Confession of a shameless Mode Switcher...

[StiTch]

So am I exploiting when I use EDDB while trading?

No, that hasn't furthered your position per se - just given you the knowledge to achieve it legitimately.

It's a problem when you're achieving things in-game that you couldn't normally. Knowing how to do something is absolutely fine - but knowledge doesn't make a mission board give you more missions than it was supposed to show (i.e. "the intended gameplay"). If FD wanted you to have an infinite mission source, they would have simply given you it, or a refresh button - not asked you to come out of game to get them.

My personal opinion is that it's bloody naff. I don't get the whole obsession with skipping the journey; using trade routes, and using trade data, and knowledge of the economy to work out a trade route is far more engaging than just hitting the buttons to get the goods between them...and are we not here for fun? But I'm also not going to call it out playstyles I don't like as an exploit.

 

[znôrt]

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.

totally agree. i find mode switch lame, daft ... and have done it myself a couple of times (can't stand it for more than 10 minutes though).

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.

cmdr StiTch here just made some good ship analogies

sorry but the developer rules the beige universe in which you, mere mortal, thrive. amongst other things, he sets the law.

of course we can have informal, private conversations about what some behavior looks for us. i think we could agree to call it exploit. but it's just not our call in the context of the game. you can think of it as an exploit, but you can't call out 'cmdr x for exploiting', because he isn't unless frontier says so. a difference.

 

[Stealthie]

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.

Fair enough. That's an honest answer. [up]

One certainly has a more immediate effect but I think it's hard to say whether the other is less substantial.

When I did my stint in Fehu I was raking in hundreds of millions of credits (I was well on my way to Cr2bn after 3 days) but, for the sake of my conscience, I decided to burn through most of that with donation missions to assist further with ranking.
If I'd relied solely on scanner/skimmer missions I could have walked away from Fehu with the rank and Cr2bn in the bank.

I'm pretty sure that kind of money is going to yield advantages for a player who's got it.

 

[CMDR Ellegon]

If memory serves, ranking was a lot easier a while back. Running smuggling missions from Sothis and Ceos, back in the day, catapulted up my ranking with the respective super power. Add some donations, which were cheap back then, often available at Sohtis/Ceos as well, and ranking was not hard. So I made Duke and Rear Admiral before the nerf. Looking at how the percentages on my ranks now barely have moved at all, I can imagine how hard it must be for newcomers.

 

[Ziggy Stardust]

@znort. I think you're talking whether something is actionable. Which is indeed up to FD to decide.

 

[znôrt]

@znort. I think you're talking whether something is actionable. Which is indeed up to FD to decide.

which is the point of calling something an 'exploit' and not 'hey, look, a clever way to do stuff!'

to make my position clear, i don't think it is an exploit because it's too dumb. for me an exploit is a clever way to subvert game mechanics for an advantage (i added 'clever' to your definition in my informal definition, to stress that the effect is unintended by the developer). this is not the case, it's simply a mechanic dumb as fig (or too complex for me to understand). now, i completely understand why frontier are dragging their feet here ...

 

[Katnisseve]

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

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.

No... Not really. Because often times, the mission board reads ZERO missions or only 5 or so from the Fed factions. So mode swapping CAN increase the rate dramatically more then 35% or so.

 

[Schmack]

Let's just cut to the chase: Ranking is stupid in the 1st place. I get the idea of force grind to unlock game items, but these ranks do absolutely nothing otherwise. Someone who is an admiral or king tell me if you get treated differently by the authorities, talked to any differently by stations you aren't allied with, or anything else other than the missions you get and the ability to purchase those two ships.

It's a ludicrous carrot on a stick, it's absurd. But it can be ignored.

 

[znôrt]

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.

again, it is poor mechanics.

i think frontier is actually fine or else they would have changed/blocked this long time ago. but they know very well many players enjoy it and would get miffed if they took it away. for this reason it is to their advantage to do nothing, and to remain inconclusive about this being an exploit or not.

if they were to deem this an exploit, they would be expected to act on it.

they do act when you can complete a load of missions due to a bug. there's no plausible excuse for that, it's clearly a bug, so they admit it and ... fix it ... well, at *some* point, more or less ...

 

[Schmack]

If memory serves, ranking was a lot easier a while back. Running smuggling missions from Sothis and Ceos, back in the day, catapulted up my ranking with the respective super power. Add some donations, which were cheap back then, often available at Sohtis/Ceos as well, and ranking was not hard. So I made Duke and Rear Admiral before the nerf. Looking at how the percentages on my ranks now barely have moved at all, I can imagine how hard it must be for newcomers.

No no, they just need to suck it up. They should have to grind for 15 - 20 years to get that rank.

 

[Stealthie]

FWIW, if FDev do ever find a way to render mode-switching redundant, I hope they also take the time to consider why so many people feel the need to do it and try to create something to address that issue as well.

Perhaps they could introduce some kind of "gold-rush" mechanic whereby there's a small chance that a system will have some item at bargain-basement prices for a few days so a diligent trader could go there, buy it for peanuts, sell it where it's expensive and make a few quid?

Ideally, they could even make it so that players might be able to help trigger these events.
If, for example, a mining system requires high-tech stuff (or food, or whatever) and enough players complete missions to deliver that stuff then it might increase the likelihood of the "gold rush" happening, or even trigger it directly.

