I'm not sure I'd go as far as "heightened emotions", though I confess that remark was a little snarky
Don't expect a 50 million CR a week bonus to be easy to get
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I'm not sure I'd go as far as "heightened emotions", though I confess that remark was a little snarky
I suppose it's not really a design flaw as much as a design philosophy question. That question being: do the devs want to reward loyalty or activity?
The direction most things seem to point is an activity-based approach, i.e. more time spent over a short period. Sure, some degree of decay makes sense, but as massive as it is, it would seem that there's a deliberate decision behind it to prevent people from "maxing out" their ranks permanently by just playing occasionally but constantly. And I can totally see why that is - this way, things remain more dynamic.
From a user-facing point of view though, this also seems like a punishment for inactivity. And as a player, no one wants to be punished unless that punishment in itself contains more gameplay (e.g. bounties)! Rewards are good, punishments are bad. While a system that much better differentiates seniority within a faction (total points earned as part of that faction) and activity within a faction (recent points earned working for that faction) is of course more complex, I don't think it would be too complex to have in the game. If anything, it would give more very welcome depth to Powerplay.
The direction most things seem to point is an activity-based approach, i.e. more time spent over a short period. Sure, some degree of decay makes sense, but as massive as it is, it would seem that there's a deliberate decision behind it to prevent people from "maxing out" their ranks permanently by just playing occasionally but constantly. And I can totally see why that is - this way, things remain more dynamic.
From a user-facing point of view though, this also seems like a punishment for inactivity. And as a player, no one wants to be punished unless that punishment in itself contains more gameplay (e.g. bounties)! Rewards are good, punishments are bad. While a system that much better differentiates seniority within a faction (total points earned as part of that faction) and activity within a faction (recent points earned working for that faction) is of course more complex, I don't think it would be too complex to have in the game. If anything, it would give more very welcome depth to Powerplay.
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The working twoards this over a peirod of time wouldn't be so bad if we weren't forced to play 7-8 hours if not more a day every day to even HOPE to obtain it currently the system chains people to the game and honestly seeing how crappy the rewards are for anything but Tier 5 makes it sound like the devs are taking the approach of play our game and only our game or your scum and deserve nothing.
Nobody should be surprised by this. When the game launched they offered £10,000 to the first person to reach Elite in all three fields. It's laughable when people say that those grinding are 'doing it wrong'. It's how Frontier are obviously choosing to develop the game and encourage people to play.
Chaps, there is a slight misunderstanding here, clarified towards the end of the "powerplay ratings are a joke" thread. The way I read the manual, having given it a second look, implies that rather than always losing 50% of what you had last week, it's more a case of starting with 50% of what you had last week.,....plus 25% of what you had the week before that and 12.5% of what you had the week before that. That changes things somewhat. It means that once you get to 10k, you don't have to grind 5k a week to stay there. Once you've been 10k for a few weeks, you just have to make back 1250.
You beat me to it
That discussion cleared that up nicely for me. There's still a big first-week hump to get over, i.e. at 150 merits an hour from interdictions, rank 5 would be 66 hours of game time to actually acquire it (assuming you wanted to take a week off to do it), but maintaining rank 5 means 8 hours play a week, which is much more reasonable. (I'm not saying it is reasonable, just much more reasonable than what it looked like earlier).
EDIT: To Acquire Rank 5 in the first place, without doing it in one week, you'll have to hit 5500 merits a week for 3 weeks running, (~36 hours play per week) then the model can accumulate to the point to award you rank 5, and you can drop down to 1250 merits a week to maintain. Any lower than 5500, and the model never quite makes it to rank 5, and you stay at rank 4, because it only considers the previous 3 weeks merits.
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You don't say - however you where the one upset at me bc I kept talking about money. As you quoted me to show me where I had gone wrong I surmised you where actually trying to speak about the same stuff as me ....
You where the one getting bent out of shepe bc I continued to talk about money...
What it says about you is that you like to dish it out but cannot take it ... welcome to my ignore list.
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Lol. I was neither upset nor bent out of shape. Caps don't equal shouting. This is the internet. You kept saying "stop complaining about not being able to make money" when in fact, no one was complaining about that. You didn't read the thread before posting and, consequently, said a lot of irrelevant stuff. Discussions move on from the OP.
