Void Opal Mining - Broken?

[Vasco Sapien]

Or just make mining in general a more logical even mechanic, not just based around VO motherlode-->motherlode-->motherlode?

There was the chance for FD to do that during design and internal testing, but something seemingly happened

ie: I should be able to scout around and surely find a Palladium Hotspot that's worth my time from a CR point of view compared to mining income in general? ie: Where I can use the PWA to get a good income via Surface, Subsurface, and I'm lucky enough a couple of motherlodes? And then, once the Hotspot has been depleted enough, I should need to go and find another location...? [With the Hotspot in question taking weeks to get back upto 100% reserves]

Consider with that, then the odd Gold Rush being induced by the BGS or via a CG by offering a 10-50% price hike on something? Or FD sprinkling some particularly rich Hotspots across a region, where the dice are even more skewed in favour of finding what you're looking for.

I

Yeh, i figure Fdev just wanted to people to buy ships easier and therefore Microtransactions. Im sorry Fdev but im very cynical when it comes to the video games industry now.

--

Personally i originally thought that Void opels where to be an extremely rare find, lottery win rare. Every other element mined in game has its value and different rocks have there quantity of said mineral etc.... but one asteroid out there has a win in it... a huge win. a lottery win.

I would mine for the chance to score lottery big. Right now i dont mine at all because i just feel like im cheating. i find VO's far to easy and the progress feels empty to me.

but working as an honest making a respectable buck miner.... and then one day... BOOM... treasure found. Thats more interesting to me.

 

[Obsidian Ant]

Personally i feel the pay outs on VO are fine, its just that they are far to easy to find. If VO where 1/10 as common then it would make them more of a thrill to discover. I dont personally feel that time invested in the hunt is a bad thing, the more someone invests in a goal the sweeter the reward when you hit pay dirt.

VO's are the go to activity in Elite now to the point of every other game activity being brushed aside.

Make void opels much harder to find, but keep the pay outs rich as they are now for mother loads... but also develope mechanics for other aspects of gameplay which can also make them better earners (although not so much.. if its the only activity you persue in game). So it forces people to diversify how they play Elite and therefore broaden their experiance.

In my experience based upon reading thousands of unique comments across many years, unreasonable time investments are one of the top reasons people flee from Elite. The current Void Opal time investment appears well balanced to me.

 

[Zapgun]

Or just make mining in general a more logical even mechanic, not just based around VO motherlode-->motherlode-->motherlode?

There was the chance for FD to do that during design and internal testing, but something seemingly happened

ie: I should be able to scout around and surely find a Palladium Hotspot that's worth my time from a CR point of view compared to mining income in general? ie: Where I can use the PWA to get a good income via Surface, Subsurface, and I'm lucky enough a couple of motherlodes? And then, once the Hotspot has been depleted enough, I should need to go and find another location...? [With the Hotspot in question taking weeks to get back upto 100% reserves]

Consider with that, then the odd Gold Rush being induced by the BGS or via a CG by offering a 10-50% price hike on something? Or FD sprinkling some particularly rich Hotspots across a region, where the dice are even more skewed in favour of finding what you're looking for, then then naturally deplete down to nothing and are then gone forever!

I think part of the issue with void opals are hotspots.. They seem a bit artificial to start with and make finding void opals too easy. What would maybe work better is a spectrograph type thing where you see concentrations of minable materials at various points in the ring. Then you can choose where to go that might favor something you're interested in, but nothing says 'Void Opal Hotspot' and you end up with more variety at each location.

 

[NeilF]

In my experience based upon reading thousands of unique comments across many years, unreasonable time investments are one of the top reasons people flee from Elite. The current Void Opal time investment appears well balanced to me.

Indeed, the current sort of income for VOs could be considered about right for mining....

But I'd also suggest shallow disjointed mechanics are also a top reason people flee Elite. ie: Earn 1m an hour or 100m an hour, if it's shallow and disjointed, it'll get tiresome quick.

VO mining might well be financially rewarding, and cracking motherlodes might be nice new shiney gameplay, but it's just one (small) part of a large mining mechanic that to my mind at the moment is someone shallow and disjointed.

