Granting a 50 million credit award for rank 5, was a mistake Frontier.

[HeimdallofHavn]

Update: It would be great if people who are grinding for the rank 5 awards can share their thoughts in this thread...



In beta, only the top 10 players got rank 5.

This basically meant it was rather meaningless for most sane members, and a carrot to the crazy types who play the lottery and expect to win.

Now, with the current 50 million reward and merit decay system, investing money into merits is actually a viable investment for future profit.

This has some unintended consequences:

1. It encourages a mindless merit grind in order to earn cash, instead of earning merits helping your power

2. It encourages 5th coloumn type players as they can still earn a lot of money using all their time by destroying a power from within

The earlier system was fine in my not so humble opinion, despite many commanders whining about it.

Basically rank 5 was irrelevant except for a few select lottery winners. This made sense as the rank 5 perks are fairly overpowered.



With the new system, rank 5 is a moneymaking gift to players who already had 100's of millions.

Surely this was not the intent?

I guess it is too late to change, as many commanders have poured millions into the system already :/

Cheers.

 

[Armour]

FDEV have a habit of listening to those who shout the loudest and not trusting their own instincts. Except when adding a whole new section of gameplay to turn Elite into Risk, of course. Then they just roll it out unilaterally.

 

[Chummy62]

Since no one else has said anything I'll throw in my $0.02. I humbly disagreee with you opinion and believe that everyone who is willing to put in the effort should receive the rewards. Takes a lot of work to get there and hard work should be handsomly rewarded.

 

[Anthemeia]

Not so.

Fast-tracking to Rank 5 costs 100 million credits. So, either you play constantly (which I think is still not possible) or approximately break even. The time investment to get to 50 million credits would be better spent on trading.

 

[Jordan Cobalt]

10,000 merits would take a looooong to get. There's almost no way you wouldn't be better off just grinding for the cash instead of merits.

 

[Brujah]

Not so.

Fast-tracking to Rank 5 costs 100 million credits. So, either you play constantly (which I think is still not possible) or approximately break even. The time investment to get to 50 million credits would be better spent on trading.

Presumably beyond this point your costs would be radically less in order to maintain the rank, however?

 

[Fireclown]

Since no one else has said anything I'll throw in my $0.02. I humbly disagreee with you opinion and believe that everyone who is willing to put in the effort should receive the rewards. Takes a lot of work to get there and hard work should be handsomly rewarded.

+1
Don't like lotteries
Not that I'd ever get to rank 5 but if people want to they should see a definite reward.

 

[Bazorlag]

[edit, it´s little bit more complex that that]

 

[RingoD123]

spend: 100000000, gain: 50000000 = -50000000
spend:50000000, gain: 50000000 = -50000000
spend:25000000, gain: 50000000 = -25000000
spend:12500000, gain: 50000000 = +12500000
spend:12500000, gain: 50000000 = +50000000

and so on.

Is this what you mean?

if you never raised yourself past 10k then your merits would decay to 5k every cycle, meaning you would have to spend 50M per week to keep your rank, so you would always be at a 50M loss from the first week when it cost 100M

 

[Don_Von_Hulio]

If im gonna grind, im gonna do it in real life and earn real money to buy real things.

I feel like FDEV have gotten jumbled up with what they want Elite to be now versus what they had in mind in the past. Powerplay feels more like a gimmick to me, to keep those who "no life" the game a purpose in playing even though they already have a figuratively infinite amount of money. But none of this sounds fun to me, it takes way too much babysitting and this crap is exactly why i left EVE.

All they had to do was stick to the design archives and everything wouldve been fine.

 

[Steve72]

Presumably beyond this point your costs would be radically less in order to maintain the rank, however?

Is this not wear the problem lies. The fact you can fast track yourself. Someone pointed out yes big initial outlay but as weeks progress better return. Therefore favouring already rich players getting benefits.

