Yes this is a "let's all come together" kind of post.
I'm one of those people that spends most of his time reading posts very rarely posting, so you might be wondering who the hell is this well one way or another no one really. I'm not some overlord, I don't know everything and I definitely don't want to sit on some high horse telling you you're all wrong. Quite the opposite really I think almost everyone is right in one way or another but everyone is so focused on shouting each other down that we're missing the point. Yes this is mostly going to focus on money per hour and perhaps a little on player interaction.
The main sticking point seems to be how much money should a player make per hour, and on this point I would like to try and offer some points just to think about. I apologise if I sound condescending pointing out some things that seem rather obvious (it isn't intentional) but bear with me I genuinely love the game and don't like how toxic things seem to be getting.
Time
Every player has a vastly different amount of time they can spend playing games, and within that "game" time people (like me) may also want to play a variety of games. I personally play elite anywhere from 20hours a week to 2-5hours. There shouldn't be a "mandatory" play time required to get some decent progress made in a week but at the same time those who do play more should be equally rewarded.
So knowing that everyone will have different time available to them I think there is one key question
How long should it take to achieve "end game" and by end game I would say you have a comfortable rebuy/bank, one of the "big 3" a primary combat ship, trade ship and exploration ship. End game is always going to be highly subjective but to me I feel like being in this situation lets you experience all of the games content and allows you to move on to end game content which is engineering and Thargoids at the moment.
A lot of assumptions are about to be made but it's pretty unavoidable given the diversity of the game and its players.
For this example, this player is in mid game perhaps capable of making 15 MilCr/Hr so they have a decent idea what's going on and has a decent ship or ships.
Full combat anaconda (un-engineered) 650mil
Exploration Diamond back explorer (" ") 10mil
Trading/mining type 9 (" ") 100mil
Comfortable bank/rebuy 100mil
Total: 860mil
You can argue that's excessive, you can argue it's not enough, Some of you might be reading this saying who cares about money just fly a cobra around and enjoy the game! and that's fine everyone has their own ideal of what their own personal "end game" is and most importantly there is no WRONG answer. I have tried to pick a place where you can happily enjoy all the games content and there is still more to unlock/buy and progress.
But taking that as an example, a mid game player that may have already put 50-100 or so hours into the game would have to play for 57Hours to achieve that goal, that is 57hours of none stop credit earning bumped up to 60 hours to include travel times and activity switching etc.
60 hours @ 20 hours a week is 3 weeks
60 hours @ 10 hours a week is 6 weeks
60 hours @ 5 hours a week is 12 weeks
You can draw your own conclusion on the numbers, just some food for thought. But hopefully if you are someone that plays 20 hours a week you might be a little more empathetic to someone who can only manage 5 and vice versa.
Nerfs
Should the recent passenger mission nerf have happened. (In my opinion) 100% yes. There should not be a way to make 100-200 MilCr/Hr while all other methods net you 10% of that, it's objectively unbalanced and shouldn't be the case. HOWEVER the conversation that needs to be had is should Fdev keep hammering everything down into the 10-20 MilCr/Hr or should it perhaps bring other areas of earning up a little. Not into the 100-200 area but perhaps into the 25-35 area, preferably without board flipping
I think a lot of players complaining about the nerf would not be doing so if they felt like their time was being appropriately rewarded by doing regular missions/ways to earn. I do not believe that the vast majority of people complaining want "everything handed to them for nothing" and "would quit the game immediately when they have what they want" Lets be real here, this is a smaller "enthusiast" game, you wouldn't be playing if you didn't like flying spaceships around, a player that would quit when they have "everything" would most likely have quit long before then in the regular gameplay loop. Saying those things only serves to annoy people and is ultimately not helpful.
On the flip side one must also consider that some people have spent hundreds of hours getting their ships, they are proud of their achievement and are annoyed that people have achieved the same in a fraction of the time. Is it fair, not really, is it annoying, I imagine so. Saying they would have used the same "exploits" if they had chance? Again that's pointless and unhelpful.
