Does Frontier intend players to get Elite exploration within a week?

[fitzsteve]

I'm doing passenger missions because I enjoy them, I'm getting good a good rank boost so that's a bonus but I've been playing for 2 years so it will be nice to see a stat go elite, if the missions help me achieve that last tier I'm not going to complain. I got to Tycoon to haulage missions mostly, not a great deal of A-B trading. To get good missions you need good rep though so one can't just hop on the game with no rep and get elite right away, it still takes a decent amount of work.

ps. I didn't vote because you can probably get Elite in any stat in a week if you throw enough time at it and grind particular missions/activities, I know it's possible to get to the top ranks with the major factions spamming data missions within that timeframe for example.

 

[verminstar]

I would say no but truth is I dont really care...Ive been in the black since end of october ish and will be out fer some time to come so long as I avoid neutrons. The general antics of other players dont really concern me because I know that Ill have earned my elite explorer rank the hard way...by never doing a single passenger mission. I can hold me head up high and smile.

Im gonna guess its a bug which they might get around to fixing, but knowing them, they wont and it will become the new 'I win' easy mode option ^

 

[WR3ND]

I'm doing passenger missions because I enjoy them, I'm getting good a good rank boost so that's a bonus but I've been playing for 2 years so it will be nice to see a stat go elite, if the missions help me achieve that last tier I'm not going to complain. I got to Tycoon to haulage missions mostly, not a great deal of A-B trading. To get good missions you need good rep though so one can't just hop on the game with no rep and get elite right away, it still takes a decent amount of work.

ps. I didn't vote because you can probably get Elite in any stat in a week if you throw enough time at it and grind particular missions/activities, I know it's possible to get to the top ranks with the major factions spamming data missions within that timeframe for example.

Unfortunately, it looks like a week was an overly conservative estimate. Some people are claiming to have ranked up to Elite in exploration doing this in a couple of days.

This thread isn't aimed at judging gaming morality, how people might view the worth of ranks, nor how they prefer to play in particular; it's aimed at game mechanic balancing and player preferences for it.

 

[Kayweg]

All too late now of course, but i'll say this nonetheless.
The only rank that should ever have been tied to credits to a high degree is the rank of Trader.
Exploration, imo, should have been based on a combination of distance traveled (including distance traveled within a system), rarity of celestial, geological composition and suitability for economical, military and inhabitable
exploitation.
While combat ranks, again imo, should have been based on the ships and setup you (and your opponent) field, your current combat rank, your opponents combat rank and how many opponents you faced in an encounter.
Perhaps even how long it took you to dispatch those opponents.
I'm sure there are even more parameters that could have been relevant.
This whole, and extremely simplified, more credits=more rank progression system imbues no value whatsoever to any of the ranks.

I think kofeyh put it perfectly, earlier in this thread:
"Because it's a cumulative statistic and not a measure of proficiency."

Therefor, as it is now, i'm honestly not bothered.

 

[racer1]

Chances are Frontier won't even be aware of the issue.

I saw in one of the CG threads recently someone posted at completely off topic post just begging to get the attention of the devs because they felt it was the only way to get a response. Brett responded to PM him.

Maybe a bug report or PM to Brett might be more effective.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Lazy feature implementation is lazy. Instead of making Exploration rank dependent on the number of bodies scanned, type scanned, type of scan completed, etc.... They based it on credits. You guys should've raised hell about this when it was first implemented, not wait until it became something that you couldn't ignore.

Exploration rank is now just as meaningless as Combat rank. Everyone gets a gold star.

You're all Special. Everyone's Special.

 

[Runis]

Maybe a bug report or PM to Brett might be more effective.

This is not a bug, lol.

[url="https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/320627-Elite-Dangerous-2-2-03-Update-incoming?p=4988978&viewfull=1#post4988978]Patch notes - Fix elite rank point calculations from missions so that they are a % of any mission profit earned[/url]

And here i come now and i say: "and how this is affecting you, what's the problem?"

