Confession of a shameless Mode Switcher...

[Rakaposhi]

I mode switch when it suits me.

I don't regard any game I play as a real time adventure. When the mission board isn't showing enough useful missions for me, or the ones I want, then I relog. I regard it as my pilot either sleeping on it for a night and trying his contacts again, or heading elsewhere in the port for some more meetings with different contacts.

If they take out mode switching, I'd be cool with that, but the mechanic is there, so I use it when it makes sense to me.

 

[Miklos Atreides]

I seem to remember them taking action to STOP mission stacking/mode switching? As they consider it an exploit.

I am not able to confirm this. They blamed the situation as 'unintended gameplay', but I didn't get the message they are working on it or going to stop this.
And in fact there is no real exploitation of a malicous feature nor it is a bug. Its fully working as intended, but opened Pandoras can of abuse by combining two legit features.
FD will have to work hardly to put the lid on that can again.

Regards,
Miklos

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

I am not able to confirm this. They blamed the situation as 'unintended gameplay', but I didn't get the message they are working on it or going to stop this.
And in fact there is no real exploitation of a malicous feature nor it is a bug. Its fully working as intended, but opened Pandoras can of abuse by combining two legit features.
FD will have to work hardly to put the lid on that can again.

Regards,
Miklos

Uhm ... unintended gameplay is the definition of an exploit if it's to the player's advantage :S

It's not malicious, and it's condoned, but still an exploit.

 

[Aashenfox]

You are leaving out the third option, which is to grind through mode switching which is the topic of this thread. If it worked as you stated above, I'd have come to the same conclusion as you have, but it does not.
The difference is not 30% between modeswap Grind and focused grind without the mode swap. It's far more and if you only do it through natural play, even if you preference the missions that count over those that do not, then it is practically unattainable (maybe a couple more years). I've been preferencing these missions since Christmas, when I bought the Chrome skin for a Vette. At the time I already had an FGS. I have my preferred stalking grounds where I am already allied with the relevant factions.
Its slow going. I don't care all that much and still have a great time with this game, but the fact that anyone can boost the access now, not through straight grinding, but through modeswap + grinding is irritating because it's a loophole outside of regular play in order to gain very much in game advantages. I'm not quite sure how it is that FD don't consider it an exploit, tbh and I find it bizzare that some of the Grind elements of the game practically count on the mechanic being used (is effectively balanced around it).

Yes, I know what you said, and I say yet again, that in my opinion, if you are playing optimally to begin with, board switching (FOR REPUTATION) doesn't make such a difference as to be worth advocating. I'm not going to do a video, or update this thread in a week, nor am I going to justify myself further after this lengthy post.

Now, if you said 'for money' that's a different story, because high money missions are low rep reward and more easily repeatable due to large cargo spaces for multiple delivery runs to the same system.

So, back to the issue...

OK, so you already have the all important network of allied sub factions in about 15 closely positioned systems...that's great, you're all set to make rear admiral in just a few weeks. The secret is one way passenger missions, if you have a large ship, fit three cabins and board swap to get more passenger missions to the same systems and fill all your cabins, you'll be rolling in money and making huge rep gains daily, but I say again, due to the fact that you can't take a lot of these passenger missions at the same time, that board swapping is not that advantageous. Even my dolphin only has 2 cabins, so I either take two groups to two nearby systems or board swap until I fill both cabins to the same destination, it's still two runs. In both cases, I get the same amount of rep, but obviously 2 systems takes a little omre time, BUT, it also means I see three boards, where as you saw only 2. What if the third board that you wouldn't have visited (because you board swapped in order to take two missions to the same station for efficiency) is full of donation missions? You'd be glad you visited, because no other mission type gains you rank faster. THERE, you would board swap repeatedly and probably gain a rank in 10 minutes from all the donations, which again you wouldn't have seen if you board swapped for just 'mediocre' missions to a single destination. ED has always been a numbers game. Visit more systems, see more boards, get more opportunities. That's what you're missing out on by using the exploit.

