Why do the devs keep destroying every form of making income?

[Odan Brota]

This is exactly the problem I have with the game now. I work 10 hours a day not play 10 hours a day! I like to dabble in all aspects but the Devs are telling me that only kids and unemployed can make mega money to enjoy the shiny new ships and upgrade them. I played the original Elite on a C64 when my time was worth relatively nothing. I have always loved this game but I am old as F now and don't have another lifetime to build bank. I only play solo because those with more free time and full tweaked toys keep blowing old whiny butt to space bits.
Now my solo game just got smaller.

I have to agree with you. I work a standard 9-hour shift, but I have an hour commute to and from work, so that's 11 hours a day gone. Add 8 hours for sleeping, that's 19 hours a day. Leaving 5 hours a day to get everything done, that I need to get done. Between a wife and my other myriad responsibilities, I can maybe fire up a game for about an hour a day on weekdays, and weekends are a crapshoot due to the massive amount of "honey-do's" that get piled on. Sothis was quite nice for me, since I could spend an hour getting there and stacking missions, and go make the runs the following morning. Still only amounted to maybe 30 million every two days, but it was enough to keep my happy and let me outfit my ships. Engineers was a nice distraction from that as well, since I wasn't earning any money anyway, it didn't feel like I was wasting my time.

Now? Earning 15 million probably means an hour of hardcore trade grinding. Not something I really want to do after work. So, I've taken a break from the game to play other things (like SWTOR and Planet Coaster). Hopefully FDev will figure out some way for veteran players to earn good credits while limiting newbies, but I won't be holding my breath.

 

[tomalus]

I cant really say, all I know is after a good patch, they destroy everything positive in a patch a week or two later.

 

[Mengy]

At the end of the day it's not about getting that shiny new ship, or kitting it with 100s of millions in credits, or being able to engineer your conda's FSD over and over again to hit that goal you want.....none of that matters nearly as much as the time you spend doing all that. The reward system un-appaulagetically dismisses the value you place on your time. Some can play for 10+ hours a day, some can play for an hour. The commonality between those two people is they both like the game and WANT to enjoy the time they spend in it, but if the reward system is going to just favor those who have the time or don't care about grinding endlessly to achieve something, then you alienate the casual players. I am sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense.
Keep "balancing" rewards all you want, FD....until you start respecting peoples time, you are woefully out of touch with the gamers who do want this game to succeed but have had it with tripping over your incompetence to deliver.

Well said, this is exactly the problem with the mission payout nerfs. It's eerily similar to how the engineers launched too with a huge grindwall in front of them at first. Frontier seems to really want an extreme heavy grind fest of a game, and I'm not sure why that's so important to them.

 

[Mohrgan]

To me the root cause of all of this is 'unrealistic expectations'. Having get rich quick schemes has ingrained into the players that their game time is worth many millions of credits an hour, over what it should be. It is obvious that the gaming world considers high reward as the basis of fun, or enjoyment. Players only do what will reward them the most, even if it is the least enjoyable aspect of game play.

We should just be accepting that those opportunities, the too-good-to-be-true payouts, are short term booms, and to treat them as such.

 

[StevieG]

Fdev please bring back Rares as a viable option. It needs a 1000% increase in the distance modifier to bring it in line with mission payouts.

At the moment I can earn 5-6 mil doing 150T of rares which takes 2-3 hours.
Or
I mine and make 10mil in 1 hour
Or
I do some mission like kill skimmers... and make 50mil per hour.
Or
I do some kills badies in CZ and get 30mil per hour.

BRING BACK RARES .... as a viable option for us big boys in our big ships who like to do the rare run rather than constant pew pew to earn our bread.

 

[Drackore]

Throwing this out there:. There is a vast expanse outside of the bubble that devs can use for content:. Wars, colonization, setting up bases (and not just CGs...make it an entire chapter to this crazy story). An arms race, or planet race in this case. It doesn't have to be all hauling or pew pewing pirates.

 

[Obnoxious_Gamer]

Throwing this out there:. There is a vast expanse outside of the bubble that devs can use for content:. Wars, colonization, setting up bases (and not just CGs...make it an entire chapter to this crazy story). An arms race, or planet race in this case. It doesn't have to be all hauling or pew pewing pirates.

That would require actual effort.

 

[Odan Brota]

That would require actual effort.

and manpower. Which they very, very clearly do not have. The speed in which updates come out, and the style of content released (it's mostly menus, let's be honest) says to me that Elite is running on a skeleton crew right now. Maybe it's just because Planet Coaster just came out, or is coming out, and maybe people will be reassigned later.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Frontier might receive a lot less complaints like this if the made the core roles more fun and engaging.

Players would complain less about earnings and min/maxing, and simply do activities that they enjoy.

I totally feel the same way. Frontier have created an amazing world - yet seem unable to fill it with content that actively engages with that world. Most of the gameplay is like an "overlay", that is all done through numbers and bars.

