Quince is even more broken than we tought

[sollisb]

I play in both the Rift and the Vive, and I don't experience any delays as a result compared with playing on the monitor. If you're having network issues, that's nothing to do with VR.

The map selection is still buggy and difficult to use, but aside from that and the odd texture loading in on the star, I'm able to play without issue. I'm about to head off on a month long exploration trip with the Rift on tonight and I've spent the last few days getting mats for Felicity with no jump lag in the game at all - it's been remarkably stable.

Remember surfing the web does not equal connecting via P2P and to the FD servers - same transport mechanism granted, but completely different routes/services.

Oh I know it's nothing to do with VR, my other VR titles work flawlessly, as does Diablo 3, SkyRim, Star Citizen, GW2. I have only had these net problems since 2.3.

Yes I have submitted lots of bug reports. But the final straw came when one of the moderators here started closing tickets, some of which were mine, because they were the same as other people were reporting.

The new network code and or their Amazon server topology is at fault. Let's take tonight as example; It took me 35 minutes to get connected, and once I was all was fine. Other nights I can connect in a matter of moments. I have ping'd/traceroute etc the various IP addresses and they always fail, as soon as I get a good IP, the ping/traceroute works fine.

Again, none of this was an issue prior to 2.3 drop. Added to that all the other issues, just makes the entire game infuriating. And add to that them finding time to fix players ability to earn credits. which effects no-one just boggles the mind.

o7

 

[sollisb]

I don't know if that's fair man, they didn't do it intentionally.

Actually... They did

Here's my analysis...

FD develop ED on randomness. Add to this; They never implement anything 'properly'.. It's all left to random generator. Nothing is developed in a cohesive fashion. It's all a mish-mash of ideas, poorly implemented and entirely disjointed. It is not hard to see why so many 'exploits' are available.

Even their 'fixing' is disjointed and a farce. Let's take Quince! Quince has 2 problems; Passenger Missions[PM] & Scan Missions [SM]. Prior to 2.3, they knew! SM could be stacked, could be all gained by visiting the one planetary station, and could be completed by any player in any ship, scanning any data point. Now I don't know about others, but in my 35 yrs of being a coder/teacher/director in IT, I have never heard of fixing it the way ED did. What they did was increase the payouts and stop you taking more from a new board, if you already had 3. That's galactically stupid! I visited Quince 2 days after 2.3 dropped and was earning [sic] more with the new 'fix' !! (I got bored to tears and went back to grinding my Fed ranking)

Now we take PM. Basically all the problem there was that you could complete all missions by visiting 1 beacon. What did they do? They close down passenger missions. Again, galactically stupid. And WORSE! They left Scanning Missions alone!! ! How absolutely stupid can you be? If you can't fix it right now, and you are at pains to pamper to the crybabies, close the entire thing down !! Right now, I'm betting everyone that was doing PM are now doing SM..

Everything they do, they half do. Or they add randomness, or they add cheating. I'm sorry, yes, FD created this mess. And my greatest fear is; They are incompetent and have no idea how to fix it, without messing everything else up.

 

[Sathayorn]

Actually... They did

Here's my analysis...

FD develop ED on randomness. Add to this; They never implement anything 'properly'.. It's all left to random generator. Nothing is developed in a cohesive fashion. It's all a mish-mash of ideas, poorly implemented and entirely disjointed. It is not hard to see why so many 'exploits' are available.

Even their 'fixing' is disjointed and a farce. Let's take Quince! Quince has 2 problems; Passenger Missions[PM] & Scan Missions [SM]. Prior to 2.3, they knew! SM could be stacked, could be all gained by visiting the one planetary station, and could be completed by any player in any ship, scanning any data point. Now I don't know about others, but in my 35 yrs of being a coder/teacher/director in IT, I have never heard of fixing it the way ED did. What they did was increase the payouts and stop you taking more from a new board, if you already had 3. That's galactically stupid! I visited Quince 2 days after 2.3 dropped and was earning [sic] more with the new 'fix' !! (I got bored to tears and went back to grinding my Fed ranking)

Now we take PM. Basically all the problem there was that you could complete all missions by visiting 1 beacon. What did they do? They close down passenger missions. Again, galactically stupid. And WORSE! They left Scanning Missions alone!! ! How absolutely stupid can you be? If you can't fix it right now, and you are at pains to pamper to the crybabies, close the entire thing down !! Right now, I'm betting everyone that was doing PM are now doing SM..

