Sees an economy thread, drops into the economy thread!

Yes, militia items will become consumable in the next patch. They'll also be very inexpensive and should be easily affordable even if you happen to go 0/10 multiple matches in a row. Starter fits will never become consumable and will always be there for you to fall back on.

Overall, the philosophy with the reward system is that you should be able to comfortably play using militia and standard gear and still be earning money most of the time. The intention isn't to bleed you dry, since that doesn't make for a very fun game :) The low earnings after we patched weren't intentional and it later turned out that there was a fairly nasty bug hiding in the reward system: militia BPOs not contributing to the rewards at all and thus as everyone was playing with them, the overall rewards were consistently too way low.

Since we couldn't fix the broken code, we temporarily upped the base reward level.The rewards that you're now getting after the hotfix are more on the level that we intended. Proper fix will be in when we patch, but the reward level should remain fairly close to what you're seeing now. Pester me if it doesn't, it's my job to pay your wages.

Sees an economy thread, drops into the economy thread!

Yes, militia items will become consumable in the next patch. They'll also be very inexpensive and should be easily affordable even if you happen to go 0/10 multiple matches in a row. Starter fits will never become consumable and will always be there for you to fall back on.

Overall, the philosophy with the reward system is that you should be able to comfortably play using militia and standard gear and still be earning money most of the time. The intention isn't to bleed you dry, since that doesn't make for a very fun game :) The low earnings after we patched weren't intentional and it later turned out that there was a fairly nasty bug hiding in the reward system: militia BPOs not contributing to the rewards at all and thus as everyone was playing with them, the overall rewards were consistently too way low.

Since we couldn't fix the broken code, we temporarily upped the base reward level.The rewards that you're now getting after the hotfix are more on the level that we intended. Proper fix will be in when we patch, but the reward level should remain fairly close to what you're seeing now. Pester me if it doesn't, it's my job to pay your wages.

Sees an economy thread, drops into the economy thread!

Yes, militia items will become consumable in the next patch. They'll also be very inexpensive and should be easily affordable even if you happen to go 0/10 multiple matches in a row. Starter fits will never become consumable and will always be there for you to fall back on.

I question the point of not making them free if they are so cheap though.

I question the point of not making them free if they are so cheap though.

The economist in me gets queasy with too many free, permanent items in what is eventually supposed to be a player-driven economy :)

The economist in me gets queasy with too many free, permanent items in what is eventually supposed to be a player-driven economy :)

I just realized why BPOs were a bad idea as they were. Hopefully when you guys add industry side to dust this will be balanced out.
The economist in me is quite turned on by Eve's economy and wishes for something similar for dust.

What about the Skinweave suits? How will these changes effect them?

The economist in me gets queasy with too many free, permanent items in what is eventually supposed to be a player-driven economy :)

If you have no bed rock to fall back on there is a potential at one time you may not be able to play dust because you have no cash and your bpc's are all expended.

There needs to be a safety net for new players to fall back on.

Starter fits will never become consumable and will always be there for you to fall back on.

Tbh if ISK is their worry thats theres too much floating around, this build solved that. 22 freaking assault SMGS cost me around 100k I believe. Thats just standard assault. Not even a standard dropsuit. The only thing on my suit thats BPC is the SMG. The rest is freaking miltia. I still worry about money, if I want to upgrade to double standard SMGs then it costs me 9,000 isk Per suit. That gives me a bunch of deaths per game if I want to break even, but if I decide to ever upgrade to standard gear, now I am costing, like 30,000 ISK per dropsuit just for all standard gear.

Militia needs to stay BPO imo, plus the starter fits are ********. Changing them is NECESSARY to even being able to be effective.

The economist in me gets queasy with too many free, permanent items in what is eventually supposed to be a player-driven economy :)

This is a bad idea. It is hard to say exactly why it is a bad idea because I am not sure what problem they are trying to solve but I do know that the militia gear is nice because it allows a player to experiment with different play styles without risking lots of money.

It also lets us make some money if we need to make some money on the instant battle scene.

If they are concerned about everyone using too much militia gear, that will change quickly once the outcomes of the matches actually matter and they are being fought for real territory. People will start using more of their high end gear when more of the matches actually matter.

People play games to relieve stress. I am not trying to give myself an ulcer because all of my equipment is costing me money no matter what. Sometimes you want to just goof around.

To add some context, this change might not be permanent, but they want to test some things in the economy. They noticed there was too much ISK floating around in the last build and are exploring options to get a nice economic balance. Again, this change might not necessarily be permanent. They have heard and acknowledged that many players have misgviings about this and CCP CmdrWang came on IRC to help address the concerns of players.

