Quince is even more broken than we tought

[Truesilver]

Elite is like Golf - your only real competition is yourself.

There's no prize at the end to be won.
There's no end to reach.
There's just ships, and 400 billion stars.

But keep trying to win, because you never will. In fact, by trying to win you've already lost.

Well, if you choose for the game to be just about your Cmdr, your ships, your modules and the stars, that option is there. It is almost certainly the majority option taken by most players.

It is not, however, the only option.

For two years I have engaged in indirect competition with other players via the Background Sim and Powerplay and (in my case much more frequently) direct competition via organising Open-world multi-wing PvP when I was in Adle's Armada, participating in two seasons of the PvP League and in countless duels, both structured and unstructured.

My competition is more akin to tennis, fencing or even football than to golf. I play multi-player. Self improvement is a big part of it, of course, but so is beating the other guy(s).

 

[Saxon Kili]

either you get it or you don't.. and some in this thread DO "get" it even if ultimately to them its not a problem.

I tried the most obvious analogy I could as to why it makes my game feel pointless....... but I cant think of a way to put it any more obvious... its a feeling of enjoyment, you can say it does not effect you and that is fine .... but you don't get to say I am wrong.... well you can but that is just daft. ultimately right or wrong its irrelevant it is what the devs thing of it and do about it that matter, and their actions speaks volumes imo

"it is like, imagine playing a game where you could be a woodcutter, and your "role" in that game is to cut down trees and make planks of wood.......

but in a barn in the next field there is a glitch which means that barn is full of planks and you can just help yourself..... would that not pee on your chips and make you think "what is the point of being a wood cutter and making those planks when i can just get all the planks i could ever need".

at some point sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting la la la la la I am going to pretend that does not exist and i will continue doing these low paying tasks anyway just gets too much... imo. "

A speaker at a multilevel marketing convention told us all about his *simple* way to make a whole bunch of cash, that required talking people into becoming distributors. Everyone you talked to, you were to try to get them into the business selling its products and finding other people to become distributors as well. His final question for the audience was something like, "Knowing this simple plan to become rich in just a few years, why would you want to do anything else?"

I thought about his question for a while... and a few weeks later my answer was, "Because your way to get rich is boring, involves selling my soul to the company, and in general I don't have a lot of interest in it."

He got rich in a few years. I'm still plugging away earning a pittance. But his exploit doesn't bother me (much). Celebrities have found an exploit to making tons of money. Maybe the government should shut down Hollywood. Celebs are engaging in an unfair money making advantage.

These people making absurd amounts of money don't really affect me.

Quince is there. I did it for a couple days. It was somewhat boring but I made some good cash. Then I left. Lately I've been doing pax missions. It's somewhat boring but it makes fair cash for a 6 minute mission. It's more enjoyable seeing different stations (like Foale Orbital in Hr 1980 with a beautiful earthlike right out the front door) than grinding Quince.

For every exploit there's some disadvantage. Maybe that disadvantage is someone goes from Winder to Conda in a day or two, get's bored with the game and quits in a week. Why do I care? Or Harmless Conda makes a "I got killed by a murder hobo" thread. Why would I care?

Quince doesn't cause me grief. Unless of course I decide in my head that it does.

 

[BL1P]

A speaker at a multilevel marketing convention told us all about his *simple* way to make a whole bunch of cash, that required talking people into becoming distributors. Everyone you talked to, you were to try to get them into the business selling its products and finding other people to become distributors as well. His final question for the audience was something like, "Knowing this simple plan to become rich in just a few years, why would you want to do anything else?"

I thought about his question for a while... and a few weeks later my answer was, "Because your way to get rich is boring, involves selling my soul to the company, and in general I don't have a lot of interest in it."

He got rich in a few years. I'm still plugging away earning a pittance. But his exploit doesn't bother me (much). Celebrities have found an exploit to making tons of money. Maybe the government should shut down Hollywood. Celebs are engaging in an unfair money making advantage.

These people making absurd amounts of money don't really affect me.

Quince is there. I did it for a couple days. It was somewhat boring but I made some good cash. Then I left. Lately I've been doing pax missions. It's somewhat boring but it makes fair cash for a 6 minute mission. It's more enjoyable seeing different stations (like Foale Orbital in Hr 1980 with a beautiful earthlike right out the front door) than grinding Quince.

For every exploit there's some disadvantage. Maybe that disadvantage is someone goes from Winder to Conda in a day or two, get's bored with the game and quits in a week. Why do I care? Or Harmless Conda makes a "I got killed by a murder hobo" thread. Why would I care?