Everything they do, they half do. Or they add randomness, or they add cheating. I'm sorry, yes, FD created this mess. And my greatest fear is; They are incompetent and have no idea how to fix it, without messing everything else up.

Perhaps their mission code is not something you're familiar with, and they can't fix SM without doing intensive work to the system, they overlooked the way people can exploit the system and I'm sure, since it was brought to their attention, they'll get to it, eventually, but it's not something as easily solved as the PM exploit. I've been around a while, and from what I've seen, they fix things when they can, Quince PM's were probably an easy fix, maybe they could have done it sooner, but I think, and this is just speculation, mind you, that they were trying to find an unobtrusive way to do so, but ended up settling on removing the beacons entirely because the galaxy is EMPTY due to so many people doing nothing but exploiting in Quince.

 

[sollisb]

Perhaps their mission code is not something you're familiar with, and they can't fix SM without doing intensive work to the system, they overlooked the way people can exploit the system and I'm sure, since it was brought to their attention, they'll get to it, eventually, but it's not something as easily solved as the PM exploit. I've been around a while, and from what I've seen, they fix things when they can, Quince PM's were probably an easy fix, maybe they could have done it sooner, but I think, and this is just speculation, mind you, that they were trying to find an unobtrusive way to do so, but ended up settling on removing the beacons entirely because the galaxy is EMPTY due to so many people doing nothing but exploiting in Quince.

Oh I'm with you on this; But.. Why didn't they just close down is it Millarport too? That would fix the entire thing (Albeit leave the other lesser known systems)

 

[Vasea Azure]

So ppl complains that Quince is evil no fair bo hoo exploit - I just advanced from post captain to rear admiral by literally refreshing donation missions in Sothis... I literally bought my rank with out un docking once lol. Game is full of stuff like this, Quince is a tip of an iceberg.

 

[Deleted member 94277]

Who cares. I made billions back with skimmer/massacre missions, got my dream ship with the best fitting, did the whole engineer (stupid) grind, farmed Elite combat rank and realized that there's nothing else of interest for me to do, other than more senseless grind or looking at a shiny diorama all day.

 

[Sathayorn]

Who cares. I made billions back with skimmer/massacre missions, got my dream ship with the best fitting, did the whole engineer (stupid) grind, farmed Elite combat rank and realized that there's nothing else of interest for me to do, other than more senseless grind or looking at a shiny diorama all day.

And here's the problem, instant gratification giving endgame rewards leaves little to be desired, likely removing another player from the galaxy.

 

[sollisb]

And here's the problem, instant gratification giving endgame rewards leaves little to be desired, likely removing another player from the galaxy.

Firstly I'm not picking on everything you say...

In my mind, the problem goes all the way to everything being dis-jointed. Added to that is the mind numbing grind.

Now, for me, I can get by just doing my own thing, hunting in res's or taking a jaunt to where-ever. But, let's face it, ED is supposed to be a game. It's meant to be MMO. It's far from either. As a game it is way too tedious. The grind is way over-balanced to be so boring as to make you want to just give up.

In fact, I think FD go out of their way to annoy players. A bold statement but here's a few examples;

Naval Grind; You have to do the same thing, over, and over, and over again. And when you get to the end.. King and whatever the Fed rank is, you get.. wait for it... Nothing! Yes, Johnny, you finally made it to King of the Empire and you get.... Nothing !! So seriously.. what !!

Res Sites; They used to give combat rank and naval rank. What did FD do? They removed the naval rank, just to P you off. Then, they got to thinking.. Wait.. Lets P the player off even more! Lets make it so the 'wanted pirates' come into the res site, check the player out, then when they're engaged, the pirate zooms off and wakes out.. Oh oh oh! Lets also add that midway through a KWS scan, the pirate just disappears off the radar! That'll P them off! Cool!

This is the mentality we are faced with from FD. At every corner, bend, they insist on making it more difficult or more tedius, while reducing the rewards.

They tell us, jumping out of the res site and going back in, is unintended.. But.. You are at Deadly or Elite and enter the res site to be met with garbage.

Then they gave us SLFs.. and NPC pilots.. Oh geez, lets only do it half good tho.. Lets make it so the NPC fighter cant distinguish between a deadly Anaconda and a deadly sidewinder. Lets repeat tot he player over and over again, how dangerous the target is.. Even if it's at 0 health. Lets really annoy the player.

Seriously.. Look at every facet of the game, and you will these little things either added or taken away, that make the boring grind even worse.

And! It's supposed to be a game!

No, Quince is not the problem.. Quince is the result of the problem. The problem is... FD.

