Imbalance of Progress in Elite Dangerous

This whole income measuring thing is some kind of misguided attempt to force a 'fairness doctrine' that doesn't exist in E: D. I can see FD being interested in boosting some missions, or increasing bounties, but to insist that there should be any kind of artificial income parity placed so each of the roles is not in the spirit of Elite.

the "spirit of Elite" as you call it is based on a single player game, which this is most certainly not.

One presumes that the game was designed with some idea of longevity in mind. Now consider the small number of systems with stations and outposts compared to the galaxy as a whole. Most players will be crammed into this small area for trading as more and more join. It's fine for the moment but later, when you have 10 or 15 people all trading the same commodities as you, the market will die. No good moving to another system with better prices, there are 10 or 15 people trading the best wares in them too. With no other profession to take the place of trading to make cash everyone and their dog is going to be trading. As a result, profits from trading will fall dramatically and the game is going to get very old very fast. Comes to that, it's already is starting to get old.
 
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As I've posted in a few other threads, Bounty Hunting got a bit of a boost thanks to the variety additions in RES in 1.2 (more than just Cobra Battles). Also, with repair costs going down, I'm excited to take my moderately upgraded Asp to an RES and not pay an arm and a leg for repairs while shooting down Imperial Clippers and other new mobs.
 
Trading is the most profitable career in any economy. Especially trading stocks in stead of actual goods, but I'm glad that's not in this game.
 
What does it matter if the careers are not balanced?

Different play styles/careers should have different types of 'rewards' to make them fun. For explorers, the tagging of objects you've discovered is a great reward which compensates for the lack of big bucks. Traders get money for their reward. But then we start having a bit of a breakdown and this does need to be addressed by FD. Folks who like fighting need to have rewards related to that - perhaps access to special weapons or enhancements. Pirates, smugglers and salvagers should have access to shady ports nobody else is allowed into and perhaps special equipment like shielded from scan cargo modules they can buy for a high price. Etc.

Rewards should not be uniformly in the form of credits. There should be lots more non monetary rewards for the differing play styles and interests to be implemented.
 
Yes trading the same goods over and over again is boring. So this need to have big profits. Pirates have to live to. Mining is bugged... Even more BORING but no real money. Needs a buff. All the rest is fun. Pirating. Bounty hunting. Exploring. All the things I do for fun cost me money in real life. So in ED this should be the same. Having fun (shooting at things) will cost u money. Make money by doing boring stuff. Welcome to RL.
 
Yes trading the same goods over and over again is boring. So this need to have big profits. Pirates have to live to. Mining is bugged... Even more BORING but no real money. Needs a buff. All the rest is fun. Pirating. Bounty hunting. Exploring. All the things I do for fun cost me money in real life. So in ED this should be the same. Having fun (shooting at things) will cost u money. Make money by doing boring stuff. Welcome to RL.

This is a videogame.
 
The government? Do you really think an E3 or Specialist out there in Afghanistan can afford any of the expensive equipment (ACOGs, thermal sights, night vision, laser designators, crypto gear, yadda yadda) he uses?

I'm not making any RL analogy. I mean that the Corvette is ship designed for combat, and that players that only fight and do not trade won't be able to afford it, because the Corvette will probably be at least Anaconda-prized.
 
I don't see where the problem is. It's not if one has to choose what to do. You can even have different ships for everything.
Further, it has been like this in previous Elite installments. You trade for the money, the rest is your hobby that you get paid for when your good.
 
The problem with ops post is the terminology used not what his post is. I agree with him 100%.

It's not balance that is needed but scaling.

Trading works as a profession as you can see real world "leveling" so to speak. You buy a bigger ship, you can haul more cargo and you get more profits. With the other professions you buy a bigger ship and nothing changes. You're killing the same ships with a sidewinder as you are if you had an anaconda and whilst you might be having fun you don't see any progression and people playing a game need to see progression.

I'm not saying have "leveled" enemies but something needs to be done so you can get better missions for better rewards. Instead of the hundredth "find and kill a pirate lord for 150k" that is identical every time you do it you need to have harder missions, maybe not an anaconda everytime but maybe an elite cobra and a dropship with rewards to match.

I'm sure the new strong uss will help in wings but only if you're in a wing and as we know, hunting uss gets old very quickly.

Whilst the combat gameplay in Ed is excellent, making money is the equivalent of the loot cave in destiny as far as the depth of gameplay goes.
 
