One of Elite: Dangerous' biggest flaws has always been role imbalance with regards to earnings. To their credit they have been attempting to fix this. However, their changes seem to more be based on hunches and guesswork rather than accurate data. If you're feeling skeptical, consider this evidence:
Bounty Hunting: - Bounties were increased by 100% around 1.2, then an additional 50-100% bonus for certain powers with Powerplay
Exploring: - Payouts increased by 100%, and a further 50% bonus for first discovery, and with an additional 100% bonus for being rank 5 with Sirius Gov
Mercenary: - Combat bonds increased by 100% around 1.2, then doubled again for 1.3
Pirate/salvager: - Black market stolen good prices increased by 50%
Smuggling: - Archon Delaine and Pranav Antal Black Market bonus introduced, then reduced by 50% twice
Mining: - Mineral output increased by 25% in RES
Why are all these values such neat, round numbers? Why so many flat doubling? Imagine if this happened with weapons. Look at Combat bonds being buffed by 400% and imagine if a weapon was buffed by 400% and still remained suboptimal. You'd know that the design team was at best working with faulty data.
Furthermore, why are most of these roles (aside from smuggling if you're rank 5 with Archon Delaine and bounty hunting) still not worth the effort for large scale moneymaking once you have 5+million in assets? Mining was supposedly one of the main focuses of 1.3 but despite missions, collectors prospector limpets and more it remains laughably inferior to trading while being far far more dangerous.
You may argue that none of this matters. Just do what you want right? Money isn't that important, just have fun, right?
Powerplay Makes this Imbalance intolerable
I was willing to put up with this position up until the release of powerplay. Now Frontier have shown themselves not only willing to be able to balance credits/hour, they also can't balance merits per hour. Undermining unaligned powers via combat or pouring credits into mass-buying power commodities is the only viable way to make merits.
Combat expansions and undermining aligned powers via piracy for 1 merit per kill or cargo remain 3-10 times so less effective than undermining unaligned powers for 15 merits per kill or simply buying merits that we are already seeing the effects.
Combat powers are doomed and the empire will go virtually unopposed unless merits earnings are changed
This cycle the combat powers are already finding it harder and harder to meet their expansion targets as players realise it's simply an incredibly suboptimal way of earning merits. Moreover, the empire's massive success can be directly linked to their inability to effectively undermine or oppose one another. Arrissa and Aisling should be at each others throats but undermining or opposing via piracy is simply so difficult and unrewarding almost no one is doing it!
Archon, Hudson, Antal and Patreus will all eventually stop expanding because no one will be willing to expand for them. Arrissa's massive numbers will keep her going for a while but eventually she too will stop expanding, leaving powers like Aisling and Torval as the major powers in the galaxy. Not because of tenacity, or intrigue, or struggle, but because they will be at a fundamental advantage
What Frontier Needs
What I would be willing to bet money that Frontier doesn't have, is someone assigned to actually measuring role effectiveness with regards to credits. Someone to either test first hand, or collate info and metrics from the community and compile into an excel spreadsheet of earnings at different asset levels. They need to balance based on cold, hard data, not by doubling the income till the whining stops.
Such a person could refine careers to the point where the difference between them is less massive and we can do (I'm sad this is a radical concept) what we enjoy and be equally rewarded for it.
A few percentage difference is ok, but in a situation where the worst-earning career (Perhaps NPC piracy at ~200,000 an hour in absolutely optimal ships) is 5,000% worse than the best (commodity trading at up to 10,000,0000 an hour) is completely unacceptable in a modern professionally made game.
**Disclaimer: I have no first-hand experience of of game development, though I do have a keen amateur interest and some experience as a QA in a software development environment**
EDIT: Some people have complained about overwrought language. Looking back I think they have a point. I don't have time to rewrite it but I will balance out the negativity by saying that Elite is amazing and I have great respect for everything that Frontier have done
Bounty Hunting: - Bounties were increased by 100% around 1.2, then an additional 50-100% bonus for certain powers with Powerplay
Exploring: - Payouts increased by 100%, and a further 50% bonus for first discovery, and with an additional 100% bonus for being rank 5 with Sirius Gov
Mercenary: - Combat bonds increased by 100% around 1.2, then doubled again for 1.3
Pirate/salvager: - Black market stolen good prices increased by 50%
Smuggling: - Archon Delaine and Pranav Antal Black Market bonus introduced, then reduced by 50% twice
Mining: - Mineral output increased by 25% in RES
Why are all these values such neat, round numbers? Why so many flat doubling? Imagine if this happened with weapons. Look at Combat bonds being buffed by 400% and imagine if a weapon was buffed by 400% and still remained suboptimal. You'd know that the design team was at best working with faulty data.
Furthermore, why are most of these roles (aside from smuggling if you're rank 5 with Archon Delaine and bounty hunting) still not worth the effort for large scale moneymaking once you have 5+million in assets? Mining was supposedly one of the main focuses of 1.3 but despite missions, collectors prospector limpets and more it remains laughably inferior to trading while being far far more dangerous.
You may argue that none of this matters. Just do what you want right? Money isn't that important, just have fun, right?
Powerplay Makes this Imbalance intolerable
I was willing to put up with this position up until the release of powerplay. Now Frontier have shown themselves not only willing to be able to balance credits/hour, they also can't balance merits per hour. Undermining unaligned powers via combat or pouring credits into mass-buying power commodities is the only viable way to make merits.
Combat expansions and undermining aligned powers via piracy for 1 merit per kill or cargo remain 3-10 times so less effective than undermining unaligned powers for 15 merits per kill or simply buying merits that we are already seeing the effects.
Combat powers are doomed and the empire will go virtually unopposed unless merits earnings are changed
This cycle the combat powers are already finding it harder and harder to meet their expansion targets as players realise it's simply an incredibly suboptimal way of earning merits. Moreover, the empire's massive success can be directly linked to their inability to effectively undermine or oppose one another. Arrissa and Aisling should be at each others throats but undermining or opposing via piracy is simply so difficult and unrewarding almost no one is doing it!
Archon, Hudson, Antal and Patreus will all eventually stop expanding because no one will be willing to expand for them. Arrissa's massive numbers will keep her going for a while but eventually she too will stop expanding, leaving powers like Aisling and Torval as the major powers in the galaxy. Not because of tenacity, or intrigue, or struggle, but because they will be at a fundamental advantage
What Frontier Needs
What I would be willing to bet money that Frontier doesn't have, is someone assigned to actually measuring role effectiveness with regards to credits. Someone to either test first hand, or collate info and metrics from the community and compile into an excel spreadsheet of earnings at different asset levels. They need to balance based on cold, hard data, not by doubling the income till the whining stops.
Such a person could refine careers to the point where the difference between them is less massive and we can do (I'm sad this is a radical concept) what we enjoy and be equally rewarded for it.
A few percentage difference is ok, but in a situation where the worst-earning career (Perhaps NPC piracy at ~200,000 an hour in absolutely optimal ships) is 5,000% worse than the best (commodity trading at up to 10,000,0000 an hour) is completely unacceptable in a modern professionally made game.
**Disclaimer: I have no first-hand experience of of game development, though I do have a keen amateur interest and some experience as a QA in a software development environment**
EDIT: Some people have complained about overwrought language. Looking back I think they have a point. I don't have time to rewrite it but I will balance out the negativity by saying that Elite is amazing and I have great respect for everything that Frontier have done
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