SUGGESTION: Perhaps, Just a Small Amount of Mercy, Please?

[Brimstone]

As most of us have come to find over the course of playing this game, Elite Dangerous has absolutely no mercy at times. This is something a friend of mine recently was reminded of, and his misfortune has inspired me to think of a possible solution to make it less painful. Let me explain:

When your pilot has various types of data, whether it's bounty vouchers, combat bonds, exploration scans, or merits, the data will transfer over with the pilot when you change your ship. I always assumed the 'lore' behind this was the pilot had this data stored on a chip of some sort. The problem though, is this data will not transfer over in any way if your ship is destroyed. This can be extremely frustrating, especially when you've amassed a large quantity of data.

Many of you have gone out exploring, earned potentially over millions of credits, and then had it all wiped away when you jump into a system from the wrong direction and find yourself in the middle of two stars. Or perhaps you've been out hunting for bounties, and fighting for your preferred faction for combat bonds, when your luck runs out and an enemy blows your ship to pieces. I believe it's safe to say that we have all experienced this type of situation at least once, and some of you may even have quit the game for some period of time afterwards.

My proposal is a type of "good faith" system linked to the Pilot's Federation, allowing you to reclaim those lost bounty vouchers, exploration data, or whatever else, but only at a percentage that is based on your pilot's rank. Either it would be based on what ever your highest rank is in either of the 3 professions, or separated so that combat bonds and such will be refunded based on your combat rank, Exploration data based on your exploration rank, so on and so forth.

It could work something like this:

~Harmless/ Penniless/ Aimless - 1% of data given back. "You're a new pilot with no reputation, so there's no reason we should trust you."

~Mostly Harmless to Novice, etc - 10% of data given back. "Eh, you're still pretty new but you've earned a small amount of trust from us."

~Competent to Expert, etc - 20% of data given back.

~Master to Dangerous, etc - 30% of data given back.

~Deadly, etc - 50% of data given back.

~Elite - 100% of data given back. or 75%. Honestly just throwing out numbers here. "That pilot is Elite! If they claim that they had it, then they had it!"


Now I'm just throwing percentages out as an outline to show how this could potentially work.

I guess the data was destroyed with the ship, and the pilot didn't have enough time to "download it" onto their own data chip. Therefore, based on the pilot's reputation with the Pilot's Federation, they are 'trusted' to a certain degree and given a percentage of their claims back in "good faith." We already have a scaling system for ship insurance, so this could essentially be folded in with it.

Or an alternative to all of this would be a way to manually make a copy of the data through the functions tab, in cases of emergency.


If the moderators would be interested in adding a poll to this, the selection could be:

-Yes, this is something I would like.
-I would like something similar to this.
-No it's called "Elite DANGEROUS" for a reason.

Thanks for reading my post, let me know what you all think

 

[MarcusKross]

No thank you. Please stop suggesting safety nets around every risk the game offers and steal away from its flavor.

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

Bad idea.

So, you're saying that the Universe should exempt you from any harsh realities?
You also want this to only reward a certain section of the community, as in the higher ranks because you're special?


Is it because you went out without any weapons and found yourself in a bit of a pickle? That's a choice so run.
Is it because you involved yourself in something before you got the info back? That's user error.


I'm so against this you have no idea.
Stop making the game easier for yourself...because that's what it looks like.
And 3 professions?
Sigh.

 

[h347h]

http://theinterviewguys.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/no-thank-you-600x300.png


No thank you. Please stop suggesting safety nets around every risk the game offers and steal away from its flavor.

+1 I agree

 

[Crimson Kaim]

I thought it is called Elite: Dangerous? With the focus on "dangerous"? :/

 

[Brimstone]

Bad idea.

So, you're saying that the Universe should exempt you from any harsh realities?
You also want this to only reward a certain section of the community, as in the higher ranks because you're special?


Is it because you went out without any weapons and found yourself in a bit of a pickle? That's a choice so run.
Is it because you involved yourself in something before you got the info back? That's user error.


I'm so against this you have no idea.
Stop making the game easier for yourself...because that's what it looks like.
And 3 professions?
Sigh.

I'm pretty sure this is my first suggestion of this kind.
I'm not trying to make the game easier for myself, but make sense of the data loss.
3 professions as in combat, trading, and exploration.

Thanks for your feedback, I'm sorry it isn't an idea you agree with, but what would you change about it?

