Really Frontier?

[mojonaut]

Frontier never fails to amaze me with their addiction to time sinks and grind and lackluster rewarding. The only good rewarding we ever get is within their mistakes (bugs and exploits).

Agree, it's a joke considering the number of different 'get rich quick schemes' that have been in the game since launch. I've no doubt there will be further exploits found after 2.3 , never underestimate the playerbase

Wonder how much dev time is wasted on these balance issues that could have been better spent on improving the game and player experience.

 

[andrak]

Sorry but with Competent combat rating you don't have much combat experience in Elite. Saying you "know how to fight" and "engaged in PvP" doesn't really mean much because it's just stating your own opinion of your combat experience. It isn't really the same as spending hundreds of hours doing CZ or RES combat and turning in literally thousands of bounties. In fact combat ranking is really the only area that doesn't have a fast exploit to skip the grind. Players have used the trading exploits (Robigo and mode-switching) for the trade grind, neutron star farming or passenger mission stacking for exploration grind and Tun/Fehu donations (when they were cheap and readily available) for naval rank grind. The ONLY area that hasn't had a fast or easy exploit is combat because it's based on making kills that are rank-based for progression.

It's literally the only stat left in the game that means you had to deal with the grind straight-up, no exploits or mission stacking will help you rank up in combat. It's probably the best stat to base the multicrew payouts on because you either spent the time grinding to get that rank, or you didn't.



Again, I'm sorry but players who are Mostly Harmless in combat and Elite in trade really don't know how to play the game beyond exploiting trade runs. They never had to spend time making kills in a Viper to get to the Vulture and then to the FAS and so on. They just bought their way past the need to actually learn how to fight in the smaller ships.

I've been playing the game since launch and my progression went something like this:
Sidewinder -> Viper III -> Type 6 -> Asp -> Vulture -> FAS -> Type 9 -> Python -> Anaconda -> FDL -> Federal Corvette

That took two years and 1600 hours of playtime. I only reached Elite combat ranking last weekend and I recently unlocked the Corvette a few weeks ago. I had been gradually progressing my combat rank from Deadly since Horizons launched over a year ago which should tell you how long it takes to rank up in combat. FD doesn't want players skipping that process by making huge amounts of fast, easy credits by sitting afk as a turret "gunner" in Corvette for a few hours without having any actual idea of how to play the game.

You must be new to the game if you haven't heard of the capital ship combat bonds farming AFK exploit.

No, there's not one rank left in the game that has any meaning after long range smuggling / trade missions made trade a joke. Cap ship AFK made combat a joke. Installation of passenger cabins came with a free Elite exploration badge.

May as well remove all ranks and unlock the founders world, they're all meaningless.

 

[Devari]

I know couple CMDRs who are just couple combat ranks into the game. They have played since the beginning and think cz and res sites are just bad and stupid and have done only the necessary pve to unlock engineers they needed. They have done other stuff to get cr, like trade, exploration and passenger missions, only combat they do is pvp. They are much better than i am (i have no change to win them in fight and they can win against me easilu) but my rank is still 5 ranks higher than their just because i have done some cz, nav beacon and res site credit farming for cg during last couple years.

If they wanted to use the skill of the crew members to determine the cut they should use the amount of pvp kills players have. 100 pvp kills and you would get 10% from bounty earned in mc, 20% of if you have 200 pvp kills etc. That would actually measure the combat skill of player not their ability to farm npcs. The pve is mostly dull in elite and to get combat ranks you need to grind a lot of combat, not get skilled in combat.

The issue here is that PvP combat is an even worse measure than straight-up combat rank grind. If you've turned in 8000 bounties you have spent a lot of time trying different ships and weapons, have almost certainly used a wide variety of combat loadouts and have adapted to the various changes to the combat system. Yes, the NPCs are mostly lobotomized by you are still trying to optimize your ability to kill opponents quickly.

PvP basically consists of players exploiting broken mechanics (heat or phasing sequence) or looking for ridiculous imbalanced fights against trade ships or opponents at a major disadvantage. I actually started a thread about how terrible the PvP players are that I typically encounter because they rely on setting up conditions where they have some sort of massive advantage to "win" but it means absolutely nothing because it wasn't a test of their piloting or combat ability.