 

[Vorxian]

My personal opinion is that it's bloody naff. I don't get the whole obsession with skipping the journey; using trade routes, and using trade data, and knowledge of the economy to work out a trade route is far more engaging than just hitting the buttons to get the goods between them...and are we not here for fun? But I'm also not going to call it out playstyles I don't like as an exploit.

Oddly I actually find myself agreeing! What I crave is interesting missions though. I'd actually love longer mission arcs with much greater rewards, than some... land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission.. launch, land, scan, suicide, hand in mission....

With the absence of anything interesting, stacking missions is the only thing that adds any form of industry to this mission system. If credit grinding is the name of the game, mass producing results from the above system is the most boring exercise of the lot, but if it yields the greatest return.. you're still actually saving yourself time by doing it.

It's a backwards point I know I just want interesting missions

 

[StiTch]

One certainly has a more immediate effect but I think it's hard to say whether the other is less substantial.

Sure, though among PvP combatants CLing is also highly disgraceful and cowardly.

But yes, exploitative money making can have knock-on consequences. Unbalanced BGS shifts, the ability to have greater assets to achieve a goal than you should have done...but none of this is visible to the average player, or obvious if it has ever affected them. Only FD can really temper it.

Let's just cut to the chase: Ranking is stupid in the 1st place.

Of course, the other side of the story CLing outright deserves denouncement - but while the effects are unintended, it's arguably more justified to mode switch, especially as FD historically admitted to naval ranking being crap.

 

[Stealthie]

.....It's a backwards point I know I just want interesting missions

That sounds like a terrific idea.

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/363878-Some-thoughts-about-quot-The-Grind

 

[_Flin_]

+1 for truth and honesty.

While it is in gaming, that not everyone can have everything,... and wh should you have the best ship when you are casual...

The balance in Elite was always on the harsh side. Makes things more valuable to get, but exploits more lucrative and tempting as well.

 

[Schmack]

FWIW, if FDev do ever find a way to render mode-switching redundant, I hope they also take the time to consider why so many people feel the need to do it and try to create something to address that issue as well.

Perhaps they could introduce some kind of "gold-rush" mechanic whereby there's a small chance that a system will have some item at bargain-basement prices for a few days so a diligent trader could go there, buy it for peanuts, sell it where it's expensive and make a few quid?

Ideally, they could even make it so that players might be able to help trigger these events.
If, for example, a mining system requires high-tech stuff (or food, or whatever) and enough players complete missions to deliver that stuff then it might increase the likelihood of the "gold rush" happening, or even trigger it directly.

It's a general game mechanic that also affects the quality of spawn in res sites, the materials you're mining, ship spawns on planetary installations when skimmer missions are taken, etc... If the missions boards somehow become separate from other game instancing scenarios, that would be interesting. Imagine for example entering a CZ and combat is already in progress, instead of it waiting for you to show up, or you leave a res site when under duress and return only to find the same ships are still aware of you and continue chasing you regardless whether you leave or stay.

It's not just the missions boards. The entire game is fueled and made more playable by the ability to take a mulligan.

 

[Marklar_]

+1 for truth and honesty.

While it is in gaming, that not everyone can have everything,... and wh should you have the best ship when you are casual...

The balance in Elite was always on the harsh side. Makes things more valuable to get, but exploits more lucrative and tempting as well.

The problem with that is that the way things have shaken out the rank system is totally unfair to players who are starting the grind now. It's been nerfed into the ground, after a lot of people got their ranks. I think a lot of this has to do with the borked economy. Credits were the original gates to accessing ships, but then people found ways to rake in huge sums of money and were able to buy any ship with little time investment. So, we got rank-locked ships, just to add another time gate. And then people found ways to get rank quickly, so it got nerfed repeatedly. There doesn't seem to be much balance here, it's more about grinding at the right time in the Korrect(tm) way than actual dedication.

 

[znôrt]

So, we got rank-locked ships, just to add another time gate.

fwiw, rank locked ships existed from the start (clipper), but your description is pretty accurate. in online persistent worlds these mistakes have consequences that can become real issues and often demand drastic solutions. frontier has been having a hard time catching up since release.

 

[Marklar_]

fwiw, rank locked ships existed from the start (clipper)

Oh that's right, I'd forgotten, I did do the grind for the Clipper way back when for trading. But it was easy back then, and I quickly forgot about ranking until the big two dropped.

 

[Theodrid]

again, it is poor mechanics.

i think frontier is actually fine or else they would have changed/blocked this long time ago. but they know very well many players enjoy it and would get miffed if they took it away. for this reason it is to their advantage to do nothing, and to remain inconclusive about this being an exploit or not.

if they were to deem this an exploit, they would be expected to act on it.

they do act when you can complete a load of missions due to a bug. there's no plausible excuse for that, it's clearly a bug, so they admit it and ... fix it ... well, at *some* point, more or less ...

Poor mechanics doesn't stop mode switching to stack missions being an exploit.
'I don't have time' doesn't stop mode switching to stack missions being an exploit.
Ranking being a pain in the backside for some doesn't stop mode switching to stack missions being an exploit.
Frontier not stating the bleeding obvious does not prevent mode switching to stack missions being an exploit.
'Others are doing it so I will/must' does not prevent mode switching to stack missions being an exploit.
Mode switching to stack missions being a fairly soft exploit does not stop it from being an exploit.