If you still don't believe me, don't worry, I won't cry, but please don't tell me I'm wrong or my opinion is ill-considered, as to do that is to dismiss the work that I have put in to understanding this system, and understand it very well, I do. I don't believe that board swapping will gain you REPUTATION a great deal faster than just doing one way passenger missions, but credits, oh yes...

P.S. I too think it's a dirty exploit no matter what anyone says. I hope it gets patched out, even if it does mean that more players get salty about the grind. Nobody gets salty in WoW about the requirements to get legendary weapons (which make ED's grind look like finding a tonka toy in a sandpit, not only do you have to do INSANE things, you have to get other guild members to agree to do INSANE things just so YOU can get a weapon, really, proper, high skill cap games are supposed to work like this). Because when you see a player with a current tier legendary weapon, you know what they had to do to get it and you know that you owe that person your respect. Nothing worthwhile was ever gained easily, and anything gained easily quickly loses its lustre (sorry for chucking in cheesy anecdotes).

 

[znôrt]

Uhm ... unintended gameplay is the definition of an exploit if it's to the player's advantage :S

no. in a game there is only one objective definition of exploit: what the devs say is an exploit.

of course as a player you can call exploit anything you wish, and it may even make sense, but that's not the point.

 

[BURL KNIVE5]

Indeed, give us a refresh button then. As someone who refuses to use exploits I feel like I have to play with my hands tied behind my back compared to most people. FD, stop rewarding exploits!

It's not hard to imagine a cmdr docked, kicking back in his cockpit with a cup of coffee, watching the mission board update every couple of minutes, and selecting the missions he wants.

 

[StiTch]

no. in a game there is only one objective definition of exploit: what the devs say is an exploit.

Strictly you are indeed correct, but I would add to this that taking advantage of non-"in game" methods is a fairly safe line to draw on the topic.

If you were in that ship IRL, could you search a mission board to obtain missions? Sure you could. Would you be able to mentally picture the words "exit to menu" and then "play", and the missions board magically present you with new options?

Likewise, could an engineer modify your modules? Sure. Could you request the engineer does one job, interrupt him, request an entirely new job, and he somehow does an expensive modification for you for peanuts?

Could you use thrusters and FSD to escape from a fight? Sure. Could you mentally picture the words "CTRL-ALT-DELTE", and disappear from the time/space continuum until it's safe?

What is "official" according to FD is what effectively matters at the end of the day, because that's what dictates what you are actually allowed to do. But it doesn't make it any less exploitative to achieve something in-game by manipulating it with out-of-game handling.

Am I denouncing it? Not in OP's form. Hell, I mode switched for conflict missions to rank with the Feds. But you've always crossed that invisible line when you step out the game to achieve something.

 

[Stealthie]

Yes, I know what you said, and I say yet again, that in my opinion, if you are playing optimally to begin with, board switching (FOR REPUTATION) doesn't make such a difference as to be worth advocating. I'm not going to do a video, or update this thread in a week, nor am I going to justify myself further after this lengthy post.

I'd agree with that, which is not to say that I think naval rank progression is quick via "normal" play.

Thing is, if you're looking for rep+++ missions in an average station, you're going to find, say, 3 or 4 of them.
If you mode-switch you're going to get another 3 or 4 and then another 3 or 4.
So now you have 12 missions stacked but you still need to actually complete them, one at a time, by visiting other stations which could probably offer you additional rep+++ missions anyway.

It's possible you might get, say, 2 or 3 missions with the same destination which'll reduce the required effort a small amount but, in the grand scheme of things, if you need to complete 250 missions to gain a promotion then getting 50 of them as "freebies" is still going to seem like a helluva grind.

Mode-flipping really only pays off when you can stack a heap of "cookie cutter" missions, either by being in a system that only ever spawns missions to one destination OR spawns skimmer/scanner missions which allow the full 20 to be completed simultaneously.

 

[Chrysophylax]

Nobody gets salty in WoW about the requirements to get legendary weapons (which make ED's grind look like finding a tonka toy in a sandpit, not only do you have to do INSANE things, you have to get other guild members to agree to do INSANE things just so YOU can get a weapon, really, proper, high skill cap games are supposed to work like this). Because when you see a player with a current tier legendary weapon, you know what they had to do to get it and you know that you owe that person your respect. Nothing worthwhile was ever gained easily, and anything gained easily quickly loses its lustre (sorry for chucking in cheesy anecdotes).