Feel the pain explorers, just like we felt it when they nerfed NPCs, credit gain, the engineers and other things because of your whining.

You asked for easy, now you get it.

 

[popuptoaster]

Probably not intended but I dont care, none of the rankings are skill related, Elite ranks can all be achieved with just some time and repeated activities well documented online.

it was a mistake to separate the ranks and it was a mistake to make them so easy to get, ALL of them favour the player with time and a high boredom threshold so just ignore the rankings and play the game.

Any serious player knows they mean nothing relating to player skill and are really just collectibles or items for unlocking certain aspects of the game.


I would be VERY interested to know what percentage of the players of the original Elite achieved that rank compared to those of the current game, it was MUCH harder back in '84 and felt like it meant something.

 

[racer1]

This is not a bug, lol.

[url="https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/320627-Elite-Dangerous-2-2-03-Update-incoming?p=4988978&viewfull=1#post4988978]Patch notes - Fix elite rank point calculations from missions so that they are a % of any mission profit earned[/url]

And here i come now and i say: "and how this is affecting you, what's the problem?"

Feel the pain explorers, just like we felt it when they nerfed NPCs, credit gain, the engineers and other things because of your whining.

You asked for easy, now you get it.

It's not a bug that it affects exploration rank but how much it affects it is probably unintended and hence a bug.

But I never said it was a bug anyway, I said raise a bug report to get attention.

 

[Ziljan]

Your're serious?
At Trading or Combat or Missions you normally can get from 5M to 15M per hour. These Passanger missions got me best case 6M per hour (even mostly 4M/h) and you want them cut them again?
I've actual a bit more time to play, are allied with many sub-factions in my home system, have my TouringCruiser equipped with 7 cabins,...

I've gotten single Passenger missions that gave me 13.8 million for 40 min worth of work. Maybe you need to get allied in the right systems? These aren't typical, but they do exist and shoot my average up to easily 8-10 million per hour for risk free work. Imo that needs to brought down to the 5-7 million range. And normal scanning exploration should be brought up to the 3-4 million/hour for non-tagged credit exploration.

And the risks should go up accordingly.

 

[WR3ND]

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What are you even talking about? I go exploring in a fully combat loaded Vulture. [hehe]

Also, a percentage generally doesn't mean 100% (mission credits to pioneer exploration rank percentage).

 

[SkipRat]

Due to the fact most things in this game are completely unbalanced, I would not be surprised if you can reach top everything within a week...

As for making credits........ Jesus H Christ.

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What are you even talking about? I go exploring in a fully combat loaded Vulture. [hehe]

Also, a percentage generally doesn't mean 100%.

lol, and that is what makes exploring a joke...

I mean good on you an all that and the guy that spent 9 months out in an eagle.... But meh, it's a joke really, exploring should be hard in dedicated explorer ships.... But alas, teddies will be thrown and safe spaces will rapidly fill....

 

[WR3ND]

Due to the fact most things in this game are completely unbalanced, I would not be surprised if you can reach top everything within a week...

As for making credits........ Jesus H Christ.

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Yes, turns out a week was an overly conservative estimate. Some people are saying they're getting Elite in exploration in a couple of days.

 

[WR3ND]

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lol, and that is what makes exploring a joke...

I mean good on you an all that and the guy that spent 9 months out in an eagle.... But meh, it's a joke really, exploring should be hard in dedicated explorer ships.... But alas, teddies will be thrown and safe spaces will rapidly fill....

I agree exploration has other issues as well, but that's getting a bit off topic.

 

[Dbrn47]

I've gotten single Passenger missions that gave me 13.8 million for 40 min worth of work. Maybe you need to get allied in the right systems? These aren't typical, but they do exist and shoot my average up to easily 8-10 million per hour for risk free work. Imo that needs to brought down to the 5-7 million range. And normal scanning exploration should be brought up to the 3-4 million/hour for non-tagged credit exploration.