In fact the last two times I was interdicted by other CMDRs I was in my FDL which was returning from RES combat and my ship was out of ammunition for most of my weapons, with low shields and hull damage and I was also out of both heat sinks and shield cells. The players who interdicted me only had to press boost and hold down the fire button as I tried to escape as my ship was in no condition to actually put up a fight. If they had tried interdicting my ship when it was undamaged, or in fact if I simply had some ammunition left in my weapons and a few heat sinks left, I would have actually been able to use the ship in its intended role as a stealth build FDL and that would have taken some skill to counter. They could have easily chosen to engage me when I left the station and was undamaged. Instead they focused on interdicting my ship as it was returning from the RES and was clearly low on shields with prior combat damage.

The problem here is that most PvP players I've encountered simply aren't very good at combat. All they've gotten "good" at is finding the most exploitive way to work with the latest overpowered "meta" for imbalanced weapons and choosing to only take on other players under circumstances where they are at a massive advantage (flying in a wing or interdicting a trading ship) or their opponent is at a massive disadvantage (already engaged by NPCs or has prior combat damage).

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Sorry but with Competent combat rating you don't have much combat experience in Elite. Saying you "know how to fight" and "engaged in PvP" doesn't really mean much because it's just stating your own opinion of your combat experience. It isn't really the same as spending hundreds of hours doing CZ or RES combat and turning in literally thousands of bounties. In fact combat ranking is really the only area that doesn't have a fast exploit to skip the grind. Players have used the trading exploits (Robigo and mode-switching) for the trade grind, neutron star farming or passenger mission stacking for exploration grind and Tun/Fehu donations (when they were cheap and readily available) for naval rank grind. The ONLY area that hasn't had a fast or easy exploit is combat because it's based on making kills that are rank-based for progression.

It's literally the only stat left in the game that means you had to deal with the grind straight-up, no exploits or mission stacking will help you rank up in combat. It's probably the best stat to base the multicrew payouts on because you either spent the time grinding to get that rank, or you didn't.



Again, I'm sorry but players who are Mostly Harmless in combat and Elite in trade really don't know how to play the game beyond exploiting trade runs. They never had to spend time making kills in a Viper to get to the Vulture and then to the FAS and so on. They just bought their way past the need to actually learn how to fight in the smaller ships.

I've been playing the game since launch and my progression went something like this:
Sidewinder -> Viper III -> Type 6 -> Asp -> Vulture -> FAS -> Type 9 -> Python -> Anaconda -> FDL -> Federal Corvette

That took two years and 1600 hours of playtime. I only reached Elite combat ranking last weekend and I recently unlocked the Corvette a few weeks ago. I had been gradually progressing my combat rank from Deadly since Horizons launched over a year ago which should tell you how long it takes to rank up in combat. FD doesn't want players skipping that process by making huge amounts of fast, easy credits by sitting afk as a turret "gunner" in Corvette for a few hours without having any actual idea of how to play the game.

Don't just jump to EXPLOITS as your first argument, my trade rank is legit

And Elite has one of the dumbest ways of measuring how adequate someone is at an activity... Being Elite in combat doesnt mean you are good in combat... it just means you spent unnecessary amounts of time shooting at NPC's that used to Spin in place like fish in a barrel (See 2 can argue Exploits )

Most of my Combat rank (Dangerous) came from training up replacement Crewmembers from harmless to deadly due to the dumb permadeath mechanic, pointless grind

A proper measure of combat prowess would be an ELO or MMR rating system.

In WoW, it took only a few matches to get me into the higher rating brackets... not because I played arena for 1 bazilion hours... no, I knew how to play my class and that's what was measured

And you talk about 2 years getting x y z ships.. I've been playing since Feb 2016 and have 2 Cutters, a Vette etc... All because I know how to min max my time investment vs reward

I wont be using Multicrew regardless of the payouts, because its a bare bones implementation of the concept.. I'm just advocating on Frontiers side... they want this feature to be popular and not go the way of the DODO/CQC... so make it rewarding and worthwhile.