Yet there are some wonderful areas in the game, some truly epic environments! Why can't a mission trigger when I come across a non-persistent base in a POI? These needn't be complex missions, just simple procedural ones, chase down a mission target, or bring back some particular item (have these missions related to planet type and geology even).

There are tons of amazing ring systems and craters, yet we can't do anything with them. These would make great stash locations for missions. Why can't we have reconnaissance missions over some of the most gorgeous scenery in the game?

All of these amazing locations, and amazing planet generation tech - yet all the game asks us to do with it, is to move a product from A to B. Or go an target a beacon for a few seconds. The planets might just as well be empty featureless balls as far as game play is concerned. To me, it seems an immense waste.

Maybe Frontier have some plans for all of this in the future - and the current grindy and uninspired game mechanics are just placeholder...

 

[Pyrotiger]

Do FD actually play their own game enough to know where the gorgeous scenery is? It doesn't seem to be the case.

 

[Obnoxious_Gamer]

Do FD actually play their own game enough to know where the gorgeous scenery is? It doesn't seem to be the case.

They don't recognize half the ships in the game when playing it. So, no.

 

[Karunamon]

They don't recognize half the ships in the game when playing it. So, no.

lol wut?

 

[Chrysophylax]

Maybe Frontier have some plans for all of this in the future - and the current grindy and uninspired game mechanics are just placeholder...

More and more I'm convinced that the placeholder-heavy way of developing Elite is what's leading up to an eventual disaster of perpetual whack-a-mole nerfing without ever actually addressing the issues.

Who cares if at some point there'll be a Navy career path. For two years we've suffered a really awful system because at some point something will replace it. Just don't even include it in the first place.

I'm talking from a POV that's not privy to the economics of developing Elite, and maybe that's why I feel this way. But I wouldn't have included Planets without the content you mentioned (certainly way, waaaay ahead of engineers), I wouldn't have included Navy ranks without a Navy carreer and so on and so forth. In particular, Synthesis is such a head-scratcher for me - the bonuses they provide are minute compared to the work you put in (thus not enticing anyone to land to do it), and they were included ahead of an actual reason to do planet mining - the Engineers. I would've bundled them together.

The fighters themselves are pretty damn great and apart from bugfixes I think they constitute a complete feature. Everything ranging from Wings to Engineers? Nope.

 

[Lobstris]

IMHO - Wrong question OP.

Better questions are:

1. Why do the Devs keep on apparently dropping the ball when it comes to adding new money-making elements into the game, that end up paying disproportionate amounts on a regular basis, compared to the 'bread and butter' short-range commodities trading in Elite?
2. When such elements are added, why are they allowed to persist for such long periods of time (e.g. Sothis/Ceos, lack of module depreciation, low ship running costs etc.), which leads to over reliance of players on these things being present, and excess saltiness when the are eventually (rightfully) removed?
3. Countering 1. and 2., why are high-end ship and module costs so high to start with? Is an Ananconda/Cutter/Corvette/Whatever really worth several thousand Eagles or Sidewinders?

 

[Obnoxious_Gamer]

lol wut?

In a few of the livestreams, devs have been known to mis-identify ship silhouettes. Perhaps I should have clarified.

 

[Lobstris]

Yet there are some wonderful areas in the game, some truly epic environments! Why can't a mission trigger when I come across a non-persistent base in a POI? These needn't be complex missions, just simple procedural ones, chase down a mission target, or bring back some particular item (have these missions related to planet type and geology even).

There are tons of amazing ring systems and craters, yet we can't do anything with them. These would make great stash locations for missions. Why can't we have reconnaissance missions over some of the most gorgeous scenery in the game?

All of these amazing locations, and amazing planet generation tech - yet all the game asks us to do with it, is to move a product from A to B. Or go an target a beacon for a few seconds. The planets might just as well be empty featureless balls as far as game play is concerned. To me, it seems an immense waste.

Maybe Frontier have some plans for all of this in the future - and the current grindy and uninspired game mechanics are just placeholder...

Or maybe, given the vast scale of the universe, and the p2p/instancing/lack-of-persistence issues, in-depth missions are very tricky to pull off, if possible at all? I was hoping at some point to do missions with AI wingmen, but with Sandro saying that there are issues with getting more than one fighter working reliably for some reason (networking?), I'm not holding my breath.

Reconnaissance could be handled in a very similar way to passenger missions, but would potentially need a large player effort to identify suitable targets, in the same way as the forum request prior to 2.2?

USS? Insta-spawing, mission-triggered NPCs? We've all been hoping those were placeholders since pre-release - but they are still here.

That said, "grind" of some form has always been part of Elite though. It's a (trucking) job. In (simulated) space.