 

[Vedmo]

Agreed. That's why I avoided the conversation of game design in my post, it's a big topic. Personally I don't think Void Opal mining is broken in terms of payout. It's most other things that have problems with far too low payouts.

That is the problem for sure, it was implemented on an island, with apparently no consideration or adjustment to other earning methods or Elite ranking. The other issue I have is the minimal investment, or progression towards getting to such an earning level.

I've made more per hour running trade missions, but that required building up to a T-9 or Cutter, finding appropriate systems and building up reps, then having enough missions to pop up to fill the hold. It took considerably more ground work and was far from on demand.

I started playing about two years ago, and I recall my first million being a bit of a shock as it came from a CG that happened to pop up near me. My first ten million seemed an achievement and it turned into 10 million an hour pay outs. My first hundred million funded a Python that turned into 40ish million an hour payouts that funded a Type-9 and Cutter that turned into 100+ an hour payouts.

Now, get a Cobra and you are a couple of days away from your first billion and it really doesn't matter if you know anything at all about the game past equipping required modules and finding top paying stations on third party sights.

I'd still like to see a minor ramp up in earnings that related to PF rankings at least vaguely, that leads to making current VO earning potential once you have a decent ship for whatever you are focusing on.

 

[Vasco Sapien]

In my experience based upon reading thousands of unique comments across many years, unreasonable time investments are one of the top reasons people flee from Elite. The current Void Opal time investment appears well balanced to me.

Ive also read plenty of comments also across multiple platforms, i dont need to be a content creator to have those credentials and i see alot of people complain about everything Elite has to offer which is not instantly gratifying. There is a culture of 'i want it now' gameplay which is ruining gaming in general in my humble opinion.

But my post is not suggesting a return to 'Grind', rather a flattening out of earning mechanics in game so that reward remains reward (thrill) and doesnt just become quotidian and blasé.

 

[SpaceScania]

Good discussion.

I agree with @Obsidian Ant that that adding very high sources of income to the game like Void Opal mining is good for Elite as grinding endlessly for credits isn't very fun.

However, I also agree with those who have said that this was done in a very unimaginative and lazy manner (sorry FD but its true). Why not have different activities in the game produce different gold rushes over time? I was actually expecting this gold rush to end and be replaced by somethigng else yet that never happened. That's just not great for the game. Include gold rushes based on trading, passenger missions, thargoid and/or guardian archeology (like the old palin mission), search and rescue, bounty hunting, exploration, or other types of mining. This can't be very hard to implement and the possibilities are endless with a tiny bit of imagination!

Mining especially has been reduced to a single repetitive activity and that makes me sad. I am especially incensed that large ships are now pretty much useless for mining as the Kraits, Pythons, and Clippers can hunt cores MUCH more effectively and the other forms of mining are rounding errors in comparison. I'm not saying that mining cores in my Clipper isn't fun sometimes, but it shouldn't be the only way to make these high payouts. I'd love for the Type-10 to be the best mining ship in the game once in a while.

Varying these gold rush sources would expose players to different aspects of the game and would allow for variety when they are short on credits. Keep the high payouts, vary the ways they occur over time! Showing a little more imagination here will help FD to keep the playerbase engaged until 2020.

 

[Zapgun]

That is the problem for sure, it was implemented on an island, with apparently no consideration or adjustment to other earning methods or Elite ranking. The other issue I have is the minimal investment, or progression towards getting to such an earning level.

I've made more per hour running trade missions, but that required building up to a T-9 or Cutter, finding appropriate systems and building up reps, then having enough missions to pop up to fill the hold. It took considerably more ground work and was far from on demand.

I started playing about two years ago, and I recall my first million being a bit of a shock as it came from a CG that happened to pop up near me. My first ten million seemed an achievement and it turned into 10 million an hour pay outs. My first hundred million funded a Python that turned into 40ish million an hour payouts that funded a Type-9 and Cutter that turned into 100+ an hour payouts.

Now, get a Cobra and you are a couple of days away from your first billion and it really doesn't matter if you know anything at all about the game past equipping required modules and finding top paying stations on third party sights.

I'd still like to see a minor ramp up in earnings that related to PF rankings at least vaguely, that leads to making current VO earning potential once you have a decent ship for whatever you are focusing on.