And you talk about Combat being the only un exploitable Rank.... Do yourself a favour... get a buddy with elite rank to hop into a SLF or even a sidewinder... then shoot him dead outside of the no fire zone of the station, let him respawn.. rinse repeat

 

[Cervantes01]

The numbers may need to be tweaked. But I do think it's a good idea to avoid multicrew being dramatically better money for new players than combat in their own ships would be. How many new players would never actually go out and learn to fly properly if there's no incentive to do so because they can make more money in complete safety aboard somebody else's ship?

Wings are different. Even if a novice player in a Sidewinder is winged up with a billion credit warship that's doing all the heavy lifting, they're still learning to fly and at risk of dying.

The easiest things to do is just divide the bounties by the number of crew on a ship so that players either get half or a third depending on the circumstances. Yes this would apply to the helmsman too and I have no problem with this, statistically they will earn more money as there's 3 human beings on board, a third person view for turrets that will completely dominate their enemies solo/cockpit view and they have extra pips. I'm glad it's nerfed as multicrewed ships are clearly OP right from the off as are the rewards.

I personally don't care though that newbies might buy ships they cant handle, they'll soon hit the rebuy screen and run out of money so that's not my objection. My objection is that one ship should logically be one bounty for all. If I kill someone in my viper on my own it's a greater accomplishment than doing it with two of my friends, so why should multicrewed ships get more money? If a desperado has a bounty of a hundred credits when he's killed by 1 man why should it become 300 credits just because he's been killed by 3 men?

 

[Watcher]

My position is that rewards should not be duplicated at all.
Any bounties or anything else should be split instead. Could do that based upon rank or something else (some sort of negotiation proportion or flat rate would be great) but don't just duplicate things up even with rank based discounts.

 

[Devari]

You must be new to the game if you haven't heard of the capital ship combat bonds farming AFK exploit.

No, I'm not new to the game, and yes, I've heard of it being an issue but only when the game first launched and there was the contest to get to Elite as quickly as possible. It only worked under very limited circumstances and since then they've dramatically changed the method of how you get "credit" for ship kills in CZs. In fact it's MUCH harder to get credit for CZ kills if there's a cap ship present because it will almost always get credit for the kill unless you can intercept the ship first and do the vast majority of the damage yourself.

No, there's not one rank left in the game that has any meaning after long range smuggling / trade missions made trade a joke. Cap ship AFK made combat a joke. Installation of passenger cabins came with a free Elite exploration badge.

May as well remove all ranks and unlock the founders world, they're all meaningless.

Except that FD has been closing all of those exploits and loopholes. There are very few methods left now and the few ones that still exist (such as stacking massacre or planetary scan missions) are going to be closed with 2.3. I'm sure players will find new ones and FD will patch those as well.

 

[joshman72nd]

Well now Frontier just swung the nerf hammer at what little there was with multi crew. I'm fine if the crew members don't earn 100% of the helmsman, but basing it off their exact rank is rediculous, and it's ridiculous because being ranked Master doesn't even grant you 20% of what the helmsman makes.

It's even lower.

If I'm high ranked and looking for combat I'll most likely be doing it in my own Corvette or Conda, not earning pennies off of someone else's work. New players are completely bottlenecked by this feature.

My main question is...
Why let completely novice sindwinders get full reward of a winged partner, but nearly cut their profit down to a hair when they actually join their crew?

Frontier never fails to amaze me with their addiction to time sinks and grind and lackluster rewarding. The only good rewarding we ever get is within their mistakes (bugs and exploits).

well wing sidey has to be careful other wise if he shoots or draws agro first guess who gets eaten first? i struggle in a vet to keep my brothers alive who play fast moving ships (engied stupid fast screaming plasma eagle and courier) mainly because its a one hit game with them or in their case a whale moves into their path and they cant evade without splatting.

