Trading feels like cheating

[Raydell]

With prices never changing and stations restocking to full as soon as you exit them, you can make more money than you'll ever need just by trading between the starting planet and the Concordia station right next to it. It's the fastest moneymaker by far.

The whole round-trip takes less than two minutes and makes ~2 million with a freighter (one of the cheapest ships), and ~12 million with a freightliner.

Dreadnaughts, carriers and the one titan I've seen so far cost around 70-110 million, so within about an hour of starting, you can be flying the largest ships in the game.

I know that getting from a tiny gunship to a dreadnaught is just a part of SGW's progression, with the strategy layer providing the rest, but this first half still feels too easy with trading. It's unbalanced-level easy, with none of the other activities coming even close to it in profitability. Mining, salvaging, exploring, battling, etc. are all a waste of time when you can just trade your way to riches in a matter of minutes. Even high level freelance missions pale in comparison.

In addition, it also levels you up like crazy, giving vastly more experience than anything else you could possibly do in the same time. With a freightliner, you can gain a whole level every 2-4 minutes.

And the worst part is that it feels so obviously fake and artificial, with stations never running out of stock, magically restocking to full as soon as you undock, even if you bought up their entire inventory a second ago.
There's no simulation of supply/demand, prices are simply fixed and set in stone forever. Traders always continue to buy everything at the same price, regardless of how much you just dumped on them, etc. It's just immersion-breakingly unreal.


I quite enjoy trading in space sims, which is why I'm sad to see it was left in such a placeholder, unbalanced state here. I know it's not the focus of the game, but at least you could implement some saturation mechanics and restocking timers to make it feel less like a cheesy exploit and be more in line with the rest of the activities in terms of benefits per time spent.

PS: I like the rest of the game so far (apart from the combat visuals described in my other thread), it's a unique and interesting concept which I would love to see more of in the future, I just think it needs some more depth and polish in the traditional space sim elements.

[RoboGerbil]

can confirm. buy medicines on pheneros, sell to concordia. make nearly 1 mil per run with a regular freighter.

then buy fertalizer on concordia and sell to pheneros for just over a million back. so round trip about 2 mil.

[RoflTank]

You're not trading Hydroponics from Concordia to Phanaeros? 4k per unit and then you load up on meds and take them back for what, 3k per unit?

[Snork]

if it feels like cheating, either modding to similarly disadvantage yourself, or just stop doing it.

Yeah, they made trading a bit too simple, but you'll find as you're playing a scenario all the way through that no matter how you get it - money isn't meant to be a huge obstacle in the final third of the game.

I mean, that's like pretty much mod-it-yourself
Just write down "no selling any loot you didn't find in the wild - iron man playthrough" on a white piece of paper and leave it on your desk and BAM

you just modded your game to remove the cheaty feeling trading feeling, and easily made it more challenging and maintained all of the fun.

Seemed a simple solution to me when it felt some technique was too easy. You having a set of principles, morals and even though it's not in fashion at ALL these days amongst these little highschool douches, but actually just having a little personal integrity is enough, in a single player game to stop a feature like that from destroying your whole game

[SlowMoJoe]

I agree, to some extent. Still, I feel it shows considerable contempt for the players on the side of the devs to leave the economy so underdeveloped.

[Duneman]

It's probably a reaction to damn near everyone ignoring trading in SPG2. In that game prices could fluctuate, markets could crash or boom, you could forge favorable client relationships with various groups, etc.

But all anyone ever did was capture ships and sell them for cash.

Of course it didn't help that most of the Freighters and Freightliners in SPG2 had ricidulous prices. If you didn't know about Memphis station and the Mainz Freighter(IIRC) you were SOL, as by the time you got the millions of credits wanted for other Freighters you might as well be cruising around in a Destroyer.

[Raydell]

Snork, while I respect those who can exercise such self-restraint, you should be aware that's not how most people treat balance issues.

People have a natural desire for efficiency and if a legitimate feature of the game allows you to reach your goals much faster than any other feature, most will be compelled to take advantage of it (if they discover it). That's purely an adaptive instinct, and many will act on it even if it cheapens their experience in the end.

That's why balancing is so important, so that people don't coast through your game with some broken feature and be left with a cheap, hollow feeling about the whole experience.

Not to mention the risk that all the developer time that has gone into competing features will have been in vain, if players ignore them in favour of the unbalanced one. The SPG2 situation Duneman described sounds like a good example of that.

Therefore, in my opinion, balance issues should be treated at the developer level, not by the player.

[The Tempted Man]

Originally posted by RoboGerbil:

can confirm. buy medicines on pheneros, sell to concordia. make nearly 1 mil per run with a regular freighter.

then buy fertalizer on concordia and sell to pheneros for just over a million back. so round trip about 2 mil.

best solution so far!

[Cederic]

So make your millions.

Just.. What are you going to spend them on? At level 1 you're not going to be flying a destroyer, let alone a capital ship. Sure, you can buy nice weapons.. but they're rapidly out of energy. At least you can buy nice enhancements.. except you don't know where they are.

Cash is indeed useful within the game, and if you want to get rich, buy a small moon and retire, you go for it. If you want to conquer the galaxy you're going to find the game's a little deeper than mere money.

[Raydell]

Originally posted by Cederic:

So make your millions.

Just.. What are you going to spend them on? At level 1 you're not going to be flying a destroyer, let alone a capital ship.

I also said in my OP that it levels you up faster than anything else so you'll get to fly those ships almost as soon as you earn the money for them.

It trivializes every part of the game that involves money or experience levels. Whether that's half the game or just a third of the game is irrelevant.

It's simply a balance issue which gives a bad impression of the level of polish and depth within the game.