Very few players can put hours into get there without fast traking. This system favours established players or beta backers or those that managed to acrew mass wealth due to bugs.

Fair play put the time in you deserve it but to buy into it. Fd should have created and even playing field and lowered the number of merits with no fast tracking.

 

[Djinn144]

50mil credits in a T9 or Annie would take you under 10hours playtime so 50mil a week bonus isnt that much for those who already have 100s of mils. but for talking sake say i spend 100mil to get 10k merits the first week then 50mil per week after that to stay there, so before i make any profit i first have to get back the initial 100mil back. long term worth it but short term your throwing your cash away. not to mention if you swap to another power thats another 50mil spent you have to get back before profit.

Long term trading like this will bring many interdictions as you go through other Powers space

Bounty hunting in the same parts of space over and over gets old fast and as you go further out you will also be attacked by rival powers

 

[Anthemeia]

It sums to zero.

The first week, you don't lose any merits to decay, but fast-tracking works out to 100 million credits, but you make 50 million, so a 50 million investment.

Follow that out to the fifth week, where you lose half. Fast-tracking from 5,000 merits to 10,000 merits is 50 million credits. Again, you break even just to stay there. In the intervening, you may make up the initial investment due to less merit decay. But, again, you just break even.

So, the 50 million is just an incentive to make powerplay less of a money-sink. It is not a reward. The real reward is the level 5 bonuses. Which, ironically, for trade powers kind of suck. Who, with 100 million credits to burn on Powerplay is still trading rares?

Getting to level 5 is only worth it for the exploration and combat powers, imo.

 

[Teklow82]

Just my opinion.. rank 4 5 a eqpic waist of time

 

[Klab]

if you never raised yourself past 10k then your merits would decay to 5k every cycle, meaning you would have to spend 50M per week to keep your rank, so you would always be at a 50M loss from the first week when it cost 100M

This is 100% correct. Check the PP game info & redo the math if you disagree. Also, trading 5000 PP goods every week takes HOURS trust me I am doing it.

 

[HeimdallofHavn]

Since no one else has said anything I'll throw in my $0.02. I humbly disagreee with you opinion and believe that everyone who is willing to put in the effort should receive the rewards. Takes a lot of work to get there and hard work should be handsomly rewarded.

What about the unintended consequences listed?

- - - Updated - - -

Not so.

Fast-tracking to Rank 5 costs 100 million credits. So, either you play constantly (which I think is still not possible) or approximately break even. The time investment to get to 50 million credits would be better spent on trading.

The needed time and money investment declines dramatically week by week until week 4 because you keep half of the merits earned.

 

[RingoD123]

What about the unintended consequences listed?

if you do the math you will see that there is no money making gift for people who already have 100's of millions. However, if your willing to "waste" 50M profit by spending 100M on 10k merits, and another 5k every week, you will always be at an original 50M loss.

 

[HeimdallofHavn]

10,000 merits would take a looooong to get. There's almost no way you wouldn't be better off just grinding for the cash instead of merits.

You would be better of trade grinding for instance, but still the current reward makes it a viable option and many commanders see it that way and has started pouring millions into it already with the aim of earning a considerable profit from week 4 onwards maintened at a far lower cash outlay and time investment.

- - - Updated - - -

Presumably beyond this point your costs would be radically less in order to maintain the rank, however?

Exactly.

 

[Anthemeia]

What about the unintended consequences listed?

- - - Updated - - -



The needed time and money investment declines dramatically week by week until week 4 because you keep half of the merits earned.

Only for the first few weeks. After that, you need to go from zero to 10,000 on your own. Those middle weeks do not make up for a long-term investment of 50 million per week.

 

[HeimdallofHavn]

+1
Don't like lotteries
Not that I'd ever get to rank 5 but if people want to they should see a definite reward.

At the prize of the unintended consequences?

Which imho attacks the core of the powerplay mechanics.

- - - Updated - - -

Will look at this thread later, need to continue fortifying