Rares no longer being stocked????

[Therris]

This is a fictional video game... not a realistic representation of anything, despite what we've been fed about NASA data...it's still fictional in every way. I'm not even convinced tha marketing about the number of visit-able systems is real. After all, nobody is ever going to be able to verify any of that. That being said, it's still plenty big for immersion, even if it was just 1000 systems.

You will NEVER....EVER....be able to take the concept of PROGRESSION out of a video game. Humans are hard-wired for progression in games, and progression usually = resources = cash. Once you realie this, you understand that the race to maximize your rate of progression, is tied to what you call 'grinding'....it's inherent as part of the system. The implication that in a progression-based system played by human minds will ever be devoid of what some might call 'grinding', is inherently naive.

 

[vonFelty]

You guys have played enough MMOs that released way to early. There is no content, so they have to nerf repeatedly to stop player progress. It's a result of rushed release, unscrupulous devs have been pulling this little trick for a long time.

Yeah. I sort of noticed that over the summer. They reduced profits whenever and wherever possible the more the game progressed. They also upped ship prices as well over time.

Its as if they feel they can create content with grind. Other MMO companies have gone that route and failed horribly.

 

[Darkwolf]

This is a fictional video game... not a realistic representation of anything, despite what we've been fed about NASA data...it's still fictional in every way

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxima_Centauri

Distance from Alpha Centauri to Proxima Centauri in actuality - 0.21 ly.
Distance from Alpha Centauri to Proxima Centauri in Elite - 0.22 ly.

Not entirely fictional.

I'll grant you that the various exoplanets and asteroid belts and such are completely fictional, but stuff like distance, position and star types are reasonably accurate to reality. You know, the things that are actually in star catalogues.

 

[SuBSynk]

Yeah. I sort of noticed that over the summer. They reduced profits whenever and wherever possible the more the game progressed. They also upped ship prices as well over time.

Its as if they feel they can create content with grind. Other MMO companies have gone that route and failed horribly.

No they have balanced the professions a bit is all.

Trading earned way more than any other profession by far in the Beta/Gamma and now its more balanced. Bounty hunting now earns far more than it used to and has received a pretty big buff, whilst trading has been balanced to not make quite as much as previously, makes perfect sense to me. Can still make millions per hour but now with more than just the trading profession, as it should be.

 

[SpiralRazor]

No they have balanced the professions a bit is all.

Trading earned way more than any other profession by far in the Beta/Gamma and now its more balanced. Bounty hunting now earns far more than it used to and has received a pretty big buff, whilst trading has been balanced to not make quite as much as previously, makes perfect sense to me. Can still make millions per hour but now with more than just the trading profession, as it should be.

Millions per hour? your smoking some serious crack there sir.

L-6 and im on the fringe worlds making around 180k with a 2 jump circuit, 100 ton capacity...please dont disseminate false info, k thanks. And thats a damn good trading loop from what ive read all day, as well as having most of the day to play. Youre not going to make anything NEAR that, even bounty hunting in an combat Asp..

And Exploration? LOL...

smoke more.

 

[Spectre]

Millions per hour? your smoking some serious crack there sir.

L-6 and im on the fringe worlds making around 180k with a 2 jump circuit, 100 ton capacity...please dont disseminate false info, k thanks. And thats a damn good trading loop from what ive read all day, as well as having most of the day to play. Youre not going to make anything NEAR that, even bounty hunting in an combat Asp..

And Exploration? LOL...

smoke more.

It's not entirely out of the question. At least a million is possible by bounty hunting: Your basic asassination mission, which seems to be one of the most common missions out there, gives you about 250,000 to 300,000 credtis including bounties, if you are good and fast enough, you can do up to four of these per hour, which means that you could make that kind of money, if you are ballsy enough to take on four Elite Anacondas in a row. Of course this involves a great deal of luck in finding your target and a great deal of skill and equipment to take it down quickly, but it's not impossible I suppose.

 

[SpiralRazor]

It's not entirely out of the question. At least a million is possible by bounty hunting: Your basic asassination mission, which seems to be one of the most common missions out there, gives you about 250,000 to 300,000 credtis including bounties, if you are good and fast enough, you can do up to four of these per hour, which means that you could make that kind of money, if you are ballsy enough to take on four Elite Anacondas in a row. Of course this involves a great deal of luck in finding your target and a great deal of skill and equipment to take it down quickly, but it's not impossible I suppose.

Do you think you can find 4 of those missions in an hour? While hunting them down, killing them and returning? Also, you would need a pretty tricked ship yourself if you can go after Elite Anacondas with any reasonable kill time...so that assumes you already have millions and millions already.