To finish this already way too long post I would like to try and be constructive.
I think one of the biggest problems people have with "exploiters" is griefing, it allows certain players to essentially ruin other peoples time for very little risk to themselves because they have the best equipment and hundreds of re-buys. So I would like to propose the following, I know Fdev seems to be trying to address the issue but I don't think AI is the answer
To that end. I would greatly increase the bounty a player receives for destroying another players ship, when I say greatly I'm talking putting it into the millions. This is NOT to be confused with piracy, I respect pirates and MOST pirates if you drop cargo will let you leave intact (there are some bad eggs but there will always be bad eggs).
I think if a player has say a 5-10 million bounty on them other players would be MUCH more inclined to take up PVP bounty hunting, perhaps even higher payouts because let's be honest you'd be taking a pretty big risk and I am a firm believer in the higher the risk the greater the reward should be. The bounty should be tied to the ship and only be removed when claimed by another player or a certain time has elapsed. Should the AI/stations attack you well that's debatable it could be entirely separate.
Now before you comment, Yes there are problems with this
1) dedicated PVP'rs that fight each other for fun would need an option to "challenge" other opponents or have a PVP zone where bounties are turned off
2) there would have to be some kind of restriction to stop players from purposefully getting bounties and giving them to other players. I can't say I have the answer for that to be honest.
I must say I am rather biased in this area because I have been griefed one too many times and I almost exclusively play in solo/private group now because to be honest I have an expensive ship that I use to do leaflet runs and trading and It's just not worth my time to be ganked for no reason which is a real shame because I genuinely had a fantastic time playing in open rescuing people from destroyed stations. In fact I would like to end this on a positive anecdote which proved to me that the people who play this game are genuinely great and love the game.
Essentially I wasn't all that interested in the Thargoid invasion gameplay wise, I only have one other friend that plays with me and combat seemed risky and well spongy, I don't like giant damage sponges that take ages to kill while they flop around occasionally presenting a challenge just not for me. I would have preferred more options for meaningful peaceful encounters, People seem to have tried all sorts of things to have those encounters but nothing really happened which I think is a huge shame.
Regardless I saw the destroyed stations and some videos on youtube and thought that looked AWESOME so I hoped in my DBE and headed out grabbed a type 7 on the way painted it bright orange with yellow engines called her the Phoenix and set about evacuating people from the stations, I wasn't doing it for money I would have happily done it for free, I knew the type 7 wasn't the "optimal" ship for the job but I feel like its the type of ship a rescue crew would use. I started doing some runs in solo had some fun RP'ing a rescue crew but it wasn't until I switched it to open (mainly because I didn't think people would grief rescue ships but you never know) that it became a truly immersive and fantastic experience, everyone I bumped into was incredibly friendly people formed orderly queues waiting to dock on the single Large pad of the rescue ship no one jumped the line and the chat was the liveliest I personally have ever seen it and it was great I spent hours there just running back and forth.
My only minor gripe is I would have preferred like a "people left to evacuate" number that ticked down so you felt like you were really impacting the game but I understood that might be hard to implement and sync with the server, and there may have been some CG goals I missed that may have had that stuff in but yeah it was great!
(Also side note it would be immensely cool if you could have some kind of fire ship that you could use along side the evacuation ships, and the station has a "death" timer that ticks down but can be stalled by people fighting the fires which buys time for rescue ships to come in and save everyone that would be great. But I imagine would be really hard to implement in such a massive multiplayer game)
TL;DR
It's okay to want more out of the game you love, people don't listen when you shout at them and insult them, try and understand peoples time/play commitments and lets try and help Fdev make a better game.
