit is going to be, Thales or not to Thales? Thales are going to be an estimate 20 million isk already which are typically being fitted on a suit that barely costs 1/100th of that price.
When manufacturing comes in, tech 1 suits are easily manufactured as are the modules, meta modules and tech 2s will be slightly more difficult requiring a technology base on either behalf of the eve overlords ( who may be the ones ultimately building all of this stuff ) or ourselves to make them possible and those can become a point in conflict.