This wasn't your point but I'm going to take this to address something I often see said by others.

I don't think anyone actually disagrees with this. Some of us are well versed in the sort of work that is required to get end game gear in a lot of games. The problem is that this doesn't exist in Elite.

The work acts mostly as a gate of time, not effort or skill (personal or group or otherwise). I'd rather the game allowed people to get King/Admiral in 12 hours if they were prepared to do it - by having the skill, the equipment, the knowledge and the help in place. As it is now it's just a pure and simple grind, repetitive, long, not hard, can be done out of the gate.

Point being there's a pretty big gulf between the current "takes weeks or literal years at worst to get there", and being the strawman instant gratification system for 8 year olds.

In the absence of a proper system, I'd rather it be too easy than too hard, i.e. you could do it with 120 missions rather than 1200.

 

[Aashenfox]

I'd agree with that, which is not to say that I think naval rank progression is quick via "normal" play.

Thing is, if you're looking for rep+++ missions in an average station, you're going to find, say, 3 or 4 of them.
If you mode-switch you're going to get another 3 or 4 and then another 3 or 4.
So now you have 12 missions stacked but you still need to actually complete them, one at a time, by visiting other stations which could probably offer you additional rep+++ missions anyway.

It's possible you might get, say, 2 or 3 missions with the same destination which'll reduce the required effort a small amount but, in the grand scheme of things, if you need to complete 250 missions to gain a promotion then getting 50 of them as "freebies" is still going to seem like a helluva grind.

Mode-flipping really only pays off when you can stack a heap of "cookie cutter" missions, either by being in a system that only ever spawns missions to one destination OR spawns skimmer/scanner missions which allow the full 20 to be completed simultaneously.

Agreed.

This wasn't your point but I'm going to take this to address something I often see said by others.

I don't think anyone actually disagrees with this. Some of us are well versed in the sort of work that is required to get end game gear in a lot of games. The problem is that this doesn't exist in Elite.

The work acts mostly as a gate of time, not effort or skill (personal or group or otherwise). I'd rather the game allowed people to get King/Admiral in 12 hours if they were prepared to do it - by having the skill, the equipment, the knowledge and the help in place. As it is now it's just a pure and simple grind, repetitive, long, not hard, can be done out of the gate.

Point being there's a pretty big gulf between the current "takes weeks or literal years at worst to get there", and being the strawman instant gratification 8 year old.

In the absence of a proper system, I'd rather it be too easy than too hard, i.e. you could do it with 120 missions rather than 1200.

Agreed, except that last bit, I'd prefer all games were more difficult. Maybe I'm a closet masochist punishing myself for some event from my childhood that only my subconscious can remember! lol

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

no. in a game there is only one objective definition of exploit: what the devs say is an exploit.

of course as a player you can call exploit anything you wish, and it may even make sense, but that's not the point.

So if I build a car (sorry, just came out of a thread with car analogies) and I say: "that's not a car", it's not a car?

An exploit is making use of a feature or glitch in an unintended way to your advantage. That's the objective definition. If you leave the definition up to the developer's say so, that's a subjective definition since it depends on the subject making the statement.

 

[Vorxian]

confessions

ok ok ok ok ok I confess that I read fdev were fixing the whole stacking thing.. so I took a day off work to get to king whilst it was still possible to tuck in to a mission log of 80+ missions. I think that was my record 86 missions stacked. I found at this stage missions started to drop off due to expiry!

 

[Katnisseve]

Yes, I know what you said, and I say yet again, that in my opinion, if you are playing optimally to begin with, board switching (FOR REPUTATION) doesn't make such a difference as to be worth advocating. I'm not going to do a video, or update this thread in a week, nor am I going to justify myself further after this lengthy post.

Now, if you said 'for money' that's a different story, because high money missions are low rep reward and more easily repeatable due to large cargo spaces for multiple delivery runs to the same system.

So, back to the issue...