I know it's pointless to ask for people to try and make constructive comments and this will probably be torn apart, taken out of context and probably turn into a mess but I genuinely felt like I had to say "something" sure its self indulgent but *shrug*
I'm one of those people that spends most of his time reading posts very rarely posting, so you might be wondering who the hell is this well one way or another no one really. I'm not some overlord, I don't know everything and I definitely don't want to sit on some high horse telling you you're all wrong. Quite the opposite really I think almost everyone is right in one way or another but everyone is so focused on shouting each other down that we're missing the point. Yes this is mostly going to focus on money per hour and perhaps a little on player interaction.
The main sticking point seems to be how much money should a player make per hour, and on this point I would like to try and offer some points just to think about. I apologise if I sound condescending pointing out some things that seem rather obvious (it isn't intentional) but bear with me I genuinely love the game and don't like how toxic things seem to be getting.
Time
Every player has a vastly different amount of time they can spend playing games, and within that "game" time people (like me) may also want to play a variety of games. I personally play elite anywhere from 20hours a week to 2-5hours. There shouldn't be a "mandatory" play time required to get some decent progress made in a week but at the same time those who do play more should be equally rewarded.
So knowing that everyone will have different time available to them I think there is one key question
How long should it take to achieve "end game" and by end game I would say you have a comfortable rebuy/bank, one of the "big 3" a primary combat ship, trade ship and exploration ship. End game is always going to be highly subjective but to me I feel like being in this situation lets you experience all of the games content and allows you to move on to end game content which is engineering and Thargoids at the moment.
A lot of assumptions are about to be made but it's pretty unavoidable given the diversity of the game and its players.
For this example, this player is in mid game perhaps capable of making 15 MilCr/Hr so they have a decent idea what's going on and has a decent ship or ships.
Full combat anaconda (un-engineered) 650mil
Exploration Diamond back explorer (" ") 10mil
Trading/mining type 9 (" ") 100mil
Comfortable bank/rebuy 100mil
Total: 860mil
You can argue that's excessive, you can argue it's not enough, Some of you might be reading this saying who cares about money just fly a cobra around and enjoy the game! and that's fine everyone has their own ideal of what their own personal "end game" is and most importantly there is no WRONG answer. I have tried to pick a place where you can happily enjoy all the games content and there is still more to unlock/buy and progress.
But taking that as an example, a mid game player that may have already put 50-100 or so hours into the game would have to play for 57Hours to achieve that goal, that is 57hours of none stop credit earning bumped up to 60 hours to include travel times and activity switching etc.
60 hours @ 20 hours a week is 3 weeks
60 hours @ 10 hours a week is 6 weeks
60 hours @ 5 hours a week is 12 weeks
You can draw your own conclusion on the numbers, just some food for thought. But hopefully if you are someone that plays 20 hours a week you might be a little more empathetic to someone who can only manage 5 and vice versa.
Nerfs
Should the recent passenger mission nerf have happened. (In my opinion) 100% yes. There should not be a way to make 100-200 MilCr/Hr while all other methods net you 10% of that, it's objectively unbalanced and shouldn't be the case. HOWEVER the conversation that needs to be had is should Fdev keep hammering everything down into the 10-20 MilCr/Hr or should it perhaps bring other areas of earning up a little. Not into the 100-200 area but perhaps into the 25-35 area, preferably without board flipping
I think a lot of players complaining about the nerf would not be doing so if they felt like their time was being appropriately rewarded by doing regular missions/ways to earn. I do not believe that the vast majority of people complaining want "everything handed to them for nothing" and "would quit the game immediately when they have what they want" Lets be real here, this is a smaller "enthusiast" game, you wouldn't be playing if you didn't like flying spaceships around, a player that would quit when they have "everything" would most likely have quit long before then in the regular gameplay loop. Saying those things only serves to annoy people and is ultimately not helpful.
On the flip side one must also consider that some people have spent hundreds of hours getting their ships, they are proud of their achievement and are annoyed that people have achieved the same in a fraction of the time. Is it fair, not really, is it annoying, I imagine so. Saying they would have used the same "exploits" if they had chance? Again that's pointless and unhelpful.