 

[Sathayorn]

Firstly I'm not picking on everything you say...

In my mind, the problem goes all the way to everything being dis-jointed. Added to that is the mind numbing grind.

Now, for me, I can get by just doing my own thing, hunting in res's or taking a jaunt to where-ever. But, let's face it, ED is supposed to be a game. It's meant to be MMO. It's far from either. As a game it is way too tedious. The grind is way over-balanced to be so boring as to make you want to just give up.

In fact, I think FD go out of their way to annoy players. A bold statement but here's a few examples;

Naval Grind; You have to do the same thing, over, and over, and over again. And when you get to the end.. King and whatever the Fed rank is, you get.. wait for it... Nothing! Yes, Johnny, you finally made it to King of the Empire and you get.... Nothing !! So seriously.. what !!

Well, there may be future releases that give benefits for higher ranks, take the empire, for instance... 14 ranks and the only ship at the time was the clipper, unlocked at 7.

Res Sites; They used to give combat rank and naval rank. What did FD do? They removed the naval rank, just to P you off. Then, they got to thinking.. Wait.. Lets P the player off even more! Lets make it so the 'wanted pirates' come into the res site, check the player out, then when they're engaged, the pirate zooms off and wakes out.. Oh oh oh! Lets also add that midway through a KWS scan, the pirate just disappears off the radar! That'll P them off! Cool!

Have you never retreated from a fight you were losing? I like that they continue to improve on A.I.

This is the mentality we are faced with from FD. At every corner, bend, they insist on making it more difficult or more tedius, while reducing the rewards.

They tell us, jumping out of the res site and going back in, is unintended.. But.. You are at Deadly or Elite and enter the res site to be met with garbage.

Then they gave us SLFs.. and NPC pilots.. Oh geez, lets only do it half good tho.. Lets make it so the NPC fighter cant distinguish between a deadly Anaconda and a deadly sidewinder. Lets repeat tot he player over and over again, how dangerous the target is.. Even if it's at 0 health. Lets really annoy the player.

I actually find it more humorous than annoying, but I can see how repeating the same line over and over could get on ones nerves. However...
[video=youtube;kRAI9_MkmBM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRAI9_MkmBM[/video]

Seriously.. Look at every facet of the game, and you will these little things either added or taken away, that make the boring grind even worse.

And! It's supposed to be a game!

No, Quince is not the problem.. Quince is the result of the problem. The problem is... FD.

I play the game, a lot, really, I take a few months off here and there and it almost never feels like a grind - Do what you enjoy doing and there is no grind. Maybe it takes you a long time to get what you want, I mean, my net worth is "only" a ten digit number, with less than 5% of that as available credits. The only thing FD ever did that got to me was releasing a ship (The Cobra Mk. IV, which I hear is not spectacular) that I'll never be able to get now, because I wasn't going to pay $80 for an expansion. I've flown almost every other ship in the game, leaving only the Asp Scout, Dolphin, Imperial Clipper (That one's next) and all Federal ships. Every time I felt like I was grinding, I found out, through talking to other players, googling, or sifting through the forums, there was other, more pleasant ways to accomplish what I wanted done.

Too many people get the game, try these get rich quick schemes, miss out on 80% of the game, then complain that there isn't enough to it.

TL;DR - You don't need exploits or shortcuts to enjoy Elite: Dangerous. The game is only a grind if you make it one.

 

[Gabbatek]

Who cares. I made billions back with skimmer/massacre missions, got my dream ship with the best fitting, did the whole engineer (stupid) grind, farmed Elite combat rank and realized that there's nothing else of interest for me to do, other than more senseless grind or looking at a shiny diorama all day.

grief noobs?
murderhobo the c.g?

 

[sollisb]

Well, there may be future releases that give benefits for higher ranks, take the empire, for instance... 14 ranks and the only ship at the time was the clipper, unlocked at 7.

Have you never retreated from a fight you were losing? I like that they continue to improve on A.I.

I actually find it more humorous than annoying, but I can see how repeating the same line over and over could get on ones nerves. However...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRAI9_MkmBM

I play the game, a lot, really, I take a few months off here and there and it almost never feels like a grind - Do what you enjoy doing and there is no grind. Maybe it takes you a long time to get what you want, I mean, my net worth is "only" a ten digit number, with less than 5% of that as available credits. The only thing FD ever did that got to me was releasing a ship (The Cobra Mk. IV, which I hear is not spectacular) that I'll never be able to get now, because I wasn't going to pay $80 for an expansion. I've flown almost every other ship in the game, leaving only the Asp Scout, Dolphin, Imperial Clipper (That one's next) and all Federal ships. Every time I felt like I was grinding, I found out, through talking to other players, googling, or sifting through the forums, there was other, more pleasant ways to accomplish what I wanted done.