OK, so you already have the all important network of allied sub factions in about 15 closely positioned systems...that's great, you're all set to make rear admiral in just a few weeks. The secret is one way passenger missions, if you have a large ship, fit three cabins and board swap to get more passenger missions to the same systems and fill all your cabins, you'll be rolling in money and making huge rep gains daily, but I say again, due to the fact that you can't take a lot of these passenger missions at the same time, that board swapping is not that advantageous. Even my dolphin only has 2 cabins, so I either take two groups to two nearby systems or board swap until I fill both cabins to the same destination, it's still two runs. In both cases, I get the same amount of rep, but obviously 2 systems takes a little omre time, BUT, it also means I see three boards, where as you saw only 2. What if the third board that you wouldn't have visited (because you board swapped in order to take two missions to the same station for efficiency) is full of donation missions? You'd be glad you visited, because no other mission type gains you rank faster. THERE, you would board swap repeatedly and probably gain a rank in 10 minutes from all the donations, which again you wouldn't have seen if you board swapped for just 'mediocre' missions to a single destination. ED has always been a numbers game. Visit more systems, see more boards, get more opportunities. That's what you're missing out on by using the exploit.

If you still don't believe me, don't worry, I won't cry, but please don't tell me I'm wrong or my opinion is ill-considered, as to do that is to dismiss the work that I have put in to understanding this system, and understand it very well, I do. I don't believe that board swapping will gain you REPUTATION a great deal faster than just doing one way passenger missions, but credits, oh yes...

P.S. I too think it's a dirty exploit no matter what anyone says. I hope it gets patched out, even if it does mean that more players get salty about the grind. Nobody gets salty in WoW about the requirements to get legendary weapons (which make ED's grind look like finding a tonka toy in a sandpit, not only do you have to do INSANE things, you have to get other guild members to agree to do INSANE things just so YOU can get a weapon, really, proper, high skill cap games are supposed to work like this). Because when you see a player with a current tier legendary weapon, you know what they had to do to get it and you know that you owe that person your respect. Nothing worthwhile was ever gained easily, and anything gained easily quickly loses its lustre (sorry for chucking in cheesy anecdotes).

You are wrong. I don't care if you choose to argue your viewpoint or not, but factually, your premise is incorrect.
I was able to rank up Fed quite quickly using mode switching. Before doing so, I had played for almost two years and only ever gained the first two ranks by just doing whatever(normal play as some like to call it). It was ridiculous.
I then set my mind to ranking up, and was able to do so in several weeks time off an on at Sothis or Niu Sing. It still took a lot of hours. However, I then found one spot where I was able to gain the last 2 ranks to Rear Admiral and did so in less then a day. 2000 missions worth. Max 20 missions each time I left the station and all ++ rep except a few donation missions at +++. No... Not 17 Draconis.
As for Imperial, I did that before going for fed ranks and was actually able to go from no rank to Duke in 10 days.... However, the system I did that in, the mission board as of 2.3 no longer even functions at that location. Like at all, it always gives an error now.
No way, doing what you propose, would come anywhere close to gaining rep/rank as fast... Even for the Fed side that i just reached Rear Admiral last weekend.

 

[Marklar_]

Some of us are well versed in the sort of work that is required to get end game gear in a lot of games.

Thing is, there really is no end game in this game. It's not like having a Corvette allows you to hold your own in new areas and experience new content. You get a spiffy new ride, but you'd also be fine with an Anaconda. For some of us it's worth it just to fly the biggest ships, but it would be a whole lot better if those ranks really meant something and allowed you to do new things in the game. As it is, no one in the galaxy cares that you are an Admiral or a Duke other than the used ship salespeople.

That's getting a bit off topic I know, but considering the time investment there should be more to rank than just gating a couple of ships. And it should be possible to get those ranks while still playing the way you want. Making it all go through the mission system has been a disaster, because the mission system has been a disaster from day one.

 

[Stealthie]

Anybody care to take a stab at explaining the difference between quitting back to the main menu to avoid combat and quitting back to the main menu to stack more missions?

How can one use of the game options be acceptable but another not be?

Are we saying that even if the game allows you to do a thing, it can still be unacceptable?

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

If I had 1 Cr for everyone who sat at Tun and spammed donation missions to get to the ranks they needed, I could buy a corvette with it.