 

[Devari]

http://i.imgur.com/E74A9Pk.png
Don't just jump to EXPLOITS as your first argument, my trade rank is legit

And Elite has one of the dumbest ways of measuring how adequate someone is at an activity... Being Elite in combat doesnt mean you are good in combat... it just means you spent unnecessary amounts of time shooting at NPC's that used to Spin in place like fish in a barrel (See 2 can argue Exploits )

Most of my Combat rank (Dangerous) came from training up replacement Crewmembers from harmless to deadly due to the dumb permadeath mechanic, pointless grind

A proper measure of combat prowess would be an ELO or MMR rating system.

In WoW, it took only a few matches to get me into the higher rating brackets... not because I played arena for 1 bazilion hours... no, I knew how to play my class and that's what was measured

And you talk about 2 years getting x y z ships.. I've been playing since Feb 2016 and have 2 Cutters, a Vette etc... All because I know how to min max my time investment vs reward

I wont be using Multicrew regardless of the payouts, because its a bare bones implementation of the concept.. I'm just advocating on Frontiers side... they want this feature to be popular and not go the way of the DODO/CQC... so make it rewarding and worthwhile.


And you talk about Combat being the only un exploitable Rank.... Do yourself a favour... get a buddy with elite rank to hop into a SLF or even a sidewinder... then shoot him dead outside of the no fire zone of the station, let him respawn.. rinse repeat

Well unfortunately there's really no way other than possibly CQC-style combat matches to make it a fair fight where win/loss ratios would actually mean anything. As a result all the rank grind measures is combat EXPERIENCE which no one is really equating with SKILL. In fact it's not the same as skill at all but it does measure something that can be easily quantified. It's like ranking airline pilots by their number of flight hours which is just as limited yet it's what they do in real life. Much of those flight hours are routine and it doesn't mean that you're a "better" or more "skilled" pilot just because you have 3000 flight hours and another pilot has 1000 hours. That's just how the system works because it's something that can be readily measured.

The reality is that even if we had a better measure it would still be circumvented in some way and players would find a way to exploit or grind the system as quickly as possible. At present though there is no easy way to grind combat ranks and the few easy/fast methods of earning large incomes (mostly massacre missions) or rank grind (planetary scan missions) are going to be nerfed with 2.3 so FD clearly wants to make the credit/rank grind mean something again for new players.

 

[zimms]

Really OP? Yet another thread about the same topic?

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Well unfortunately there's really no way other than possibly CQC-style combat matches to make it a fair fight where win/loss ratios would actually mean anything. As a result all the rank grind measures is combat EXPERIENCE which no one is really equating with SKILL. In fact it's not the same as skill at all but it does measure something that can be easily quantified. It's like ranking airline pilots by their number of flight hours which is just as limited yet it's what they do in real life. Much of those flight hours are routine and it doesn't mean that you're a "better" or more "skilled" pilot just because you have 3000 flight hours and another pilot has 1000 hours. That's just how the system works because it's something that can be readily measured.

The reality is that even if we had a better measure it would still be circumvented in some way and players would find a way to exploit or grind the system as quickly as possible. At present though there is no easy way to grind combat ranks and the few easy/fast methods of earning large incomes (mostly massacre missions) or rank grind (planetary scan missions) are going to be nerfed with 2.3 so FD clearly wants to make the credit/rank grind mean something again for new players.

Indeed,

I was just arguing the point that Frontier implemented this to prevent players that have not experienced enough of the game, and therefore a "noob" cant jump steps and miss out on the early gameplay that teaches them the fundamentals and intricacies of combat etc, they want to stop, people skipping from an adder to a FDL in other words

personally a much better way of implementing this mechanic would be the way I mentioned, regarding measuring participation and performance during the session. Reference here

My argument was against frontier's fundamental reason for implementing this feature, preventing the "new player" skipping the early stages of the game,

a player with Elite rank in Trade/Exploration.. are not considered "new players" and have experienced the game and built up some decent assets.

Let the new players with low ranks across the board get the penalty, but let the long time players that maybe didn't invest so much time in combat benefit from multicrew (its only credits after all, and players with elite trade/exploration already have enough credits to not be effected by multicrew in a "Boost/powerlevel" way)

 

[Noctover]

Don't get the hate behind this, seems logical. Personally i don't care if you got paid NOTHING to be the crew member, credits are so easy to make in the game if i really want money i'll spend an hour doing one of the many activities that make me enough to buy an FDL in 1 day. MC can be fun, not just about making easy credits.