Too many people get the game, try these get rich quick schemes, miss out on 80% of the game, then complain that there isn't enough to it.

TL;DR - You don't need exploits or shortcuts to enjoy Elite: Dangerous. The game is only a grind if you make it one.

To me this 'its only a grind if you make it one' is a huge fallacy, perpetuated by those, who have nothing better to do that than do the same monotonous thing time and time again.

Explain to me the 'pleasant' way to go from zilch to Rear Admiral. I know I did it in about 80 hrs of Ceos/Sothis runs. And what do we get? The ability to buy a Corvette. In that same time I made about 60m credits from the runs. A Corvette or at least my Corvette, is close to 1bn credits. You don;t make that kind of credits in Res Sites or doing Trade Routes, both of which are boring AF.

So that leaves, finding other ways to get credits which are not boring AF. Enter.. The Quince & Quince like systems. I do not find it in any way, doing the same thing over and over and over again, enjoyable.. Unless there is a huge reward for doing so.

And the fact is; There is no 'I won Elite Dangerous'...

 

[Blackcompany]

And here's the problem, instant gratification giving endgame rewards leaves little to be desired, likely removing another player from the galaxy.

If grinding for bigger ships and RNG upgrades is the only thing you've got to retain players, you DESERVE to lose them.

 

[Sathayorn]

To me this 'its only a grind if you make it one' is a huge fallacy, perpetuated by those, who have nothing better to do that than do the same monotonous thing time and time again.

Explain to me the 'pleasant' way to go from zilch to Rear Admiral. I know I did it in about 80 hrs of Ceos/Sothis runs. And what do we get? The ability to buy a Corvette. In that same time I made about 60m credits from the runs. A Corvette or at least my Corvette, is close to 1bn credits. You don;t make that kind of credits in Res Sites or doing Trade Routes, both of which are boring AF.

So that leaves, finding other ways to get credits which are not boring AF. Enter.. The Quince & Quince like systems. I do not find it in any way, doing the same thing over and over and over again, enjoyable.. Unless there is a huge reward for doing so.

And the fact is; There is no 'I won Elite Dangerous'...

Sounds to me like you don't enjoy the game - I had a lot of fun in most ships I flew, not just my cutter (Honestly a bit disappointing) and 'conda. You missed the point as much as the next guy, and so many before him. There's always something to look forward to, something new to do, and the normal, legitimate way of earning credits saves you from skipping steps, enjoyable steps if you take one back and look at the huge galaxy - I'm not yet a rear admiral, in fact, I'm still a Petty Officer in the Federation, but I'll plug along, grabbing the occasional Federation mission until I get my rank up, pick up whatever donation missions I happen upon, and try out a Corvette sometime this winter! Why does everything have to be "right now" with everyone? If I want to earn 5-6M/h I'll hop in my 'conda and shoot some baddies. Is that really not enough? (Edit: Yes, I am aware I could refit my Cutter for trading and make 12-13M/h.) I play with other people, and we chat about various things, some of which even relate to the game. I like to toy with engineers, go and scan surface bases, drive my SRV around and teach newer players some tricks to help them improve on themselves.

Do I want to try the corvette? Yeah, it's probably a fair bit better than the anaconda, judging by it's stats, I mean, its jump range is abysmal... But look at them dual C4's!

It's a game, not a competition. Engineers ruined that by providing too much power.

If grinding for bigger ships and RNG upgrades is the only thing you've got to retain players, you DESERVE to lose them.

Read my other posts, it's only a grind if you allow it to be, it's a game, do what's fun to you, and if that's finding a way to cheat your way to endgame, so be it. I guarantee that legitimate gains are more rewarding than exploiting for a quick fix.

 

[CMDR Rusty Dog]

So ppl complains that Quince is evil no fair bo hoo exploit - I just advanced from post captain to rear admiral by literally refreshing donation missions in Sothis... I literally bought my rank with out un docking once lol. Game is full of stuff like this, Quince is a tip of an iceberg.

This is why we are asking that the GAME mechanics regarding the mission system to be fixed and not just Quince.
It's not to leave the game in a state of abject grinding either. The missions rewards need balancing and should also, to a point, factor in your current wealth.