To finish this already way too long post I would like to try and be constructive.
I think one of the biggest problems people have with "exploiters" is griefing, it allows certain players to essentially ruin other peoples time for very little risk to themselves because they have the best equipment and hundreds of re-buys. So I would like to propose the following, I know Fdev seems to be trying to address the issue but I don't think AI is the answer
To that end. I would greatly increase the bounty a player receives for destroying another players ship, when I say greatly I'm talking putting it into the millions. This is NOT to be confused with piracy, I respect pirates and MOST pirates if you drop cargo will let you leave intact (there are some bad eggs but there will always be bad eggs).
I think if a player has say a 5-10 million bounty on them other players would be MUCH more inclined to take up PVP bounty hunting, perhaps even higher payouts because let's be honest you'd be taking a pretty big risk and I am a firm believer in the higher the risk the greater the reward should be. The bounty should be tied to the ship and only be removed when claimed by another player or a certain time has elapsed. Should the AI/stations attack you well that's debatable it could be entirely separate.
Now before you comment, Yes there are problems with this
1) dedicated PVP'rs that fight each other for fun would need an option to "challenge" other opponents or have a PVP zone where bounties are turned off
2) there would have to be some kind of restriction to stop players from purposefully getting bounties and giving them to other players. I can't say I have the answer for that to be honest.
I must say I am rather biased in this area because I have been griefed one too many times and I almost exclusively play in solo/private group now because to be honest I have an expensive ship that I use to do leaflet runs and trading and It's just not worth my time to be ganked for no reason which is a real shame because I genuinely had a fantastic time playing in open rescuing people from destroyed stations. In fact I would like to end this on a positive anecdote which proved to me that the people who play this game are genuinely great and love the game.
Essentially I wasn't all that interested in the Thargoid invasion gameplay wise, I only have one other friend that plays with me and combat seemed risky and well spongy, I don't like giant damage sponges that take ages to kill while they flop around occasionally presenting a challenge just not for me. I would have preferred more options for meaningful peaceful encounters, People seem to have tried all sorts of things to have those encounters but nothing really happened which I think is a huge shame.
Regardless I saw the destroyed stations and some videos on youtube and thought that looked AWESOME so I hoped in my DBE and headed out grabbed a type 7 on the way painted it bright orange with yellow engines called her the Phoenix and set about evacuating people from the stations, I wasn't doing it for money I would have happily done it for free, I knew the type 7 wasn't the "optimal" ship for the job but I feel like its the type of ship a rescue crew would use. I started doing some runs in solo had some fun RP'ing a rescue crew but it wasn't until I switched it to open (mainly because I didn't think people would grief rescue ships but you never know) that it became a truly immersive and fantastic experience, everyone I bumped into was incredibly friendly people formed orderly queues waiting to dock on the single Large pad of the rescue ship no one jumped the line and the chat was the liveliest I personally have ever seen it and it was great I spent hours there just running back and forth.
My only minor gripe is I would have preferred like a "people left to evacuate" number that ticked down so you felt like you were really impacting the game but I understood that might be hard to implement and sync with the server, and there may have been some CG goals I missed that may have had that stuff in but yeah it was great!
(Also side note it would be immensely cool if you could have some kind of fire ship that you could use along side the evacuation ships, and the station has a "death" timer that ticks down but can be stalled by people fighting the fires which buys time for rescue ships to come in and save everyone that would be great. But I imagine would be really hard to implement in such a massive multiplayer game)
TL;DR
It's okay to want more out of the game you love, people don't listen when you shout at them and insult them, try and understand peoples time/play commitments and lets try and help Fdev make a better game.
I know it's pointless to ask for people to try and make constructive comments and this will probably be torn apart, taken out of context and probably turn into a mess but I genuinely felt like I had to say "something" sure its self indulgent but *shrug*