This is a test to gain numbers on the economy. It is not an indication of how things will be forever. As with everything in the beta, anything can change at any time. Player feedback is always encouraged, and they definitely want us to let them know how we find the market/economy with the changes active. If you don't like it, definitely tell them about your experience!


But let's not form a lynch mob until test is over :)

The isk must flow! Dust will have massive inflation if militia gear is free forever. Make it depletable, and let the strong survive through rewards. Don't peg all rewards on the current NPC games. Keep them low and make people group up and join corps.

My (current) issue with the discussion we had on IRC boils down to how Wang talked about this change. It felt like he wanted the starter fits to be where you go to make money, and that even militia fits should have the ability to bleed you dry (if you're bad enough). My problem with this is, the starter fits are starter fits. I should never have to go back to them once I've progressed beyond.

My stance is I believe what Grid was saying. Even if you go 0/10 in militia gear, you shouldn't go broke. That's how that needs to be priced. It should cut up the rewards you receive, but not drain your wallet. Standard gear should be priced such that you can have a few borderline ok games and some bad games thrown in and still not be hurting for cash. Higher stuff, I'm fine with being more expensive (it's probably way too expensive right now).

As it stands, though, the current prices of militia gear are absurd if we're expected to restock per death. My current setup uses a modified starter assault fit, and has purchased shield extender, armor repairer, SMG and nanite injector. That's 4 items that comes to 8840 ISK. At current payouts, that'd last me about 7 deaths per match to break even or barely turn a profit. While I can manage that, many others can't.

That is my problem with this idea, how negatively it will affect the lower-tier players. The people who aren't the top 10 leaderboard people, whose "bad" game isn't only 5 deaths, are going to have a very hard time making any progress gear-wise if it's not made incredibly cheap. Not only that, but those of us who will manage just fine with this change will just create a larger gap in the gear that's used between the top players and everyone else. While you're breaking even or barely turning a profit with a few militia mods, I'm going to be moving on to standard and advanced gear, and keeping you in a state of financial hell.

Solution 1: Make the militia items very cheap, on the order of a few hundred ISK maximum each (you have up to 7 slots to fit when customizing the current starter fits, that adds up); the drop uplinks (which NO starter fit uses) are 4960 (!!!) and weapons range from 960 to 3600 (that 3600 being the swarm launcher, which you WILL be the primary target if you shoot that thing at my tank, so expect to die if you ever bring that out against anybody). That is way too much for bottom tier gear. (the average game has been giving me a payout of about 60-80k for reference, and lately seems to be pushing up toward 100k as people upgrade or LAV spam)

Solution 2: Make a LOT of new starter fits. Sure, keep the 4 we have now, just let more be purchaseable, and have them actually be fits people might use. Let the community design some and pick your favorite 10-20 and let the BPOs be purchaseable for something like 10-50k ISK. The current starter fits look like they were fitted via the dartboard method, and there's not a single one I wouldn't customize.

Solution 3: Allow us to sell salvage to NPC markets. I feel this is more something that should exist to allow people the finances to go from militia to standard/advanced, though. Also, it's not a reliable source of income. I tend to always get garbage salvage, and while I've gotten a few dropship and LAV drops, I generally run 10-20 games in a row of no salvage or something like 2 basic armor repairers or nanohives, stuff that won't even be noticed if I was able to sell it.

I'll say it again: the starter fits should be starter fits, not what we have to rely on if we want to make money. A fully customized militia setup should fit that role, and in my opinion the standard gear should also be able to fit that role later down the line. Don't implement this in a way that only screws the little guy, because that's all it's going to do. It isn't fun to play a game where you access skills and then still don't have the money to use what those skills unlocked, and the people put in that position will leave.

It'll never happen. 90% of us console players will be on to the next game before they even get DUST released. Most of us hate the overly complex market/skill/ISK system as it is. The only way you will attract new consolers is with a basic free loadout, crappy or not. The attention span in this market is MUCH smaller than you folks seem to think. I know most people who play EvE are intelligent adults. You may be motivated here by your love of a game NO ONE in the console world has heard of, and you haven't impressed the consolers. One needs the soul of an accountant (or an economist) to enjoy any part of this game except the combat. No consoler wants to "join" anything, we aren't even interested in playing w a regular squad. We just want to log on, spawn in & frag some people for an hour. Shouldn't need a squad or team, we all know what we are ther for, and mmost regular shooter players can operate as a squad without even using mic.

For the record my IQ is half again and more of what an average person has, and even I find this game boring when not in-game. I would rather read a technical journal on spallation mechanics....