Anything and I mean ANY thing in the game that's not a violation of EULA is fair game. I don't care how others feel about it in their purist ivory towers.

personally i do not give 2 squits it you want to exploit the game.... go at it..... that said, it does not make me wrong for thinking it is poor game design and to want to have a more robust mission system without mode swapping, and broken stacked missions.

people can say it does not affect me and i am stupid if they want, but that is not for other people to say. the broken missions when stacking 100% DOES affect me and nothing anyone can say can change that. the mode swapping to stack missions in a hypothetical scenario where they were NOT broken, is more arguable..... but i still do not really agree. if the faction I choose to support is under attack and i know 100% those against me are mode swapping to stack missions, it kind of means if i want to have any chance of competing i would need to do the same..... which imo is NOT good game design.

the fact that "i can exploit too" is not a valid reason imo.

how do i know i speak the truth...? because some of the people i game with mode swap as a matter of course to "win" systems. I refuse to do it, and they think i am strange as i am essentially making my contribution bordering on neglidable and i will ALWAYS lose if i go head to head against them.... but here is the thing, as i play ED purely for the RP IF i cave and to the mode swap exploit - and trust me i have been tempted - it will kill the game for me and i will no longer play it.

 

[StiTch]

Anybody care to take a stab at explaining the difference between quitting back to the main menu to avoid combat and quitting back to the main menu to stack more missions?

As per my above post, I would argue there's little difference in whether it's strictly an exploit. You've used something outside the actual gameplay to further your position.

The former's impact however is more dramatic, and has far more presence. If you see someone flying a 'conda around, you don't really know whether they earned that full-on legitimately or spent a few nights at Ceos. But if you're a pirate depending on stolen cargo for your income and fun, and instead of learning to handle/mitigate risk people just force shut the game, then there's a much more active detrimental influence to the affected player.

Don't get me wrong, the latter has an "impact". But it's an impact that's not obvious to other players, and in some cases simply results in noobs flying ships too big for their boots - which isn't massively problematic, but is hysterical.

 

[Marklar_]

As per my above post, I would argue there's little difference in whether it's strictly an exploit. You've used something outside the actual gameplay to further your position.

So am I exploiting when I use EDDB while trading?

 

[Stealthie]

You are wrong. I don't care if you choose to argue your viewpoint or not, but factually, your premise is incorrect.
I was able to rank up Fed quite quickly using mine switching. Before doing so, I had played for almost two years and only ever gained the first two ranks by just doing whatever(normal play as some like to call it). It was ridiculous.
I then set my mind to ranking up, and was able to do so in several weeks time off an on at So this or Niu Sing. It still took a lot of hours. However, I then found one spot where I was able to gain the last 2 ranks to Rear Admiral and did so in less then 5 hours total. Max 20 missions each time I left the station and all ++ rep.
As for Imperial, I did that before going for fed ranks and was actually able to go from no rank to Duke in 10 days.... However, the system I did that in, the mission board as of 2.3 no longer even functions at that location. Like at all, it always gives an error now.
No way, doing what you propose, would come anywhere close to gaining rep/rank as fast... Even for the Fed side that O just reached Rear Admiral last weekend.

I think you might be putting too much emphasis on one thing and not enough on another.

At the end of the day, places like Quince, Sothis, Niu Hsing and Fehu gave players a fundamental opportunity to grind rank regardless of whether they mode-switch or not.
In places like that you could usually get more than a dozen missions in one go and you'd only need to mode-switch to "top off" your 20-mission limit.

That being the case, mode-switching only gets you an extra, say, 35% more missions so it's only responsible for shortening the grind by 35%.
The vast majority of any reduction of grind is simply the result of operating IN Nui Hsing (or Fehu, or Sothis, or Quince) rather than mode-switching.

 

[Theodrid]

no. in a game there is only one objective definition of exploit: what the devs say is an exploit.

of course as a player you can call exploit anything you wish, and it may even make sense, but that's not the point.

The intended use of the exit to menu is to swap which mode/PG you are in, using this feature to stack missions is not the intended functionality therefore, by definition, it is an exploit.