More and more I'm convinced that the placeholder-heavy way of developing Elite is what's leading up to an eventual disaster of perpetual whack-a-mole nerfing without ever actually addressing the issues. Who cares if at some point there'll be a Navy career path. For two years we've suffered a really awful system because at some point something will replace it. Just don't even include it in the first place.

Agreed. The lack of a 'big overall picture', coupled with placeholders and piecemeal development (lack of resources leading to long development time/excessive prioritization of features?), seems to contribute to the balancing issues. That partly would answer both #1 and #2 in my first post.

 

[Perditrix]

Sometimes i feel like coming back after something new has come out and the devs completely destroys the payout. This happened with rare goods, then smuggling runs, then missions, now passengers. You have all these cool things people can do to make money and have fun and then you nerf it to oblivion and nobody does them. Its not just a minor nerf, the nerfs are so strong that you cannot even make enough to maintain your ship in the case it dies.

I really fail to understand their logic, only thing that ever was op was smuggling missions that needed a slight nerf, everything else was balanced and maybe even needed a buff like passenger high distance exploration missions....

I came back for passengers and after the recent updates I will leave again. I am so sick of this game that keeps pushing me away every time I want to get close to it. It honestly is a abusive relationship at this point.

+1 I agree, why can't they let us earn a reasonable amount of Cr, I enjoyed passenger missions, but to nerf then at the rate they did is just too high, however I have hopes the y will rebalance them as they have said.

 

[Weps]

IMHO - Wrong question OP.

Better questions are:

1. Why do the Devs keep on apparently dropping the ball when it comes to adding new money-making elements into the game, that end up paying disproportionate amounts on a regular basis, compared to the 'bread and butter' short-range commodities trading in Elite?
2. When such elements are added, why are they allowed to persist for such long periods of time (e.g. Sothis/Ceos, lack of module depreciation, low ship running costs etc.), which leads to over reliance of players on these things being present, and excess saltiness when the are eventually (rightfully) removed?
3. Countering 1. and 2., why are high-end ship and module costs so high to start with? Is an Ananconda/Cutter/Corvette/Whatever really worth several thousand Eagles or Sidewinders?

Spot on.

It baffles me that so many people complain about the credits progression, when in fact the real problems lie with artificially inflated ship prices and herding players into quick money making schemes, just so that they can experience basic game content (ships). Solving those problems would make the game better for everyone, not just some.

Back in 2014, there wasn't much content in Elite. I've always assumed ship prices were so blatantly inflated simply to prevent players from having them, to dilute what was at the time a big chunk of what the game had to offer, to keep a carrot on a stick for times where there was more for players to do.

Well there is a lot to be done now in the game, but ship and module prices have never been revisited since launch.

"But Weps, surely you don't want everyone to trade in a Conda? If you remove the price barrier, everyone is going to fly the best ship!"

Well not necessarily. Maintenance and running costs can be used to balance that. I remember in 1.3 when the (simplistic) wear&tear costs were higher that it was actually quite profitable to trade in a Type-7 as opposed to a Python, because of the much lower costs. But I guess people were not ready for this type of mechanic just 5 months after launch so now as a replacement we are stuck with a button you need to remember to press every other week.

 

[Lobstris]

"But Weps, surely you don't want everyone to trade in a Conda? If you remove the price barrier, everyone is going to fly the best ship!"

Well not necessarily. Maintenance and running costs can be used to balance that. I remember in 1.3 when the (simplistic) wear&tear costs were higher that it was actually quite profitable to trade in a Type-7 as opposed to a Python, because of the much lower costs. But I guess people were not ready for this type of mechanic just 5 months after launch so now as a replacement we are stuck with a button you need to remember to press every other week.

I know - this is what makes me really sad about Elite's potential. It *has* become about owning the biggest 'high-end' ships, rather than 'right ship for the job'. It wouldn't be so bad if E: D had more variety in the number of 'end-game' ships available, or more specialist ship variants.

As to 'herding players' - that's my gripe about Engineers and Powerplay (artificially herding people into certain game mechanics to earn the best toys), Sothis/Ceos/LRMissions (artificially herding players to make the most credits doing set things), CGs (artificially herding people to one or two locations in space for PvP). It's all so... so... artificial and 'in-organic'. :/

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

Maybe Frontier have some plans for all of this in the future - and the current grindy and uninspired game mechanics are just placeholder...

I hope this too. at the moment the most complex missions is a source X commodity that redirects to a random 3rd system.

I confirmed last night that the redirects must already be determined at the time of generating the missions. I had just bought some mission cargo and was trying to check the mission board, which gave a connection error. But at the exact same time as the error, I got a Mission Update message that redirected my cargo to a different system.

It wouldn't be hard to add a request for another mission that was only available if the redirection was accepted. If the original mission offered one equisite focus crystal, maybe the redirect could offer another and the additional mission a couple more. But redirects only offer a small additional payment, never more rewards, reputation or influence.