Actually it says EXACTLY that about you. You were the one accusing people of being "fat headed" and comparing them to "special kids" (deeply offensive, by the way). You then went on to be more directly insulting/rude, with comments like "dumb". And yet, you get all worked up - to the point of ignoring, apparently - by someone just appearing a little frustrated with you? On the contrary, you're the one who can dish it out but not take it. No one here insulted you. Not once. Ignore as you like, no loss to me.
shouldn't the best players hold the highest ranks, not the welfare warriors and kids?
I am going to say it again grinding is not gameplay, fdev need to realise this. The decay is just to keep you on the treadmill, the problem for fdev is the player base has woken up to this and increasingly annoyed at the lack of real gameplay.
Where are the interesting missions we have been promote set for so long ?
Where are the interesting missions we have been promote set for so long ?
That was a 1 time contest, not a mission statement of intent for the game. What the system is encouraging is unhealthy and unrealistic behaivor. Its a great way to alienate the player base and cost them potential buyers do to alienated customers telling their friends that the game is an elitist grind infested game. And to be honest in the US where the original games weren't a huge thing this game can use all the word of mouth support it can get.
It is probably bad if you do 70 hrs a week. (crazy projects).
But even with 40 hrs a week it is just work and Elite.
Not complaining, it is Elite, that is part of it.
But entry barier to cover costs is too big. I agree that 50mil is just for dedicating a time equivavlent of full time job into it a week, but that some 2 - 5 - 10 mil intermediaries or cash rewards for specfic tasks on top of that are in order.
But even with 40 hrs a week it is just work and Elite.
Not complaining, it is Elite, that is part of it.
But entry barier to cover costs is too big. I agree that 50mil is just for dedicating a time equivavlent of full time job into it a week, but that some 2 - 5 - 10 mil intermediaries or cash rewards for specfic tasks on top of that are in order.
Yes, you have a point here... so far I haven't tried undermining. The CZ are a quite hairy and don't pay off when fighting alone and fortifying doesn't, too. I will have a look at undermining tonight. Thank you!
Eisen
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It isn't to keep you on the treadmill, its because a power structure where everybody is a CEO is moronic, you have two options, to reward people for their time, or to devalue their time based on how much they spend, if its not one its the other, there is no in between that still retains any form of benefits.
Totally agree more interesting missions are required imo, lots of them.
If you can throw money at the problem, rank 5 is easy enough to achieve. Details here to avoid re-posting same information in two threads: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=153103&p=2358988&viewfull=1#post2358988
Everybody getting to rank 5 is not the same as having thousands of people with supposedly executive control of an organisation. It doesn't matter if everyone gets to rank 5. But even if it did, I prefer the idea of making rank 5 a very long and difficult mountain to climb to merit decay. Going for 100% completion on some games is a matter of skill not time. It is not inevitable if you just grind enough in a short enough space of time. If Rank 5 were awarded for doing something both monumental and difficult, something which takes months of gameplay, even longer for casual gamers, and a lot of skill, then 1) it would mean something and 2) most people would give up before they got there. Merit decay is a poor substitute for this imo. It might prevent EVERYONE from getting there, but getting there is no real achievement. It is just a function of having enough time.
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Best of luck with it. I recommend a Vulture or Viper with an interdictor. Can be a lot of activity and you'll get wanted in that system but I found it was great fun.
At the end of the day you'd need to spend a ridiculous amount of hours in the game to earn 50 mil credits a week doing other stuff eg trading. The monetary rewards were added because people didn't feel that power play was worth giving up credit earning activities. I don't know if the way its set up does equate to a weeks worth of trading for a player who can spend say 6 hrs a day on the game but I'm guessing that's why they have made it so hard to get to the top tiers. If they made it too easy to get to tier 5 then no one would bother with the standard professions.
Personally, I have no interest in rank 5 myself, just the power-specific modules to further enhance my gameplay. These weren't on the descriptions last night when I played, so I don't know at what ranks these come (although someone said they are there now after server reset).
The rank 5 reward I was highlighting that it has been misplaced, it shouldn't be 50M based on the amount you can spend to reach it.
The rank 5 reward I was highlighting that it has been misplaced, it shouldn't be 50M based on the amount you can spend to reach it.
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