All the things I do for fun cost me money in real life. So in ED this should be the same. Having fun (shooting at things) will cost u money. Make money by doing boring stuff. Welcome to RL.

Don't be ridiculous. This is a game. The part where having fun costs you money? That was supposed to be when you paid real-life money for the game. Once you're in the game, you're supposed to be having fun, or what's the point? If I wanted to do boring things to earn money, I'd ... go to work, like I already do every day for the majority of my waking life, which is why I want to do fun things in my limited free time.
 
Yup, the problem is basically scaling. At the lower levels, various careers actually are pretty well balanced. Some make more or less profit, but the disparity isn't huge.

The problem is really that trading is the only career path that massively benefits from ship upgrades. Others scale poorly or not at all. So while there's an income progression in trade, the same progression doesn't exist in other professions. Bounty hunting looks to be more profitable overall with 1.2, but I still don't see the fundamental scaling issue being fixed - a Viper is still going to earn about the same as a Vulture.
 
Why would there be any pirates in a world where you can make multiple times the money hauling completely legal goods?
why would anyone risk their life fighting a exremely good (elite) pilot in a very dangerous ship if one could fly a type 6 to a station 5 min away for the same money?
I am aware that these are only in game-logical reasons, but I find this very annoying. And it does break my immersion
 
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Yup, the problem is basically scaling. At the lower levels, various careers actually are pretty well balanced. Some make more or less profit, but the disparity isn't huge.

The problem is really that trading is the only career path that massively benefits from ship upgrades.

But that's the thing: For other careers, you don't need the bigger ships, thus you need less money. So it all makes sense.

Why would there be any pirates in a world where you can make multiple times the money hauling completely legal goods?
why would anyone risk their life fighting a exremely good (elite) pilot in a very dangerous ship if one could fly a type 6 to a station 5 min away for the same money?
I am aware that these are only in game-logical reasons, but I find this very annoying. And it does break my immersion


I hope you are not under the impression that a somali pirate group makes more money than the owner of a large shipping company.
People don't become pirate because it's a profitable profession when you are wealthy - they become pirate either because they have nothing else, or because they simply like to fight and plunder.
 
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i agree with your war zone statement rewards need flat buff all around.

bounty hunting needs some quirks like allied with a local faction grants you a permit which you can lose if you fall out of the allied category with this permit you can fire apon wanted people in the no fire zone of stations of that faction or drop off cargo taken from wanted people for 3/4th the full value. or a system permit allowing you to fire on any one with a bounty.

i also would like us to be able to have our own escorts i own 5 ships right now eventually i would like to be able to hire mercenary to pilot these ships with me and help bounty hunt their kill only grant me 1/4th of the bounty. this could be edited for traders as well so we could make our own convoys of t6's or t9's.

for mining i don't want a tractor beam but i can see drones/net gun being put on hard points to help pick up the chunks.

as for exploring i don't due much of that any way so your on your own....

feel free to edit/ add on
 
But that's the thing: For other careers, you don't need the bigger ships, thus you need less money. So it all makes sense.

You technically don't need bigger ships for trading if that's what you find fun. If you want to play a combat role and want a big ship then you're forced out of that combat role in to trading as your profession has no progression.

A good analogy is to imagine you were playing skyrim as a mage and you couldn't afford to buy spell books unless you spent 100 hours as an archer as there was no built in progression for a mage.
 
Dude get over it

Trading is playing the game to only make cash

Every other profession your doing something else while earning money.

There not the same nor should they be you may as well complain that your explorer rank isn't going up as you sit in a combat zone killing npc.

Since Community goals, this statement is absolutely not correct anymore.
 
In fact, there is way that you can make profit despite the economic imbalances and losses.

Go on one spot, sector with 5 system at least (places where you can find different ships, outfits, RES and NAV points). Go for hunting. Stay careful, be careful. Watch your back. Play always safe. And in 2 month you WILL earn 10 mil credit.

Guaranteed.
 
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In fact, there is way that you can make profit despite the economic imbalances and losses.

Go on one spot, sector with 5 system at least (places where you can find different ships, outfits, RES and NAV points). Go for hunting. Stay careful, be careful. Watch your back. Play always safe. And in 2 month you WILL earn 10 mil credit.

Guaranteed.

Even a basic T9 with no cargo and insurance will set you back 98mil let alone an un-upgraded anaconda. If you spend 2 months trading you can easily earn a billion credits.
 
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