Quince doesn't cause me grief. Unless of course I decide in my head that it does.

Much like using drugs in the Olympics. Why would you not if you know doing so is not against the rules and you will not be punished.
Whats missing here is that, we know that for the Olympics using drugs isnt allowed.
We dont know if using exploits is allowed in Elite or Not. As there has been no Statement from Frontier on the matter.

 

[Saxon Kili]

We dont know if using exploits is allowed in Elite or Not. As there has been no Statement from Frontier on the matter.

No explicit statement, anyway.

 

[Andro]

A speaker at a multilevel marketing convention told us all about his *simple* way to make a whole bunch of cash, that required talking people into becoming distributors. Everyone you talked to, you were to try to get them into the business selling its products and finding other people to become distributors as well.

I knew Quince was some kind of pyramid scheme...

 

[fennster]

NVM

 

[IndigoWyrd]

Well, if you choose for the game to be just about your Cmdr, your ships, your modules and the stars, that option is there. It is almost certainly the majority option taken by most players.

It is not, however, the only option.

For two years I have engaged in indirect competition with other players via the Background Sim and Powerplay and (in my case much more frequently) direct competition via organising Open-world multi-wing PvP when I was in Adle's Armada, participating in two seasons of the PvP League and in countless duels, both structured and unstructured.

My competition is more akin to tennis, fencing or even football than to golf. I play multi-player. Self improvement is a big part of it, of course, but so is beating the other guy(s).

Let's ask This Guy about Self-Improvement...

 

[BL1P]

No explicit statement, anyway.

It seems you are Suggesting there is an assumed implication in the silence of Frontier that exploits have validity within the games rules.

Interesting Idea.

 

[sollisb]

There is an assumed implication that Quince is not acting as intended too.. In the final analysis; You can use it or ignore it. It doesn't effect 'your' game. I've used Quince, but, to get to a specific point in my goals. I haven't been there in ages. I'm happily doing my own thing. Do I care others are there milking the cow, til her udders falls off? Not a bit, that's their game, I have mine.

 

[BL1P]

There is an assumed implication that Quince is not acting as intended too.. In the final analysis; You can use it or ignore it. It doesn't effect 'your' game. I've used Quince, but, to get to a specific point in my goals. I haven't been there in ages. I'm happily doing my own thing. Do I care others are there milking the cow, til her udders falls off? Not a bit, that's their game, I have mine.

There is no assumption.
This was explained earlier in this thread and in others by a Dev.

 

[Karunamon]

I'd just like to remind everyone that the last time the community banged on and on about an "exploit" (read: the BGS working as it's supposed to), mission boards in the entire universe were hosed for weeks afterwards.

Be careful what you wish for.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

This thread is broken.

These are not exploits. There's nothing special at all about them. Anyone can choose to use these methods, but I do agree - they do get very boring very fast.

But they're just missions. You needed even log out and in to fill up on them, just wait for more to be posted.

I think the real issue has nothing to do with who makes how much doing these, but rather - the folks so worried about the BGS that they can't sleep at night don't have any means to stop an influx of commanders from loading up on these kinds of missions and are too few in number to load themselves up on counter-missions to offset them, thus they come here crying "Exploit" where there is none.

And there is no solution, short of limiting everyone to a set number of missions, per faction, per station, per day, and no one, including the BGS worriers really want that either, as it would limit them as well.

How many credits someone makes and how long it takes is no one else's concern. There is no progression in Elite, and to claim otherwise is more fantasy than Elite itself. What ship you fly, what navy rank you hold - it really means nothing. If you're a crap pilot, there's only one thing you can do, and that's fly more, period.

You can't buy or fake skill.

+Rep for the no skill comment - so true.

I have to disagree with you about there being no solution... The 'BGS worriers' could simply band together and flip the system for one of the two factions that are not empire aligned and work to keep it that way. Truth is they too like to have a get rich quick scheme.

At least on my return to the bubble I can start hunting CMDR's in big fat ships who have no clue about how to fly or fight. I am also looking forward to the threads they will no doubt make about how the AI just handed them a huge insurance bill!

 

[IndigoWyrd]

+Rep for the no skill comment - so true.

I have to disagree with you about there being no solution... The 'BGS worriers' could simply band together and flip the system for one of the two factions that are not empire aligned and work to keep it that way. Truth is they too like to have a get rich quick scheme.

At least on my return to the bubble I can start hunting CMDR's in big fat ships who have no clue about how to fly or fight. I am also looking forward to the threads they will no doubt make about how the AI just handed them a huge insurance bill!