And the risks should go up accordingly.

How about just increasing the risk from 0? I find that often many will say 'just nerf' but why not keep the good payouts while increasing the risk accordingly? I think these payouts would become quite worth it if there was a chance of you losing your ship and failing the mission. If they can't be made risky enough without becoming onerous, then sure, lower the pay some.

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Eh, I actually think passenger sightseeing missions giving some exploration rank is a cool idea, similar to how driving the SRV and collecting materials provides rank progression. The problem is that sightseeing missions simply provide FAR too much as it currently is. It’s unbalanced and extremely out of whack with the rest of the system’s rewards.

Like I’ve said before, reducing the rank contribution by a factor of 10 would seem to fix it right up, which greatly implies the possibility that there is simply a decimal point in the wrong place somewhere in the code of the 2.2.03 update, because this wasn’t the case in the 2.2 update. So either it’s a bug, or Frontier intended to greatly increase sightseeing mission rank contributions far and away above all other means of gaining Elite Exploration rank.

I've already explained this to you. It's not a bug. After a review and these complaints, perhaps they might say the net effect is now unintended but I wouldn't be surprised if it was meant to be. Especially in the sense that people asked for it and they delivered, perhaps it's more the case that we didn't realize what we were asking for. I've seen many ideas for keeping it as is and adjusting other things so people don't feel so sour about it and I rather like those instead.

 

[WR3ND]

I've gotten single Passenger missions that gave me 13.8 million for 40 min worth of work. Maybe you need to get allied in the right systems? These aren't typical, but they do exist and shoot my average up to easily 8-10 million per hour for risk free work. Imo that needs to brought down to the 5-7 million range. And normal scanning exploration should be brought up to the 3-4 million/hour for non-tagged credit exploration.

And the risks should go up accordingly.

Yes, they might as well bring these things in line, though credits weren't really a concern of mine. It would make some sense regardless as "traditional" exploration doesn't pay very much for time invested compared to other career choices in the game.

Regarding exploration pay, I personally would have preferred a more dynamic system than what we have now, having data have an element of market scarcity to determine its worth as well as a bonus for scanning entire systems. Here's my thread on it if anyone is interested. → https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...of-cartographic-data-be-market-scarcity-based

 

[Dbrn47]

Did you even read the OP? You don't have to do ANY exploration to get Elite explorer. Literally, NOTHING AT ALL. You just have to drag some tourists about for a bit. If you could get Elite combat without shooting a single ship don't you think people would be a little bit ANNOYED with that? Here's a clue: They would be. And something would be done about it, but hey this is exploration so who cares.

Idk, you could and technically are exploring when you go thousands of LY outside of the bubble so another Famous Explorer can take a look around. I digress, I know it can be important to be frantic in these situations.

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Yes, they might as well bring these things in line, though credits weren't really a concern of mine. It would make some sense regardless as "traditional" exploration doesn't pay very much for time invested compared to other career choices in the game.

Regarding exploration pay, I personally would have preferred a more dynamic system than what we have now, having data have an element of market scarcity to determine its worth as well as a bonus for scanning entire systems. Here's my thread on it if anyone is interested. → https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...of-cartographic-data-be-market-scarcity-based

There's so many things that could and should be done with exploration but all we ever get is "It's on the list, no etas, no guarantees".

 

[Mengy]

I've already explained this to you. It's not a bug. After a review and these complaints, perhaps they might say the net effect is now unintended but I wouldn't be surprised if it was meant to be. Especially in the sense that people asked for it and they delivered, perhaps it's more the case that we didn't realize what we were asking for. I've seen many ideas for keeping it as is and adjusting other things so people don't feel so sour about it and I rather like those instead.

