There needs to be a credit sink

[Jukelo]

If I remember correctly FDev adjusted the interdiction mini-game because it was to difficult for the majority of players.

Fdev has done nothing but "adjust" the interdiction minigame. And they have failed every time - everytime it becomes either impossible to win, or impossible to lose. I haven't lost an interdiction since the last adjustment, and before that winning was entirely down to what ships were involved. Everybody has the motor control to follow the interdiction vector in the current incarnation and it is overly lenient when you miss it, so everybody can beat NPCs. In the previous version, motor skill didn't have a part to play since your ship's agility in supercruise was the limiting factor.
Iif Frontier adjusts it again in the other direction, once again it will be impossible to beat in some circumstances which have nothing to do with skill, or only significantly involve the skill of a tiny range of the playerbase -anything outside of that range would result in an automatic win or lose. Interdictions are currently entirely deterministic because the leverage Frontier has to adjust it is not well designed as a skill-based mechanic.

Thing is, what you consider easy might be very difficult for others. Only FDev has the numbers how many players win interdictions and if they don't evade the interdiction how many survive the subsequent fight.

Sorry, this is 100% the hill I'm ready to die on. I'm sure Frontier knows how many players win interdictions against NPCs currently, and I do believe that number is close to 100% and that they have just given up on it. Of course I can only speak of my experience, but I would challenge you to show me any player who, past the first couple of interdictions against NPCs, can realistically lose. I'll amend that actually: I do think a Type 9 could lose to an Elite eagle. But I'm fairly sure even that is a toss up.

And then there is the problem of ship balance. Hi-waking is needed as a way to address this huge imbalance and the differences in play style. (And FDev already made hi-waking more difficult since 1.0).

If high-waking is the only way to address ship balance, then we need to fix the bloody balance so that people can actually be offered non-optional challenge suited to their skill level without having to rely on that I-win button to avoid the challenges they can't realistically beat. That's where security levels need to become more relevant.

 

[FoxtrotF]

These are so very basic questions regarding game design, that makes me wonder, if you have played any other open world games besides Elite.

Edit: This is a perfectly reasonable argument. By the way, I haven seen any sim racer complaining to a game dev, that they should make the game easier for him, so he could archive a top time on circuit X.

There is big differences, race sims (sims, not arcade nfs), airplane sims(VFR, IFR rules, landings, airplane sytem management), even KSP with whole layer of orbital mechanics and delta-v calculation for each engines stages, are way more challenging, and this challenge makes them different from another genre, but Elite is not challenging, it's repetitive. but not challenging.

 

[Muetdhiver]

Like new ships ? Like rebuys from thargoid combat ?

There is no need for the game to be a threadmill with a grinder at the end. Thx but no thx.

Though the easiest would be vanity surface / asteroid / space bases with vanity pool / park / hangar etc... costing millions. Cosmetics in short.

 

[Julio Montega]

I love how credits are easier to come by so commanders can get the ships they want and not fear rebuys... but we need some END game sinks that provide substantial utility. I know that fleet carriers are rumoured, perhaps all but confirmed, but we need more than that. Such as sending other pilots on expeditions for rare items and such to supplement the engineer grind. Stuff like that.

Torpedo rearming cost.
It is known as "Cash Bomb" for a reason.

 

[Jukelo]

Like new ships ? Like rebuys from thargoid combat ?

Frontier has continually added ships since the release of the game, it has never made a lick of difference: the game lets us make more money than Frontier lets us spend it on. And there is supposed to be more to Elite than Thargoid combat, you shouldn't have to voluntarily throw away your ship like a lunatic just to be able to experience the intended experience of scraping by, or at least being worried about how much money you make vs how much you must spend on.