Flipping the system is not a solution - the system could be flipped right back, or set into a perpetual state of Civil War/War, in which case it would fill with planetary scan missions... oh, wait.. it is full of planetary scan missions.

The problem, the real problem, is in the Missions. And short of limiting the number of missions, or perhaps the number of missions in a system than affect its state - perhaps a system of diminishing returns - the first three missions have full effect, but after that, the effect is lessened - kind of like the way Rank grows in increasingly smaller percentages, we'll never really stop these sorts of things. And ultimately yes, everyone on both sides, likes to milk the cash cow to some degree or another.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

Flipping the system is not a solution - the system could be flipped right back, or set into a perpetual state of Civil War/War, in which case it would fill with planetary scan missions... oh, wait.. it is full of planetary scan missions.

The problem, the real problem, is in the Missions. And short of limiting the number of missions, or perhaps the number of missions in a system than affect its state - perhaps a system of diminishing returns - the first three missions have full effect, but after that, the effect is lessened - kind of like the way Rank grows in increasingly smaller percentages, we'll never really stop these sorts of things. And ultimately yes, everyone on both sides, likes to milk the cash cow to some degree or another.

I did say that it would need constant work to maintain...

I like the diminishing returns idea but I prefer FD to find a solution to systems like this as it makes no sense. The system is aligned to the Empire and has two luxury stations - seems quite an investment to put those all the way out here. Leaves me wondering why the major factions do nothing about such obvious turmoil - But of course they are only a name and not a real thing in the game. To my way of thinking I would of developed a system where by the major powers are not just part of PP but actually respond to the evolving state of the bubble.

For instance and this is only hypothetical... The Falkland Islands. If they started to change hands every week or so between the locals and the Argentinians, the UK would send a fleet of ships (toy boats with all the cut backs) and establish a permanent base there - Rather like we have actually done. This would stop or at least put off potential revolts or civil wars. Of course Elite does not function like that, the AI are just ships we see in space and have no other effect on the game at all other than for our amusement.

Maybe I should send my alt in her Harmless Eagle there to get some easy PvP kills... Almost like a bit of practice before I ask Stitch to train me how to really do it!

 

[SciTrekker]

Flipping the system is not a solution - the system could be flipped right back, or set into a perpetual state of Civil War/War, in which case it would fill with planetary scan missions... oh, wait.. it is full of planetary scan missions.

The problem, the real problem, is in the Missions. And short of limiting the number of missions, or perhaps the number of missions in a system than affect its state - perhaps a system of diminishing returns - the first three missions have full effect, but after that, the effect is lessened - kind of like the way Rank grows in increasingly smaller percentages, we'll never really stop these sorts of things. And ultimately yes, everyone on both sides, likes to milk the cash cow to some degree or another.

Would that be the same as or at least similar to the Commodities system where a wingmate (or three) and I can each grab the final 9 units of X commodity, meaning there was really 18 (or 36) units instead of the 9 it was telling us was there? That should work. /sarcasm

 

[thorn-]

Part of 2.3 was the 'Quince fix'. This was supposed to limit scan missions to 3 per player at any one time. To overcome the cries of anguish, they increased the payout. So; a scan mission that used to yield me maybe 1.3m now yields 3m+.

That bit right there sums up the lack of logic in DEV's thought process.

Earning rates are faster than we intended. So we have cut mission stacks by half. But we have also tweaked payouts - they are now double.

Great job, FD. You miss the point, entirely.

Here's some suggestions for the next patch:

- Bullets are too OP. Cut the firing rate by 50%, but increase damage by 2X.
- Ships carry too much cargo. Cut the cargo capacity by 50%, but double the value of every commodity.
- FSD ranges are too short. Double the range of every ship. But to compensate, also double the size of the galaxy.

Have fun with your spreadsheets.

 

[EddyRockSteady]

Aaaaahhhh......18h00 comes around and FD servers calve........

Honestly.

 

[Hadoredic]

Long post ahead. There is a TLDR at the end if you don't want to read the whole thing.

I've done almost everything the game has to offer, except for rngineers and deep space exploration/ruin hunting. I've never made the journey to Sagittarius A or Colonia.

I started the game in Gamma, playing in Open. I watched some twitch/youtube videos to try to figure out what the best way to progress would be. At the time it seemed to be bounty hunting (though I'm sure in reality it was something else that I wasn't aware of.)

I made it into a Viper, then a Cobra. Continued bounty hunting until I had a Vulture. In the Vulture, I got blown up by another player while in a CZ. I had put at least a couple of hundred hours into the game by this point, but I didn't have enough credits to rebuy my Vulture. Fortunately, I still had my Cobra from before so I wasn't starting over from square one but I did lose a lot of progress.