This was an undocumented change in 2.2.03 that was not in 2.2, so it is either one of two things:

1. It is a bug, or
2. It is intended by Frontier

Now, seeing as no one asked for sightseeing missions to be turned into a super fast quick and easy way to get to Elite in exploration in only a matter of days, and after seeing the math of just how unbalanced it is when compared to normal exploration or SRV driving, or even material collecting, well yes, I do believe that it’s a bug on Frontier’s end. I really don’t think they intentionally trivialized the path to Elite rank in exploration. I mean sure it is possible, Frontier has neglected exploration for over two years now, so it’s not too far a stretch to think that one or more of the devs just hate exploration, but I try to think positively so I’d rather think it’s just a bug.

 

[Dbrn47]

This was an undocumented change in 2.2.03 that was not in 2.2, so it is either one of two things:

1. It is a bug, or
2. It is intended by Frontier

Now, seeing as no one asked for sightseeing missions to be turned into a super fast quick and easy way to get to Elite in exploration in only a matter of days, and after seeing the math of just how unbalanced it is when compared to normal exploration or SRV driving, or even material collecting, well yes, I do believe that it’s a bug on Frontier’s end. I really don’t think they intentionally trivialized the path to Elite rank in exploration. I mean sure it is possible, Frontier has neglected exploration for over two years now, so it’s not too far a stretch to think that one or more of the devs just hate exploration, but I try to think positively so I’d rather think it’s just a bug.

It's not undocumented... You can't look for these things through your opinion on the matter. Of course there are no notes saying "Sightseeing missions changed to fast track Elite Rank in Exploration".

Missions

- Added a new mission type for investigating the ancient ruins
- Make supply to demand overrides take max distance into account (Stops Colonia making missions which intend to only go 500ly into missions to pop back to the bubble with a ~24 time limit)
- Reduce number of missions sent to clients as we're only sending relevant missions now
- Increased maximum mission duration to 28 days
- Fix elite rank point calculations from missions so that they are a % of any mission profit earned
- Fix the mission generation iteration limitor as it was preventing missions from spawning and thus decreasing board size
- Make sure that missions are properly transferred to the ship transactions panel after boarding from an SRV
- Fix for lack of Exquisite Focus Crystals as a mission reward.........

This is probably the main note on it here, hard to say if it's the initial implementation or the point where they actually adjusted the main implementation. If it's the latter then it was probably 1:1 and no longer is. Hard to say since it says "Fix" but I cannot locate the main implementation of it (Added).

PC and Xbox One

- Physics crash fix when disconnecting on entering a location
- Xbox One: Fix terrain flattening so planet ports do not appear underground
- Fix for client and server disagreeing about whether a jet cone boost is active and kicking the player
- Fix a crash writing to the player journal with an invalid station type when docking
- Fix low level network hang
- Crash fix when swapping to an SRV
- Update the maths around hyperspacing to a Neutron star with jet cones to properly deal with avoiding said cones, also push the arrival distance for neutron stars back out a little to avoid running straight into the drop-out radius. Note that you'll still hit them pretty fast, but not unfairly so as long as you're on the ball
- Fix buggy refuel on dock
- Fixed Passenger mission bug where you are unable to take any missions due to a bug where abandoned / failed missions continue to take up space in the missions limit
- Fix for planetary mission generation
- Fix for incorrect passenger elite rank points.....

Looking for more references

So that's all I can find right now, but it's easy to over look notes if they remain in their raw developer form because they can be ambiguous. We do also need to realize that they are indeed just notes and since so many of them go through at times, it can be easy to miss 'printing' some. Whether you like the end effect or not, people DID ask for this, just not in the way that you feel about it.

 

[WR3ND]

In other news, I found a nice pair of binary Earth-like worlds a few hours ago.

Spoiler

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But yeah, I also updated the OP with the following to help avoid some confusion... [downcast]

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Second Edit: Unfortunately it looks like a week may have been an overly conservative estimate on my part as some people are purportedly ranking up to Elite within "a couple of days" of playing using the new passenger missions.

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