 

[Zplintz]

It's the risk that makes it fun. Without risk you have no tension, no excitement.

I'd prefer more risk rather than less (for any 'profession' you choose to undertake).

 

[Banana's_Are_Good_For_You]

I'm pretty sure this is my first suggestion of this kind.
I'm not trying to make the game easier for myself, but make sense of the data loss.
3 professions as in combat, trading, and exploration.

Thanks for your feedback, I'm sorry it isn't an idea you agree with, but what would you change about it?

It's not a good idea.
You didn't answer the questions about favouritism towards higher ranks only.
So, a noob explorer suffers when others don't. Is that fair in any way? Is that gonna make them want to continue playing the game?
Players lose when they die. It's something we all have to deal with.
The whole balance thing you suggested only favours long time players.
It's game breaking for new players.

Seriously, bad idea.

You forgot mining btw. But you prolly see that as trading. Same with smuggling and prolly even courier routes.
I just don't like it at all on the grounds that it makes things too easy and only favours long time players.

You either make it back or you don't.
That's what makes it a game.

 

[Angus]

What you say is reasonable enough, but I personally don't see a reason for doing it. It would become a different beast, and I think the risk associated with exploration, and your relative vulnerability, adds spice to the activity.


By the way, has combat changed in this regard? Didn't you used only get your kills registered after collecting bounty whereas now its instantaneous?

 

[Renegade Roach]

It's the risk that makes it fun. Without risk you have no tension, no excitement.

I'd prefer more risk rather than less (for any 'profession' you choose to undertake).

Yes, the game needs more risk but the undeniable fact is that exploration carries by far the greatest risk of losing by far the greatest amount of 'work'. Worth also remembering that an explorer can potentially lose months worth of data to a bug or glitch with absolutely no means to recover it. Nothing else in the game carries that level of risk. Nothing else in the game puts you at risk of losing months worth of gameplay data even though you performed perfectly.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I remember the paranoia when I got back from my extended Saggy A* trip carrying 60 mil of data. Scouting a system on the edge of the bubble, with a station close to the star. Staring at blips on the radar to see whether they were trying to pounce on me when I was scooping. That was fun.

If the poll ever materialises, don't call the no option: No it's called "Elite DANGEROUS" for a reason.

Because I couldn't vote for that, since the reason has little to do with the dangerousness of elite.

 

[Mohrgan]

Yes, the game needs more risk but the undeniable fact is that exploration carries by far the greatest risk of losing by far the greatest amount of 'work'. Worth also remembering that an explorer can potentially lose months worth of data to a bug or glitch with absolutely no means to recover it. Nothing else in the game carries that level of risk. Nothing else in the game puts you at risk of losing months worth of gameplay data even though you performed perfectly.

The player accepts that when they decide to go into the black. If a bounty hunter decides to store up two months worth of bounty payouts, should they be granted the same treatment?

 

[Alex Brentnall]

To break the monotony of "its a bad idea" I think its a good suggestion but there should have to be a mission to reclaim the % of data.
Like go to X system and enter the Mission Signal Source and kill the highly ranked ships and scoop up the "damaged data cargo container"

Also lower the percentages to still make it a heavy punishment for dying but on say a 30mil exploration trip recovering 13mil is still worth a bit of effort:
~0% to Novice, etc - 0% of data given back.
~Competent to Expert, etc - 10% of data given back.
~Master to Dangerous, etc - 20% of data given back.
~Deadly, etc - 30% of data given back.
~Elite - 40% of data given back.

It would be kind of hard though since first discoveries bonus and tagging as well as a few other things would need to be ironed out. Also on the Elite side I personally feel that giving 100% back is way too much, I mean exploration data for example, they are paying for the data not the time spent exploring. Same with bounties, they are paying for joe bloggs criminal to be confirmed as killed...

Although I think with the above numbers it wouldn't change the game much. Under 50mil its not really worth it unless you are Deadly and above rank. Most people that rack up over 50million on a single trip are good enough players not to die and ditto for those on Elite so it would really most affect those in the mid-range looking for a cash return after an accident.

 

[Kayweg]

I'm not even sure they CAN restore that data ? Somebody know ?

Wouldn't be a problem with just the ship, and FD have been lenient with reimbursements there before.....but unclaimed data/bounties/bonds ? Hmm...

I seem to recall ship reimbursements where it was stated that the data (at the time of ship loss) was unrecoverable.