After that, I took a break from the game for probably at least 6 months before trying to do anything else with it. He got me fair and square, but I was the dummy that flew without a rebuy,

Picked the game up again and did bounty hunting to get a type 6 to do cargo runs. Also tried my hand out at mining. Traded my way up to an AspX. Once in the AspX, I heard about Robigo and went to check it out. Easily the most fun I've ever had in this game. Then they nerfed the hell out of it. I made enough from smuggling to get a Python. I was pretty tired of bounty hunting by this point so....back to trading. Traded my way into a Type 9....but I didn't really enjoy losing access to medium pads and having an even more anemic jump range than the Python...so I went back to Python trading to save for an Anaconda. I did about 60 million worth of trading routes at about 2-3 mil per loop and kept checking to see how many more credits I needed to get an Anaconda and at least A rate it's FSD.

Then about 3 weeks ago, I kept hearing about Quince. I finally decided that even with the Python's anemic jump range it was worth doing the 30 jumps to check it out.

I started doing the surface scan missions, and made a few million off of those. But then I kept hearing, passenger missions are where it's at. I didn't see a lot of passenger missions at Millerport. So I decided to check out Jefferies High, and the rest is history. In one day, I went from 80 million short of buying an Anaconda to heading back to the bubble to get one.

I came back to Quince in my Anaconda to do passenger runs, but after making about another 100 million this way I decided I wanted to try the surface scan missions again, even if they were nerfed.

So I outfitted an Eagle and have been doing surface scan missions ever since. Even when you can only get 3, some of the missions pay over 2 mil. It's probably less credits per hour than running passengers, but it also isn't boring me to tears either.

I even decided that since I don't give 2 bits about losing the Eagle that I would play in Open. I really enjoyed the risk factor of the Robigo smuggling and I thought playing in Open might be a way to bring that back. I got interdicted once by an Adder last night, and ran because my eagle is outfitted for cargo, not combat, thanks to having to take the random junk some missions reward. Even if I was in an A rated rngineered to the teeth Eagle I probably still wouldn't have engaged him. I fly with a Logitech 3D Extreme joystick, so I'm at a distinct disadvantage to players who have a HOTAS, or those who use KB/M, to do FA off and easily use their maneuvering thrusters in combat. He got me down to 7% before I jumped. The thing that sucked is that I had already gotten close enough to the planet to get the search areas in SC. I didn't know I would lose them, and have no apparent way to get them back if I jumped to another system. I had a lucky board so I had to abandon 10 missions, which the factions weren't too pleased about.

TLDR: I'm doing Quince because I have already spent hundreds of hours in this game doing other things. I would like to build up my credits so that lack of credits is no longer an obstacle to try any ship or loadout that I want. I also want to rank up in the Empire to get a Cutter and this takes care of that as well. I'm not going to go back to trade loops or regular missions that require more effort to complete and pay much less.

I don't recommend new players going to Quince because they really don't need payouts that high off the bat. In my opinion, they should take their time (say maybe 100 hrs worth of playtime) learning the game and trying every playstyle this game has to offer that appeal

 

[CMDR Rusty Dog]

I think you're being your own worst enemy here. You can play how you want. What concern or indeed, business is it of yours how others play? The fact is, you have choices, so have everyone else. You choose yours, let others choose theirs. It's not your business how I play, or how I got my ships, no more than it is any business of mine how you got yours.

I challenge you to explain, how it affects your game/grind?

This and every post like it completely misses the point. The issue here is the broken and flawed game mechanics that allow Quince to happen. That people are filling their boots by using the exploits of these mechanics is another thing. The game needs fixing and doing so will, by its nature, fix Quince.

To address your point, if you can play how you want and it's no-one else's business etc., then no-one gets to complain if griefers show up there en masse and wipe out every CMDR on sight who are in Open Play in Quince taking advantage of the game. That should be perfectly fine. It works both ways.

 

[EddyRockSteady]

This and every post like it completely misses the point. The issue here is the broken and flawed game mechanics that allow Quince to happen. That people are filling their boots by using the exploits of these mechanics is another thing. The game needs fixing and doing so will, by its nature, fix Quince.

How so?

Posted this in another thread as well but maybe you can answer me. The way I see it, the more I look at it the more it seems to be -

1 - Bubble: Take scan mission - Hyperjump - Scan - Hop back = Well done CMDR mission completed! *Pat on back*

2 - Quince: Take scan mission - Scan - Hop back = Waaaaaaaaaaa EXPLOITER!!!!!

What am I missing?

A missed hyperjump and off with ye heed?

Lol