 

[ShadowGar]

So I wasn't into rares while it was hot so I tested this tonight to see what the complaining was about. I went to Delta P and saw 11 Palms. I grabbed them and went to CD-75 661 saw only 5 Kitty coffee. Waited, 10 minutes later 2 more popped up. So I took those 7 and went to Yaso Kondi. Only one leaf. So in all 18 rares. Mind that this was over a eight hour period where the only time I played the game was travel time between the stations with a 13ly jump range so about only an hour and a half of actual game play. So I guess that was around 342k for an hour and a half and now there is ZERO rares in any dock for me.

Now that there is no rares spawning for me, thats a -342k a hour drop. If this spawns like this all the time for me on maybe a 24 hour timer, it would take me 426 days to get an Anaconda. Thats just by running rares alone an hour a day. But FD never said what the allotment was based on. Also looking at all the calculations on reddit for max profits in all categories of the game, it would take me roughly 4 months to get from a hauler to a 3 mil asp. Thats four months of playing 1-3 hours a day since I have a job that wants me 16 hours a day.

I get that its to supplement normal shipments. But you can't supplement a shipment with Zero. Trading was destroyed after beta.

 

[specialsymbol]

If it stops the ridiculous practice of buy 10, wait 15 minutes, refresh and buy 10 more, I'm all for it. Play the game, don't exploit it. You're not supposed to "finish" the game in 4 days.

Why has it always to be about "finishing the game"?

Why not simply play to have fun?

 

[Spectre]

Do you think you can find 4 of those missions in an hour? While hunting them down, killing them and returning? Also, you would need a pretty tricked ship yourself if you can go after Elite Anacondas with any reasonable kill time...so that assumes you already have millions and millions already.

As I said: With luck, skill (whatever that means in the given context) and a decent enough ship it's possible. And regarding the problem of finding missions: Just this morning I had 3 of those offered to me at Lave Station and 2 more at George Lucas. I didn't take them, because I did this thing once and barely came out alive, but I could have if I was a better player.

 

[Devilizer]

Why has it always to be about "finishing the game"?

Why not simply play to have fun?

I agree. And trading rares, as it was, made me have fun. Now I don't.
I understand what some people don't like the rare trading, but nobody is forcing them to do it. But that doesn't mean the rest of us can't.
Stop nerfing everything, and let us enjoy the game in each our own ways.

 

[Valan]

If people hit the end game ships too quickly you have two options.

1) Introduce more content ie money sinks.
2) Nerf everything to stop everyone doing it.

Other games in the past have done the same. EVE used to nerf everything on a weekly basis but once CCP were on their feet they just added stacks more ships and money sinks.

These guys aren't ready to release more content so they need to eek out what they have.

 

[zorianarki]

I agree. And trading rares, as it was, made me have fun. Now I don't.
I understand what some people don't like the rare trading, but nobody is forcing them to do it. But that doesn't mean the rest of us can't.
Stop nerfing everything, and let us enjoy the game in each our own ways.

So much this, since the trade objectively wasn't a faster way to make money compared to trading (the numbers have been done several times in several threads), it DIDN'T unbalane the game, it simply provided for a play style that was as follows: Hang around a given systen for a day or two bounty hunting, trading, whatever, and slowly fill up your bay with a rare commodity, then move on to the next system and do it again.

It was a way of playing that involved several key aspects of the game, it didn't make you earn way more money and it was hella fun, THAT is why a lot of people are angry, not because we don't get to sit and look at the commodity screen for 10 hours every day, I sure as hell wasn't.

And yes I can still do that (except the rare trade) but the thing is, the far-between-but-big income was way more satisfying to me than seeing it dribble in, that was part of the motivation for me, and the motivation to go to all sorts of weird places in the galaxy. Now I might as well just hang around the same system since it'll be way more profitable due to rep gains = better missions.

 

[Devilizer]

So much this, since the trade objectively wasn't a faster way to make money compared to trading (the numbers have been done several times in several threads), it DIDN'T unbalane the game, it simply provided for a play style that was as follows: Hang around a given systen for a day or two bounty hunting, trading, whatever, and slowly fill up your bay with a rare commodity, then move on to the next system and do it again.

It was a way of playing that involved several key aspects of the game, it didn't make you earn way more money and it was hella fun, THAT is why a lot of people are angry, not because we don't get to sit and look at the commodity screen for 10 hours every day, I sure as hell wasn't.

And yes I can still do that (except the rare trade) but the thing is, the far-between-but-big income was way more satisfying to me than seeing it dribble in, that was part of the motivation for me, and the motivation to go to all sorts of weird places in the galaxy. Now I might as well just hang around the same system since it'll be way more profitable due to rep gains = better missions.

This. So very much this. +1

 

[Tethys]

Well I spent an enjoyable evening last night in the environs of 39 Tauri and did not feel things had changed that much. I did some missions and ended up with a 32t of various rares. Tonight I will be upping sticks to my next chosen location ~160ly away, cash in (~400K) and restart the process.