 

[Renegade Roach]

The player accepts that when they decide to go into the black. If a bounty hunter decides to store up two months worth of bounty payouts, should they be granted the same treatment?

A bounty hunter storing months worth of bonds would be an idiot, he has a choice and the game never places him in a position where that is unavoidable. This is not true of an explorer. Explain to me how it is possible to bank your data from the far side of the galaxy. It's not even close to being the same thing.

I'm not arguing for a removal of all risk from exploration. Tbh I don't care one way or the other, I'm fine with it now. But arguing that it's the same for every profession is simply wrong.

 

[Mohrgan]

A bounty hunter storing months worth of bonds would be an idiot, he has a choice and the game never places him in a position where that is unavoidable. This is not true of an explorer. Explain to me how it is possible to bank your data from the far side of the galaxy. It's not even close to being the same thing.

I'm not arguing for a removal of all risk from exploration. Tbh I don't care one way or the other, I'm fine with it now. But arguing that it's the same for every profession is simply wrong.

Because the Explorers risk basically comes only at the end of the journey. When they hit inhabited space. For a very short window of time they are exposed. That is the time they are 'paying' for the credits. That is when they are earning their keep. A BH risks destruction every time they engage an opponent. The risk is spread out more, but in the end it is the same.

 

[Rauminen]

For exploration data, they actually can not do it at the moment. I've seen a support ticket giving some credits to an explorer for ship loss over a bug - but no exploration data, they couldn't do that.
I'm guessing the same goes for everything else - so it's a major change to the game.

Besides, I'm also on the no risk no fun side of this argument. It's great fun to thread really really lightly when returning from an exploration trip, or from a CZ after a few hours of pew.
IMHO without the possibility to lose what you have in game many, many more people would quit playing out of sheer boredom.

 

[aws357]

What I find funny is that of all the people answering "heck no, I like risk", if they had the option to have a hardcore mode + permadeath Diablo style, I wonder how many would register

To think that in the future we have forgotten all about the convenience of USB sticks. I find this ridiculous.

At least give explorers the option to buy a black box. When the ship is destroyed, the player can come back where he was destroyed and seek every weak signal source.

For added risk and H4RDC0R3N€$$L0L4P@L053R, in open anybody can recover the black box.

And for those who say it breaks the game, have you ever taken one of those mission where you have to recover black boxes? So they exist in game already. Sheesh.

 

[Brimstone]

To break the monotony of "its a bad idea" I think its a good suggestion but there should have to be a mission to reclaim the % of data.
Like go to X system and enter the Mission Signal Source and kill the highly ranked ships and scoop up the "damaged data cargo container"

Also lower the percentages to still make it a heavy punishment for dying but on say a 30mil exploration trip recovering 13mil is still worth a bit of effort:
~0% to Novice, etc - 0% of data given back.
~Competent to Expert, etc - 10% of data given back.
~Master to Dangerous, etc - 20% of data given back.
~Deadly, etc - 30% of data given back.
~Elite - 40% of data given back.

It would be kind of hard though since first discoveries bonus and tagging as well as a few other things would need to be ironed out. Also on the Elite side I personally feel that giving 100% back is way too much, I mean exploration data for example, they are paying for the data not the time spent exploring. Same with bounties, they are paying for joe bloggs criminal to be confirmed as killed...

Although I think with the above numbers it wouldn't change the game much. Under 50mil its not really worth it unless you are Deadly and above rank. Most people that rack up over 50million on a single trip are good enough players not to die and ditto for those on Elite so it would really most affect those in the mid-range looking for a cash return after an accident.

Making it a mission to recover your own black box would be an amazing idea!


yeah i see that Elite being 100% is too much, but really i was just trying to demonstrate how it could work. Maybe it'd be better to have the maximum recoverable data be 50% or less

 

[Angus]

To break the monotony of "its a bad idea" I think its a good suggestion but there should have to be a mission to reclaim the % of data.
Like go to X system and enter the Mission Signal Source and kill the highly ranked ships and scoop up the "damaged data cargo container"

Well, I've been callling out for more adventure and story, so the concept of flying back into peril and recovering data lost on a previous trip sounds like a pretty cool idea, Alex.

I'd just say that for it to be acceptable (to me) it would need to be difficult and dangerous - not merely a case of retracing your steps to recover an item you dropped on your picnic, but something that the risk averse would be unlikely to attempt.