 

[Sylow]

Neither does though, especially not with the new patch. I never before had maxed out so many G5 mats

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That's another topic. After the FSS changes, some materials are really easy to get by, which formerly were huge time sinks. While at least currently, other G5 materials can basically only be gotten by material trader.
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We'll see how this really turns out, once the BGS has recovered from the patch and is running more smooth again. But yes, the FSS might have devalued engineering materials as fake-currency. But for a long time, they did exactly that job.
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Also, I don't blame ED for this. It's the normal thing you see in many games. I could all by myself create a long list of games, which followed the same pattern: basic currency. People are unhappy that you get too little or find methods to earn more. Mudflation happens. (It's not without reason that the term is Mudflation. It comes from the times, when MUDs were still the way of online games. Which were purely text based. ) Thanks to this mudflation, everybody will be rich. Some will be beyond good and evil, but everybody will have more than he really needs. Then new content is created. You want to limit access to the new content. You can make it extremely expencive on the existing currency, but that comes with many pitfalls. One of them being player frustration and thus player loss.
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Instead, you leave the old currency and create a new one. One of the best examples there might be GW2. I haven't counted, but I think there's at least 40 entries on their "currencies" page by now, and it's still increasing any time the game gets new content.
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It's not pretty, but apparently it works and people accept it in many games. So we have credits, engineering materials, thargoid materials, guardian materials. I wouldn't be surprised if we'll get many more kinds of materials in the future.
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[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

…I'm sure Frontier knows how many players win interdictions against NPCs currently, and I do believe that number is close to 100% and that they have just given up on it. Of course I can only speak of my experience, but I would challenge you to show me any player who, past the first couple of interdictions against NPCs, can realistically lose.

As I said, only FDev knows the numbers. In case of interdiction it might be the result of FDev not getting the interdiction game to work, I don't know. I'm not saying that I think interdictions are to difficult (or to easy) for the majority of the player base, and I'm not saying that your assumptions about the state of interdiction is wrong.

I don't know how many players struggle to evade interdictions. I don't know how many players struggle to win the resulting fight. I don't know the skill distribution of the player base.
My point is, that any diverse group of players will have a certain range of skill/experience/ability and getting a balance that is not to hard and to easy at the same time for different players of that group is very difficult for FDev without changing fundamental aspect of the game.

If high-waking is the only way to address ship balance, then we need to fix the bloody balance so that people can actually be offered non-optional challenge without having to rely on that I-win button to avoid the challenge they can't beat.

FDev needs to fix the balance, but even then there will be a huge gap between the abilities of the players making non-optional challenge a very risky thing to implement for FDev.
FDev is obviously playing it save - in my opinion - but I think this is understandable. They try to make the game accessible for as many players as possible. I think it's obvious that as a result the difficulty for the more skilled or experienced players is a bit on the low side.
I just don't see how FDev could address this without drastic changes to the game.

 

[Julio Montega]

Frontier has continually added ships since the release of the game, it has never made a lick of difference: the game lets us make more money than Frontier lets us spend it on. And there is supposed to be more to Elite than Thargoid combat, you shouldn't have to voluntarily throw away your ship like a lunatic just to be able to experience the intended experience of scraping by, or at least being worried about how much money you make vs how much you must spend on.

Depends on playstyle.
I never made much money, and don't own every ship,
instead i do what i like, without hopping on the treadmill
and experiment around.

I think people who just mindlessly grind money are the wrong
basis to balance money making on.
The hitpoint inflation doesn't help either.

 

[CMDR Zadian Lichtfrost]

…

Though the easiest would be vanity surface / asteroid / space bases with vanity pool / park / hangar etc... costing millions. Cosmetics in short.

Billions

That's the problem. How much money needs to be thrown into a money sink to make it an effective money sink?

 

[Sylow]

The only "currency" in any game is time. Time is the only thing nobody can give you more of.

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Words of wisdom.
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[sollisb]

that is fine if you want a pure sandbox. FD sold the game as more than that however, they told us we were getting an in depth economy as well as telling us about rpg like elements such as building relationships with crew members and wingmates which depending on our actions or where we hired them from they may betray you and what not..........
Whilst i am not expecting a hand held fully narrative based experience, i was expecting a plausible setting in a science fiction universe rather than a full on sandbox - which is what you seem to be saying elite is marketed as?.

