Whoa.. just wanting to make sure you're thinking about the game. What's been proposed is missing enough stuff to come across as answering a social media youtube video rather than considering the health of the game.
The people that complained were specifically 1) combat focused / exclusive pilots. 2) Didn't like mining. That's nice, and its been addressed, but to me, the real target of balancing is more than checking the boxes of a youtube complaint video.
For the ultimate health of the game, id suggest a different set of targets:
1) ALL activities, not just combat and reduced mining, be brought to the same level, including the outliers to give bubble exploration (and bgs states) have a purpose. The benefit here is all players, not just combat players who made noise, can come in and choose from all activities without getting checked by the credit meta. This is nice and inclusive and works for everyone.
2) The new common rate matches a considered rate of progression for new players, not just marketing / PR band aids. Do a 2020 pass on what subject experts believe is the optimum experience for players today, and size the progression duration accordingly. Not to short, not too long. Maybe make a decision on what should be done with all the progression ships that will not be required anymore.. better to delete them?
Also, the repeated focus on skill is also implying that the social media wins are too much part of the point of this exercise, because a little thought completely erodes skill as something the
game should be discriminating by:
- Core mining is RNG + minigames.
- PVE combat is very easy once you're enginnered, and the mission board scenarios are always designed to win (there's not graceful you failed scenario etc). You dont die in pve combat unless you make a mistake.
Some possible food for thought there.
Also some out there suggestions for credits:
- A complete reset of all earnings and costs might be okay. "Stat squish". Its fine to leave current players unchanged as they are already out of scope, have far too much credits anyway.
- While grinding for a second carrier, kept looking at the numbers and thinking the numbers were stupid.. how about removing 6 digits and rounding the minimum payment up to 1. Almost makes sense
EDIT: I think the focus on skill is possibly even more damaging for the health of the game. You can see that to make a public argument, a logical basis other than "i want the same as you" was required, but the the problem combat players were experiencing is the same problem that would be left behind if some (barely existing) notion of pve risk was put first.
The problem is that some activities pay more than others, making people
feel stupid for doing them because of the credits. Even the smallest trace of this is what's making activities get ignored. Yes i mean even ground salvage should pay as much. They all cost the same amount of
time, and for salvage, trade, combat, anything, you've always completed the mission and are back at the mission board handing it in. What risk?
Another one: nerfing mining, buffing combat, and cherry picking other things later are just more bandaids. How about actually considering progression that (new) players should be getting, and finally crafting that? Doesn't matter how much one doesn't like it, there's no basis to complain because at least its considered.
Last bit of evidence: The david braben meme about not having to do one thing and having choice.