[Duneman]

Again, I believe that's a reaction to everyone ignoring trading in SPG2. In that game they put a lot more effort into trading just to see everyone ignore it. So here the incentive is much higher.

Personally I'd rather the option to be financially successful through trading be in the game, even if some folks think it offers too much too quickly. The other main difference though from SPG2 is that you don't get randomly attacked for having expensive cargo in your hold. In that game cloaked ships would always come hunt you if they sensed millions of credits in your cargo hold.

[Snork]

Originally posted by Raydell:

Snork, while I respect those who can exercise such self-restraint, you should be aware that's not how most people treat balance issues.

People have a natural desire for efficiency and if a legitimate feature of the game allows you to reach your goals much faster than any other feature, most will be compelled to take advantage of it (if they discover it). That's purely an adaptive instinct, and many will act on it even if it cheapens their experience in the end.

That's why balancing is so important, so that people don't coast through your game with some broken feature and be left with a cheap, hollow feeling about the whole experience.

Not to mention the risk that all the developer time that has gone into competing features will have been in vain, if players ignore them in favour of the unbalanced one. The SPG2 situation Duneman described sounds like a good example of that.

Therefore, in my opinion, balance issues should be treated at the developer level, not by the player.

I understand where you're coming from. I think my only real retort to that is that my main goal while playing Warlords or any other game is to have fun.

Humping a cheap exploit until gamestate = win, isn't fun to me, so I'm not showing any restraint by not taking advantage of it at all. I'm simply refusing to ruin the game for myself.

I mean, similarly, back in the day when games had cheats.. did you find yourself unable to play the game without entering cheatcodes once you knew them? Do you find yourself uncontrollably downloading hacks for every online game you play? I guarantee they exist, but I don't use them all for the same reason I don't abuse the trade mechanics in Warlords; it's not winning that leads to fun, it's overcoming a challenge that does.

If there's no challenge to overcome being called the winner is entirely meaningless and provides less than zero gratification even in a single player game.

[Raydell]

I know what you mean, but that's why I said "legitimate" feature. In other words, something that's not breaking the rules of the game, so not a cheat/bug/exploit/etc.

I always prefer playing by the rules to test my skills on the challenge the way it was meant to be. As such, I have no temptation to use cheats at all. However I do have a very strong desire for efficiency, to find the quickest ways to get ahead within the rules, which is part of the challenge to me.

Now if that quickest way is so fast, simple and cheesy that it borders on cheating, that's a problem for me. It's a flaw in the rules of the challenge, that makes it too easy, possibly beyond the intention of its creators, which is why I'm pointing it out.

You can always say "well, just don't use it then". But if a feature isn't meant to be used, why is it in the game to begin with?

[Minnie]

Originally posted by Raydell:

I know what you mean, but that's why I said "legitimate" feature. In other words, something that's not breaking the rules of the game, so not a cheat/bug/exploit/etc.

I always prefer playing by the rules to test my skills on the challenge as it was meant to be. As such I have no temptation to use cheats at all. However I do have a very strong desire for efficiency, to find the quickest ways to get ahead within the rules, which is part of the challenge to me.

Now if that quickest way is so cheesy that it borders on cheating, that's a problem for me. It's a flaw in the rules of the challenge, that makes it too easy, possibly beyond the intention of its creators, which is why I'm pointing it out.

You can always say "well, just don't use it then". But if a feature isn't meant to be used, why is it in the game to begin with?

i agree with all your analysis.

[ATR]

Originally posted by Minnie:

Originally posted by Raydell:

I know what you mean, but that's why I said "legitimate" feature. In other words, something that's not breaking the rules of the game, so not a cheat/bug/exploit/etc.

I always prefer playing by the rules to test my skills on the challenge as it was meant to be. As such I have no temptation to use cheats at all. However I do have a very strong desire for efficiency, to find the quickest ways to get ahead within the rules, which is part of the challenge to me.

Now if that quickest way is so cheesy that it borders on cheating, that's a problem for me. It's a flaw in the rules of the challenge, that makes it too easy, possibly beyond the intention of its creators, which is why I'm pointing it out.

You can always say "well, just don't use it then". But if a feature isn't meant to be used, why is it in the game to begin with?

i agree with all your analysis.

I agree too. It feels a bit *half arsed* to put something in that is, well, half complete.

Before I get yet another comment about SPG2, I never played it. I'm new to the franchise. SPGW doesn't feel like a finished game, which surprised me given how much dlc there is.

The research and construct options aren't exactly intuitive. You have to construct upgrades to get resource missions with better rewards, but requiring more civilian fleets? Yet you have to spend personal perks on the resource gathering "skill tree" to be able to upgrade individual facilities across Gemini? How the hell does that make sense?

I've played this game for a few hours now, obtained a dreadnought ("Magistrate" I think?), stuck a bunch of Sage 3 turrets on it with some level 3 upgrade option, and now it's easy. The element of strategy has gone; I've got a fleet of batleships and dreadnoughts I've captured following me around with two of the NPC characters (one in a dreadnought and the other in a carrier, which btw is the most pointless class of ship in the game) and I can fly into the middle of any enemy fleet I come across, hit two Vanguard specials and then spend 30 seconds wiping out anything smaller than a cruiser, and then another minute or two taking out everything else. A cruiser lasts about 10 seconds with sustained fire, battleships *maybe* 20, carriers the same, and dreadnoughts about 30 seconds.

Actually thinking about it, I might still be able to get a refund...

Seriously, try X3 Albion Prelude, which is about one third the price, without a rediculous amount of attached dlc and about x10 the game, or Rebel Galaxy which I picked up for pennies in a Steam sale *and yet* is more fun, *and* prices on commodities respond to in-game events.