I did have a brief look on the new server, though I do not intend to play there. The new pricing algorithm seems to me absolutely ridiculous. The index of C rate depends by the distance and goes from 0.7 of Y price for very short flights (less than 100 km) to about 2.6 of Y price for about 9.000+ km flight. The Y price is also much more distance-dependent than in current worlds, where it goes from about 105% of Y rate on other worlds for very short routes, then it goes down to about 80% of comparable Y price on other worlds (800 km routes), then slightly goes up, it matches current Y pricing on other worlds at about 3200 km routes, and then goes up to about 115% of Y rate on other worlds on routes of about 4500 km, and then keeps on slightly going up as the route distance increases. At routes of about 9800 m duration, the Y rate is about 182% of the current Y rate on comparable route.
My opinions:
This is good for long haul and very long haul flights, to be more easily able to fill up jumbo jets. The new pricing mechanism is absolutely ridiculous for short and medium haul flights (less than 3500 km), both in Y and especially in C class. Now I understand why there is double demand, because under regular demand it would be very difficult to make flights profitable, because current models of airlines using better seats and charging more goes down the drain with the new pricing mechanism on this new server. And not even for airlines with better seats, to be able to get same margins as in other worlds you need to substantially raise prices, if you keep the default prices your margins will be down 35-40% on average (so if you have 20% profit margin on average, on this new server same setup would give you just 16% profit margin). There is actually a need to have double demand on this new server, because you need that quantity of demand to run airlines with mid-60's ORS (or low 80's at the best) in order to actually have it profitable. If you run airline with Leisure/LP seats and want ORS 99, do not count on margin more than 15% if you have full plane (100% LF). So in saturated markets, where the only way to grab away passengers from competition is to have ORS 99, you would be hard pressed to make money (on current servers, slot full airport and heavy competition, even with 99 ORS the LF can be sometimes in 70-80%, and it's actually C class that makes the flight slightly profitable. Take much lower Y, and C prices on short/mid haul routes, and with heavy competition it would make those flight unprofitable for good. Way to support the competition! Now for long haul routes (5000+ km) the new pricing formula makes it actually more profitable to fly long-haul (Y fare can go to 185% of other server's Y fare, so with 2.6 index for C on the new servers that make C fare on long haul routes about 4.8 of current servers' Y fare).
I am glad that the new server has double demand, because it is such huge demand what is needed to make this new pricing formula work at all. This pricing formula, applied on an existing, competition-saturated servers (slot full airports, airlines with 1000+ planes, etc.) with "regular demand" (or even new server but with regular demand) would be catastrophic, especially on short/medium haul routes (<4000km).
I also had a look around on the server and don't have a plan to play there (although I'm temped to make a cargo airline that uses 727, 707, and 747 classics only), and the pricing seems off. I looked at one of my break-and-butter routes on Aspern and the pricing was much lower on Quimby.
This might force some people to consolidate their hubs especially if they are rather close to each other and by close I mean 500 km of distance between them.
There was some talk about double demand here on the forums. maybe it was players' misunderstanding of your announcement, but the general assumption was "double everything".
And if the demand stays the same on the new server, than the new pricing formula is absolutely inconvenient. Very very difficult to make profit with heavy competition on short and medium haul routes. If the new formula is intended only for this new server, it can be workable, because with time-limited span, it can assure airlines will not grow to mammoth size (which could later result in their petitioning you in November not to reset the server so they do not lose their giant companies). For a "sandbox" environment, with fewer restrictions, it might be a balance-check tool.
Having said that, I hope you will not implement that formula on the older server, because the reduced price along with new cabin config (bigger seats occupying more space) will make it virtually impossible for new airlines to be set up on older servers and competing against established airlines. You know well there is an economy of scale, fist mover advantage and other factors that favor established (and big) airlines on the older servers. If the new pricing formula is implemented to the older servers, I can guarantee no (or very few) new players will be playing there for long because they will find it extremely difficult to compete with much thinner margins (margins on new pricing formula are down by 35%, so a 30% operating margin is down to 20% operating margin, a 15% operating margin down to 10$ margin, etc.)... talk about shooting yourself in the foot with this.
This might force some people to consolidate their hubs especially if they are rather close to each other and by close I mean 500 km of distance between them.
This has nothing to do with hub distance, because it affects all flights, not just flights between hubs. You fly e.g. IAD to Ft.Myers and you will be affected. At about IAD to DEN distance it evens out (roughly) with the current pricing. I guess you would not be very happy with that.