I had the same experience and enjoyed it (for the most part). Although there were times it felt like an artificial game gateway to have to build up some of that. Overall I agree though, its nice to build things in stages and the current opal mining does a poor job of that.

 

[Chaparral]

Pharmaceutical Isolators.

That is all.

This is the real point. Progression in this game is not about buying and owning ships. It is about engineering those ships.

The key mats for engineering G5 mods are now brokenly unavailable except through painful side trades. The descriptions on mat locations are invalid for several mats.

Whine about void opals all you want. Go fly that paper anaconda in open. I dare ya.

 

[Lightspeed]

VO payouts are playing havoc with the Elite rating, though. You can flash through the ranks to Elite Trader in what seems like no time now, and not in a big ship (as has been noted above).

So what next, FD? An Elite pass to Shinrarta for all new starters at Eravate?

I jest of course, but it's not far off when just about everyone will soon have their ships based at Shinrarta ........ unless ....... that's The Plan

 

[SpaceScania]

VO payouts are playing havoc with the Elite rating, though. You can flash through the ranks to Elite Trader in what seems like no time now, and not in a big ship (as has been noted above).

My guess is FD has already come to the realization that the game has turned into a beautiful yet semi-broken mess in some key areas. There are just a ton of thrown over the fence half-baked features that are ignored or semi-broken (powerplay, passenger missions, search and rescue, I'd argue missions as well, etc.) and this is almost certainly why they are planning major changes for 2020. Besides the unfinished features, many band-aids that weren't totally thought out made things worse.

The game is still fun to play, don't get me wrong. But there are glaring problems for sure. I agree that the rankings for trading and exploration are pretty meaningless these days as are half of the ships in the game (haluer? asp scout?).

I do think there are areas of the game that they could easily fix before 2020 and varying the gold rushes more seems like low hanging fruit to me.

 

[Lestat]

Game mechanics and BGS aside (that's a large discussion). The money from Void Opal mining is currently spot on, it's in a very good place. People have been pushing the narrative for far too long that "players need to spends weeks / months / years to earn credits", and that notion has ultimately been very damaging for the game. The high credit earnings are a massive improvement, because they allow people to do the things they enjoy.

It's interesting to me that the only place I see complaints about "high earnings", is here on the forums. Comments on various YouTube channels, and all over Reddit as well as other communities remain in support of the high earnings from Void Opal mining.

I spent one day on Void Opal. Went from penniless to Elite trader in less than a day and made over Billion Credits and having the third party websites give you the location max selling price.

 

[Stealthie]

Game mechanics and BGS aside (that's a large discussion). The money from Void Opal mining is currently spot on, it's in a very good place. People have been pushing the narrative for far too long that "players need to spends weeks / months / years to earn credits", and that notion has ultimately been very damaging for the game. The high credit earnings are a massive improvement, because they allow people to do the things they enjoy.

It's interesting to me that the only place I see complaints about "high earnings", is here on the forums. Comments on various YouTube channels, and all over Reddit as well as other communities remain in support of the high earnings from Void Opal mining.

Honestly, if these forums reflect a different attitude than other sources, I'd suggest that's because these forums are a more thoughtful place, with a genuine motivation to improve the game ahead of any personal urge to earn a poop-ton of credits.

Stick a bottomless pit full of credits on a moon somewhere and Youtube would be full of "ZOMG! Tihs Roxxorzz!!!" videos while there'd probably be people here suggesting it might not be great for the game... and I'd agree with those people.

Beyond that, though, I think the real criticism of nu-mining is more to do with the disparity between it and other forms of income.
Mining has, quite simply, rendered almost every other credit-earning method redundant, and that can't be a good thing for the game by any rational measure.
ED has pretty-much become "shooty space-mining sim 2019" at this point.

 

[Lightspeed]

In my experience based upon reading thousands of unique comments across many years, unreasonable time investments are one of the top reasons people flee from Elite. The current Void Opal time investment appears well balanced to me.

But how long are FD going to retain these players if they flee for this reason ?

We've seen a post (not a surprising one) that claims you can reach Elite Trader in a day with the mining VOs. In a day !