IF it make a fatal mistake then I will be 250K of insurance down, less the cargo and two nights playing (6-8 hours). Does not seem that unbalanced to me.

 

[CC Waterback]

Your journey is almost identical to what I'm experiencing. FD is making it up as the game goes along. If this doesn't improve FD will run off the majority of gamers, and only a few ED purists will remain. Perhaps the time required to be successful at this game is far more than most of us with a life can invest.

This is what gets me. Even in the original 1984 version of Elite, there were areas that had what was referred to as "milk runs". Basically you found 2 systems almost on top of each other close, one an agriculture the other an industrial, that both had high demand for each others commodities, and you went back and forth between them till you made what you needed. Also in the old Elite, there was a "smuggler's compartment" you could add on to your ship so you could transport small amounts of illegal goods without being detected. I can't remember the specifics of how it worked, but it was a decent size, and that was how you got things like slaves, narcotics, etc from one base to another and the profits from those were huge compared to regular stuff.

I think what they are trying to do is make the rares like those "smuggled" goods in the 1984 game. Plus, they have indicated in the big discussion in the patch thread that the overall trading AI is borked at the moment and they are working on fixing it. So hopefully they get that ironed out soon and we'll see our trading profits increased. It is a pain tho since overall trading is screwed at the moment that they take away the one thing that does actually generate a decent amount of profit. Seems like they would fix the overall issues first, then tune the individual things to compliment the big picture.

I guess, "Time Will Tell". In the meantime, we GRRRRIIINNNNDDDDDD....

 

[Hooplah]

> By reducing supply instead of profit margin, the nerf is aimed at big ships making huge sums of cash. Traders in small ships still get to cash in. <
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> 4. It hits the 'big boys' and leaves the smaller fry alone. so no more filling up a type 6 and making 1.5m a trip, but the guys in cobra's are hardly effected <
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And this is fair? So it's all about owning ships up to Cobra size and that's it? Anything bigger and it's unfair so the 'big boys' have to suffer? This is wrong and unfair. Someone who works hard to acquire a ship with a large cargo hold has earned the right to make large profits with it.
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Profits were balanced before from say 20-1000/ton. Starting out with 1000 credits did you trade at very low profits making maybe 20/ton and 200 on a run? No, you did a mission which generated 3000-5000 to obtain more credits. Would you call the missions an exploit? Of course not as you needed to generate credits in a reasonable amount of time to buy that Viper or Cobra. Rare commodities are similar as they generate a unique profit, but one has up upscale their ship and flying skills to deal in them. Even then they take a LONG time to make a profit with such low quantities. Thus trading in standard commodities was much more efficient...until they nerfed all the prices!
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As you gain credits better commodities become available but at a higher cost. Now one can make 200/ton. Continue on and 1000/ton was available...until they nerfed all the prices! That's is the problem. Why take the risk of buying very expensive commodities when the profit is less than 200/ton? Previously gold and progenitor cells could make 1000/ton profit which given their cost was balanced for the game. Now you're lucky to get 500/ton. Risking 9700 to get 500 is too low. 1000 was and is acceptable for the risk involved.
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All I ask for is reasonable profits. Additions like rare commodities also make the game fun and interesting. If every decent profit made is an exploit then there is very little award value in trading...and I like trading.

 

[BLACKHOUND]

What we need to know is what our "cap" is. How is it figured out? By cargo space in our ship? Ship type, faction alliance, sub faction alliance, trading rank, available space thats left in your ship, ship size, ect?
.

We are capped at a max amount of tons of a given type of rare. Example in Zaonce the max I could buy was 1 "leathery egg".
You know when you have reached your cap when you see no info in the supply column for the rare item. If it says 0 you can come back later and you may get a little more supply.

The strategy I used yesterday was doing a milk run of 5 rare commodity systems within a few light years (exemple : Lave, Diso, Errere, Zaonce and.. can't remember the other). I pick up a what is available then move to the other system, by the time I do one pass when I come back there are fresh supply. When I reach my cap (no supply) which was about 60 tons for the Lave sector, then I move 140 LY away to another bunch of rare systems. You can repeat from there.

Did 1M profit yesterday that way in 2-3 hours. Did some fighting also so I was not "optimal" timewise but decent rev for investement... better than hauling scraps.

I would like the quantity available to be improved a little bit however....

 

[Mr. Bridger]

I had 30 lavian brandy when I logged in, stocked up slowly between hunting trips. No stock to buy, not even a 0.

Took this to ethgreze to sell. Bought 3 tea. Waited 10 minutes. Bought 4 more.

It seems we have a maximum allowance now. Maybe it's 10.

7 is all I could get

 

[Tony2438]

The patch notes explains it rather well.

- After yet another discussion with the rare commodity producers, Commanders should now be eligible to only purchase rare goods up to their own personal allocation, instead of buying everybody else's ration as well.

How many? what does that mean personal allocation so does evryone get the same?