And came to the conclusion, that you don't like this. That's ok, but it is not fair to claim that this is not working as long as you haven't tried. The formula is on our test server for month.
I didn't really check out the new formula, but from the decriptions above it seems to be a very good change, as it may improve many things:
-Airlines don't grow so fast and so slots take longer to fill during a server start (not talking about Quimby here, but in general)
-Finally, it is possible to get good money on long haul flights as it is in real life
-You avoid ultra short haul flights that only fill up slots and are really unncessary (talking about distances of 100 or maximum 200km), in some cases you might need them to fill other flights, but then you have to be prepared to operate them at a loss (thats the way it works for many legacy airlines in reality too...f.e. Lufthansa is making most of the money on longhaul flights and not making so much on shorthaul flights - maybe they are even loosing money on these short haul flights...but still they do need the connecting passengers to fill their long haul flights...)
And I agree with SK here that it is impossible to evaluate the new formula withhin 24h of server start...
May I also ask where do the different Y/J/F class fare come from though?
It seem like we have moved on from the J = 3Y, F = 5Y, and Cargo = 0.6Y formula - and to make things worse, the new Y:J:F (and cargo too) ratio seem to be arbitrary.
For example, on HEL–LHR, J ~ 2.247Y, F ~ 3.796Y, and Cargo = 0.901Y; while on HEL–CPH it is J ~ 2.027, F ~ 3.100, and Cargo = 0.9.
This inconsistent ratio is going to be really difficult for players who don't use the ticket price tool and instead set their own ticket prices. I have been relying on this Y:J:F=1:3:5 (used to be 1:2:3) to set my own ticket price on individual routes and this new ratio would increase my workload enormously.
So may I ask, what is the rationale behind this ratio change?
I agree that putting this formula on existing servers would create enormous workload. I, same as calvin, use differentiated pricing, depending on aircraft config. Readjusting would be an unbearable workload. Needless to say, that however sk wants to present this formula, it is way less profitable to do shorthaul and midhaul. While I agree that longhaul should be more profitable, i do not think it should be done at the expense of shorthaul. Especially for countries where domestic traffic is majority of all traffic, this just makes lots of domestic business models go down the drain. I run certain business models on existing servers, if this pricing formula is applied to existing servers it would render them quite unusable. It took me months to find suitable business model when I first started, then months to do so with new seating config and new prices, with the advantage of having new server to start and also some big airlines shutting down, which gave me time to experiment. I am not willing to have my existing airlines affected and hit by such unexpected change. You leave the same bigger seats, but reduce the price to almost what it was before. Again, I am strongly opposed for this new pricing formula be implemented on existing servers.If you want, implement it in future servers, where new business models can be constructed from the server start.
How many airlines do you have on the test server? About 30? Not even 10% of the worldwide demand filled. No problem then raising prices to what they should be to compensate for higher seats, so running with mid-60's ORS is no problem on test server and planes all get nicely filled up to their full capacity.
It is a function based on distance - IIRC no fix ratio.
Would you elaborate please? Are you saying that there are four different formulas to account for each of the Y, J, F class, and cargo? Because that would be micromanaging for players like me and Rubio, who don't use the ticket price tool.
FYI
On HEL–CPH (897km),J ~ 2.027Y, F ~ 3.100Y, and Cargo = 0.9Y
On HEL–LHR (1826km), J ~ 2.247Y, F ~ 3.796Y, and Cargo ~ 0.901Y
On HEL–HKG (7819km), J ~ 2.601Y, F ~ 6.015Y, and Cargo ~ 0.899Y
It just seems like the ratio of J and F goes up gradually with distance while cargo stays the same at 0.9
Personally I welcome the change as it would bring more realism to the game.
How would it be much harder for you to set up your prices? Yes, before you could just have multiplied by 3 or 5, now before you multiply you will have to find the ratio if you want to do the same thing.
Extra 10 seconds if you just plug the default prices into Excel sheet and get the ratios.
Personally I welcome the change as it would bring more realism to the game.
How would it be much harder for you to set up your prices? Yes, before you could just have multiplied by 3 or 5, now before you multiply you will have to find the ratio if you want to do the same thing.
Extra 10 seconds if you just plug the default prices into Excel sheet and get the ratios.
Thing is, the ratio is all different at different distances. So unless we know the exact function that accounts for each of the Y, J, F class, and cargo, we have no way getting the true ratios.