That aside, lets say im new, my mate has talked me in to playing the game, and he says "I'll boost you!". Log on in the station, join my mate in his Cutter and start tearing up haz rez killing pythons and condas and....Wait i just feel robbed.

Thats like putting the Top Gun DVD in, skipping the part where goose dies and watching them celebrate on the carrier at the end, whats the point? I made lots of money, i never flew my winder, just hopped straight into a cobra, or an ASP, or even a Vulture lets face it.

Every MMO, or game with progression has boosters, but even WoW for example limited the amount of XP you got from shooting above your level. Its not like a level 1 could sit in the middle of a field with a level 70 earning 10mil xp for every level 65 orc that was killed.

FD arnt trying to create time sinks, they are trying to ensure new players go through the game, not skip it.

For me, if the above scenario was true, and a mate did get me in to the game, and did boost me via MC straight into a mid level ship, i know i'd get bored much sooner, and i know i'd regret it later, and for a company like FD that isn't good news either.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Don't get the hate behind this, seems logical. Personally i don't care if you got paid NOTHING to be the crew member, credits are so easy to make in the game if i really want money i'll spend an hour doing one of the many activities that make me enough to buy an FDL in 1 day. MC can be fun, not just about making easy credits.

That aside, lets say im new, my mate has talked me in to playing the game, and he says "I'll boost you!". Log on in the station, join my mate in his Cutter and start tearing up haz rez killing pythons and condas and....Wait i just feel robbed.

Thats like putting the Top Gun DVD in, skipping the part where goose dies and watching them celebrate on the carrier at the end, whats the point? I made lots of money, i never flew my winder, just hopped straight into a cobra, or an ASP, or even a Vulture lets face it.

Every MMO, or game with progression has boosters, but even WoW for example limited the amount of XP you got from shooting above your level. Its not like a level 1 could sit in the middle of a field with a level 70 earning 10mil xp for every level 65 orc that was killed.

FD arnt trying to create time sinks, they are trying to ensure new players go through the game, not skip it.

For me, if the above scenario was true, and a mate did get me in to the game, and did boost me via MC straight into a mid level ship, i know i'd get bored much sooner, and i know i'd regret it later, and for a company like FD that isn't good news either.

Agree fully, but look at my post above yours... Combat rank is not the only measure of "how new someone is to the game", they need to factor in other ranks... or maybe even "time played"

WoW has 1 XP bar that measures level and time played... Elite has 3, they all need to be factored in

 

[Noctover]

Agree fully, but look at my post above yours... Combat rank is not the only measure of "how new someone is to the game", they need to factor in other ranks... or maybe even "time played"

WoW has 1 XP bar that measures level and time played... Elite has 3, they all need to be factored in

Yeah i do agree with that actually, you could be primarily a trader or explorer, you've still seen the game. I do think they need to stop boosting but at the same time your right that combat rank alone is not a good gauge.

 

[Devari]

Indeed,

I was just arguing the point that Frontier implemented this to prevent players that have not experienced enough of the game, and therefore a "noob" cant jump steps and miss out on the early gameplay that teaches them the fundamentals and intricacies of combat etc, they want to stop, people skipping from an adder to a FDL in other words

personally a much better way of implementing this mechanic would be the way I mentioned, regarding measuring participation and performance during the session. Reference here

My argument was against frontier's fundamental reason for implementing this feature, preventing the "new player" skipping the early stages of the game,

a player with Elite rank in Trade/Exploration.. are not considered "new players" and have experienced the game and built up some decent assets.