 

[Sathayorn]

This is why we are asking that the GAME mechanics regarding the mission system to be fixed and not just Quince.
It's not to leave the game in a state of abject grinding either. The missions rewards need balancing and should also, to a point, factor in your current wealth.

I disagree, basing them on rank is better, the richer don't need to be even richer, and the poor don't need to be held down... Combat, Exploration, and Trade rank should retain what little meaning they have.

 

[dognosh]

I disagree, basing them on rank is better, the richer don't need to be even richer, and the poor don't need to be held down... Combat, Exploration, and Trade rank should retain what little meaning they have.

Exploration and Trade ranks have no easy upgrade path(scan and passenger missions don't add to trade rank), combat though I agree because you exploit credits and get what you need to go farm CZs

 

[EddyRockSteady]

This is why we are asking that the GAME mechanics regarding the mission system to be fixed and not just Quince.

IMHO FD are not capable of fixing it.

I have been around since beginning of Gamma (Anybody else remember - Oh the tears when Gamma progress was carried over to release [haha] ). Even then we had Gold Mines, ie arguably piddle-poor coding/decision implementation disasters resulting in those 'clever' enough to make a quick buck, or so we thought. Still took me a gawdawful looooong time to run the so-called 'gold-mine' exploits (rares) that time to even afford an Anaconda for my garage (No, could not afford the outfitting even though I was filthy-rich by others' standards).

And then there was the Triple-Elite competition, where Combat Elite was very easily farmed with the war-zone AFK/Turret so-called 'exploit'.

Seeking luxuries anyone?

Oh yes, selling Gold for about 50 000 credits a ton.......my T9 is still smarting lol

And who can forget the slave runs! Stinky as but hey, money talks.

The list goes on.....

Every poor game decision/coding gets labelled an exploit, which really irritates me. We take a mission that says fly to A and scan. We also take more missions to scan B, C, D and E.

We comply with the requirements, ie we go to A and scan A. The intent is obviously to go and scan B, but due to shoddy coding the others auto-compete and we get branded exploiters?

Bovine Doo-Doo.

Rusty, you are right: The game is broken. I just think that people don't actually realise the true extent of brokenness. It's reached the stage where the only way you can not reasonably be accused of 'exploiting' is to not play the game at all. You cannot even sidestep the unintended behaviour - it just happens lol.

Oh wei.

 

[Sathayorn]

Exploration and Trade ranks have no easy upgrade path(scan and passenger missions don't add to trade rank), combat though I agree because you exploit credits and get what you need to go farm CZs

Passenger missions do add considerable Exploration progression.
Cargo haul missions add trade rank progression.
These are far from difficult.

 

[EddyRockSteady]

Exploration and Trade ranks have no easy upgrade path(scan and passenger missions don't add to trade rank)

Passenger missions count towards Exploration rank.

Took me years. Took others a week or so in Quince.

Of all the things, this decision really irritates me, but hey, what can I do.

 

[Sathayorn]

IMHO FD are not capable of fixing it.

I have been around since beginning of Gamma (Anybody else remember - Oh the tears when Gamma progress was carried over to release [haha] ). Even then we had Gold Mines, ie arguably piddle-poor coding/decision implementation disasters resulting in those 'clever' enough to make a quick buck, or so we thought. Still took me a gawdawful looooong time to run the so-called 'gold-mine' exploits (rares) that time to even afford an Anaconda for my garage (No, could not afford the outfitting even though I was filthy-rich by others' standards).

And then there was the Triple-Elite competition, where Combat Elite was very easily farmed with the war-zone AFK/Turret so-called 'exploit'.

Seeking luxuries anyone?

Oh yes, selling Gold for about 50 000 credits a ton.......my T9 is still smarting lol

And who can forget the slave runs! Stinky as but hey, money talks.

The list goes on.....

Every poor game decision/coding gets labelled an exploit, which really irritates me. We take a mission that says fly to A and scan. We also take more missions to scan B, C, D and E.

We comply with the requirements, ie we go to A and scan A. The intent is obviously to go and scan B, but due to shoddy coding the others auto-compete and we get branded exploiters?

Bovine Doo-Doo.

Rusty, you are right: The game is broken. I just think that people don't actually realise the true extent of brokenness. It's reached the stage where the only way you can not reasonably be accused of 'exploiting' is to not play the game at all. You cannot even sidestep the unintended behaviour - it just happens lol.

Oh wei.

When you do it once, no, when you do it for a day, no... When you hear about it and you do it for weeks on end until it's fixed? Yes.