Can they really fix the problem of player retention merely by allowing immense payouts and rapid rank evolution? I suspect not, because the same players will soon get bored and will flee from Elite because they reach what they perceive is the End Game, and nothing remains to perk their interest.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Yeh, i figure Fdev just wanted to people to buy ships easier and therefore Microtransactions. Im sorry Fdev but im very cynical when it comes to the video games industry now.

--

Personally i originally thought that Void opels where to be an extremely rare find, lottery win rare. Every other element mined in game has its value and different rocks have there quantity of said mineral etc.... but one asteroid out there has a win in it... a huge win. a lottery win.

I would mine for the chance to score lottery big. Right now i dont mine at all because i just feel like im cheating. i find VO's far to easy and the progress feels empty to me.

but working as an honest making a respectable buck miner.... and then one day... BOOM... treasure found. Thats more interesting to me.

This is my dream too. I have not played since beta because unless it is rebalanced my main motivations for playing will be achieved in next few sessions. Mayhap this reflects poorly on me but working towards elite means something to me. Perhaps I will go back to CQC that still takes dedication
Iike cqc it's just too limited in content

 

[[VR] Enexemander]

I'm a returning player. I cannot, for the life of me, find a single rock to blow up (over several sessions about an hour long, each in a different system and ring).
I've watched lots of videos. I know what I'm looking for. But I have not run into a single one.
I'm not looking to get rich. I have about a billion and a half in assets. I just want the gameplay experience. I don't care if the core contained void opals or actual worthless dreg. I don't care. I just want to crack an asteroid. And. I. Cannot. Find. A. Single. One.
I feel like I'm taking crazy pills when people talk about how lucrative this is.
This is how the gameplay feels-
Launch a prospector limpet (25% this will fail because the limpets shoot too slow and will often hit slow as Hell T-9)
See the fail message on the prospector (readout with no core detected, as always).
Over and over and over
Until I get so frustrated I quit the game in disgust.

I can't think of a more poorly designed mechanic in this game. How about, instead of JUST having the lottery jackpot core deposits, we ALSO have some medium payout options and A LOT more of the stupid things.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

Game mechanics and BGS aside (that's a large discussion). The money from Void Opal mining is currently spot on, it's in a very good place. People have been pushing the narrative for far too long that "players need to spends weeks / months / years to earn credits", and that notion has ultimately been very damaging for the game. The high credit earnings are a massive improvement, because they allow people to do the things they enjoy.

It's interesting to me that the only place I see complaints about "high earnings", is here on the forums. Comments on various YouTube channels, and all over Reddit as well as other communities remain in support of the high earnings from Void Opal mining.

@Obsidian Ant I am surprised and dissapointed you feel this way. Is the road to elite so irrelevant to you that you are happy it is reachable in 10 hrs or so?
Or that in a few hrs of mining in a cobra all non rank locked ships are available to you this negating the need for the likes of the adder or hauler etc

As a fairly popular ambassador for elite this makes me sad

 

[dognosh]

@Obsidian Ant : What is the point of your reasoning regarding huge payouts being good for the game when it has devalued one of the only 2 ranks that required a few hours to earn to Elite ?
We had Imperial & Federation ranks that needed many 10s of hours to max out, and then the fiasco with the exploits and normal gameplay made everyone max it in no time.
We had Exploration which required many many hours to get to Elite, now it is fast and ruined since FSS and mapping were introduced.
We had Trade which was doable fairly quickly but not as fast as the void opal thing, that is ruined now as you can Elite it in a few hours.

The only Elite rank that requires work/time to earn is now combat Elite. Funny enough in the early days it was so easy to max out, now it takes time.

 

[dognosh]

@Obsidian Ant I am surprised and dissapointed you feel this way. Is the road to elite so irrelevant to you that you are happy it is reachable in 10 hrs or so?

As a fairly popular ambassador for elite this makes me sad

^^^ This

 

[dognosh]

I spent one day on Void Opal. Went from penniless to Elite trader in less than a day and made over Billion Credits and having the third party websites give you the location max selling price.

@Obsidian Ant : So this is ok with you ?
(not having a go at you @Lestat )