Let the new players with low ranks across the board get the penalty, but let the long time players that maybe didn't invest so much time in combat benefit from multicrew (its only credits after all, and players with elite trade/exploration already have enough credits to not be effected by multicrew in a "Boost/powerlevel" way)

Why should someone with a high trade rank be paid more to serve as a gunner if they don't have the combat experience to back it up? If they want to earn more money based on their trading abilities, they can continue to trade, but that has no bearing on their qualifications for combat. In fact if they already reached Elite trade ranking they have at least 1 billion credits of assets so they certainly don't need the money from multicrew, they should view it as a way to get combat experience and shouldn't be expecting it to be lucrative.

No one is going to allow an airline CEO who has 20 years of experience managing an airline to get on some sort of fast track to quickly start flying a 747 because doing business and flying planes are completely different jobs. They still have to go to flight school, become a commercial pilot and put thousands of flight hours working their way up from smaller planes before they earn the right to fly a large jet. They can't say "well I've managed an airline for 20 years" and think that their business experience qualifies them to fly an actual plane, any more than a pilot with no management or business experience would expect to stop flying and suddenly become an airline CEO.

 

[CMDR ColD_ZA]

Why should someone with a high trade rank be paid more to serve as a gunner if they don't have the combat experience to back it up? If they want to earn more money based on their trading abilities, they can continue to trade, but that has no bearing on their qualifications for combat. In fact if they already reached Elite trade ranking they have at least 1 billion credits of assets so they certainly don't need the money from multicrew, they should view it as a way to get combat experience and shouldn't be expecting it to be lucrative.

No one is going to allow an airline CEO who has 20 years of experience managing an airline to get on some sort of fast track to quickly start flying a 747 because doing business and flying planes are completely different jobs. They still have to go to flight school, become a commercial pilot and put thousands of flight hours working their way up from smaller planes before they earn the right to fly a large jet. They can't say "well I've managed an airline for 20 years" and think that their business experience qualifies them to fly an actual plane, any more than a pilot with no management or business experience would expect to stop flying and suddenly become an airline CEO.

you are missing the point WHY Fdev implemented this feature... to stop new players progressing too fast....

they didn't implement it because they think people with low combat ranks deserve less bounties... why are wings not affected then??

Go back and read Edward Lewis's post properly then come back

 

[digitus impudicus]

Good point, FD should probably adjust the Wing mechanic to be in alignment with the Multicrew earnings based on rank. It's a shame to have new players earn too many credits too fast and miss out on the learning experience that comes with earning your credits through normal gameplay.

Glad you brought this up and I agree whole-heartedly. FD, nerf the Wing mechanics as well!

Not sure if you're tongue in cheek or actually serious... this game massively drives off new players, and there are few enough ways to help out new players as it is. By now I've had five people join the game after seeing me play it (so they knew what they were in for, not the lies of these action trailers FD likes to make), and be driven off after a few days to weeks because of the grindyness and utter lack of in-game clues about what's going on. I say everything that makes progression smoother at the start would be a good thing.

 

[bubbabenali]

The real question should be:
Why does only the combat rank determine the earnings multiplier?

 

[Whitehair]

The real question should be:
Why does only the combat rank determine the earnings multiplier?

Because its combat earnings!

 

[Devari]

you are missing the point WHY Fdev implemented this feature... to stop new players progressing too fast....

they didn't implement it because they think people with low combat ranks deserve less bounties... why are wings not affected then??

Go back and read Edward Lewis's post properly then come back

I've read it, and they specifically mentioned combat progression, not just progression overall. FD clearly wants combat rank (i.e., combat experience) to count for something. I expect they will apply similar reasoning to wing bounties as well. It makes no sense for a novice sidewinder pilot to get a full share of a wing bounty if an elite corvette in the wing is doing 99% of the work. There is no way they are letting that stand for all the same reasons they described for limiting multicrew bounties. The wing bounty proportions will be somewhat higher than simply being a gunner but there is no way they are allowing full bounty duplication for wings when 2.3 goes live. I suspect the "kill" will probably be credited to the CMDR who does the most damage (which is how it should have always been, and not just based on the killing shot) and everyone else will get a portion of that credited to them as well. In fact I would like to see ALL bounties in RES sites divided based on percentage damage done, so if 2-3 CMDRs are fighting the same ship they each have to share the bounty rather than one getting everything and the others getting nothing.