I'd be with you, if I thought it was deliverable, however I don't. So, I revert to my next best deliverable.

Judging by the recent graphic glitches with all the new fog etc, I'm a little concerned if Cobra is up to the task going forward. That being said, what you propose is certainly a nice to have, I just don't think it's feasible though. The logic alone to have 'intelligent' crew members would be enormous.

Sol ike I say, to me, and yes it's personal opinion, I feel/think a pure sandbox approach is both valid and viable. Look at other sims? Farm Sim, KSP, pure sandboxes. The devs give you the toys, what you do with them, is entirely up to you. They don;'t care if you make 999 billion and have nothing to spend it on, they don't care if you crash every 5 minutes. Your toys, you're imagination, your decisions.

EDIT: And to add.. if they did go that route, they could spend more time on the toys than being concerned about what's being done with them. WHich I think is huge problem at Frontier. They want to produce the game and enfore how it's played. Which in itself is ok, if you set the rules at the outset. But they didn't. They rushed a half cobbled together framework to market with the idea of balancing it along the way. It just doesn't work like that. Anyone who did balance on the MuDs of yester-decades will tell you that.

 

[B1rdy]

There is big differences, race sims (sims, not arcade nfs), airplane sims(VFR, IFR rules, landings, airplane sytem management), even KSP with whole layer of orbital mechanics and delta-v calculation for each engines stages, are way more challenging, and this challenge makes them different from another genre, but Elite is not challenging, it's repetitive. but not challenging.

Why isn't it allowed to be challenging (by choice)?

 

[Muetdhiver]

Why isn't it allowed to be challenging (by choice)?

Two reasons IMO:

1. At the first wiff of challenge we get forum pitchforks.

2. ED reward structure is pretty much : challenging pays dirt and repetitive pays millions. It's like a reverse risk-reward relationship.

All the hardest and riskiest activities are on the low end of payouts. All the grindy crap is on the high end.

 

[sollisb]

Two reasons IMO:

1. At the first wiff of challenge we get forum pitchforks.

2. ED reward structure is pretty much : challenging pays dirt and repetitive pays millions. It's like a reverse risk-reward relationship.

All the hardest and riskiest activities are on the low end of payouts. All the grindy crap is on the high end.

That is so true !!

 

[Thatchinho]

Please no.

Adding a credit sink will just lead to people grinding for it and then complaining about how they've been forced to grind, and how the games terrible because it's not orientated towards making it super quick and fun for them to get to that credit sink point. There's enough of that kind of complaint already, we don't need more.

 

[Morbad]

Torpedo rearming cost.
It is known as "Cash Bomb" for a reason.

[video=youtube;elJzdbtMEcY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elJzdbtMEcY[/video]

 

[B1rdy]

Two reasons IMO:

1. At the first wiff of challenge we get forum pitchforks.

2. ED reward structure is pretty much : challenging pays dirt and repetitive pays millions. It's like a reverse risk-reward relationship.

All the hardest and riskiest activities are on the low end of payouts. All the grindy crap is on the high end.

I would like to have a game designer explain this to us. Why is it designed that way? I can't explain it.

 

[Krash]

This topic pops up every couple of weeks. Personally I "only" have single digit billions in my bank account and that feels like plenty to me. I'm not motivated to keep grinding credits until I'm at the level of my peers, who happen to be in the double digit billions. I can buy whatever I want and afford the rebuys. If there was a base building mini game, that would be worth 2-3 billion to me to have my own customized fort to store my fleet and modules and whatever. But there's always the naysayers that naysay "we're pilots not base builders! blah blah blah" whatev

 

[Thatchinho]

I would like to have a game designer explain this to us. Why is it designed that way? I can't explain it.

Well... doesn't it actually epitomise challenge by choice? The challenge is there if people want it, and it's not if they don't.

(I might be taking what you said in way that you didn't mean there, so apologies if it seems like a twisting of your words or anything like that!)

 

[Julio Montega]

Exactly and all is fine,
a small ship can take 4 direct torpedo hits.
That is fine, absolutely. /s